Sermon: Our Creator and Savior
Finding the Creator in the Creation
#1702A
Ryan McClure
Given 08-Apr-23; 36 minutes
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transcript:
We just celebrated the Passover this last Tuesday evening, followed by the Night to be Much Observed and the first Day of Unleavened Bread. God has provided His holy days so that each year we have an annual reminder of His plan of salvation for all of mankind. For the Israelites, Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread were pretty momentous times as they witnessed the death of the firstborn there amongst those who did not put the blood of the lamb on the door posts, and then their exodus from Egypt and bondage. From there, the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day would faithfully guide the Israelites through the wilderness journey.
Now, Israel had an opportunity to see with their own eyes the power of the Lord, not just in the ten plagues of Egypt, but the pillar of fire and the cloud and in the parting of the Red Sea, as well as other miracles, supernatural things by way of water coming from rocks and manna raining down from heaven. They also witnessed the destruction of entire cities and the very presence of God descending on Mount Sinai.
Fast forwarding into the New Testament, we see the Creator taking on the form of a man in order to live a sinless life and sacrifice Himself through a horrible death so that all of mankind might have an opportunity to be redeemed from death and have forgiveness of our sins.
Similar to the Israelites, the disciples also had an opportunity to see the Lord, only this time they were able to see and speak with Him in His human form and share in the Passover with Him. As part of Their plan through Christ's life, death, and resurrection, those whom God has called through Christ now have an opportunity to be baptized and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and have their sins forgiven and receive the Holy Spirit.
Now, instead of seeing God, we are able to have His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We just reviewed this during the Passover service, that Jesus states in the gospels that He was going to leave the disciples but God would send a helper, the Holy Spirit, to guide those who God would call through Christ. And as we celebrated the Passover and the first Day of Unleavened Bread, we kept two annual appointments with God and we started another yearly cycle of the holy days that, again, reveal to those who keep them an overview of God's plan of salvation for all mankind.
For all of us here, we have learned about this plan as well as the holy days through the written Word of God, namely the Bible. Now, Moses learned about God when he spoke to the Lord in the burning bush and of course, all of the other times that the Lord spoke with him. The Israelites learned about God through Moses.
Fast forwarding to the New Testament, the people in the time of Jesus did have the law to reference the writings of Moses, but they also had Jesus, who was God in the flesh, walking amongst them and teaching them directly. (I will not go into this too deeply because Richard has shown us many examples in his Matthew 5 series, "But I Say to You," where he shows that Jesus will quote a law in the Old Testament, but then expand on the letter of the law to provide even more understanding to the disciples and those that followed Him. He basically magnifies the law. Then finally, when Jesus died for us and was resurrected, God sent His Holy Spirit to those who would repent and be baptized. He used the same Spirit to inspire the disciples and apostles to document the remainder of the Bible, which is essentially the way God communicates to us. And of course, also through prayer.
Now to sum up what I am saying, for most of us, we were not introduced to God as He descended in magnificent fashion with smoke and lightning and earthquakes onto a mountain. And He certainly has not spoken to us through a burning bush and more than likely He has not come to us in person, but He has caused certain things to happen that have drawn us to His Word and to our Savior Jesus Christ.
There are some very interesting stories that I have heard through the years on how some of us were called. Some happened to turn the radio on in their truck and they heard Mr. Armstrong's voice and in that moment, something happened that caused them to want to know more. Some were walking down the street—I really do believe this is a true story. Someone said that they were walking down the street and they got hit in the face with The Plain Truth magazine and as they began to read the materials, their life changed. Others perhaps became curious to find out what was going on at this church that their spouse or their friend was attending and so they started attending and their lives began to change as well. Some have simply picked up the Bible, His written Word, and began reading.
Several weeks ago, our family had the pleasure of attending a local 4H workshop here in South Carolina where multiple kids developed presentations on certain topics and then presented the information to the audience. One of the presentations was put together by Erin Baity. It was about how to write a book and it honed in on some aspects that a writer should think about from the very first line or paragraph in a book. Erin indicated that the opening sentence or paragraph should really grab the reader and draw them in to ask questions like, who is the person that the writer is talking about? What is it that they are doing? Where are they and why are they doing what they are doing? Essentially you draw your reader in by providing just enough information that leaves them wanting to know more. They want, they need to understand why and so they continue to read as they search for answers to what the author presented to them at the beginning.
God does this very thing in His Word. You do not have to turn there because we all know it by heart, Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I have come to really admire and appreciate these ten words, this first sentence that God inspired Moses to pen. Now, several creationists point out that in this sentence the reader is made aware of time: In the beginning. We are introduced to the power to the One who created or we could say creates—and that is God. We are then provided a summary-level description of what God did and these are things that we can see. God created the heavens. In terms of our visible universe, we are introduced to space. And finally, we are told that He also created the earth which is made up of matter.
For those who have ever questioned, "Is there a God? Why am I here? What is life about? What is the purpose of all of this?" this first statement by God should answer a lot by way of showing there is a Creator and He created everything. Now, this statement also leaves the reader wanting to know more. What is this God doing? Where does He live? Why did He create me? And if I can put it succinctly, I believe that this first sentence implores the reader to seek God to figure out who God really is.
Now, I spoke what felt like an extremely short two weeks ago on how evolutionary theory has had a significantly destructive impact on society to this very day. And I showed that creation demands a creator and how God has revealed Himself to all humans through the creation. Please turn with me, if you will, to our first scripture in Romans 1. We will read verses 18 through 23 just to get this back into our mind as we continue to set the stage for today's message.
Romans 1:18-23 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
God through Paul says that since the creation of the world, His attributes are clearly seen and understood by all things that are made. This is a pretty interesting statement because all of us were created along with everything that we can observe with our five senses and some that we cannot. Now this means that we should be able to understand, we should be able to observe His invisible attributes. Paul's statement here applies to all of creation. So we humans, with or without God's Holy Spirit, should be able to see certain attributes of God in creation. It is whether we choose to believe and glorify God or not.
Now thinking back to Genesis 1:1, we were told a large part of who created what was created, and then shortly thereafter several details about God's plan for His creation. In that sermonette, I was not able to get into some of the specific examples that we can observe today. So today, I thought that I would bring some of them forward and just to say it out loud: there are many different things that we can observe through nature but I had to pick a few where we would be here for too long and I would have never finished this sermon. Let us start with human beings and you can begin turning to Genesis 1, if you like, for our next scripture.
Evolutionists believe that human beings were developed here on earth by now extinct primates. Of course, they say that primates evolved from other things all the way back to the Archean time frame, which is the earliest fossil record of primitive microbes. So you take primitive microbes and you add roughly 4.6 billion years and boom, you have primates. You add another 6 to 9 million years and humans have now diverged from apes. Let us now depart from modern science and consult with the Creator.
Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Very interesting here. Instead of evolving, instead of survival of the fittest, we see that God—with purpose—decided to make man in the image of God according to His likeness. Now, if you have ever wondered what God looks like, well, there is your answer. We are created in Their image. Please note that when I say Their image here, of course, I am speaking of God the Father and Jesus Christ.
Another interesting point in this scripture. Keep in mind that Moses is documenting God's very words. These are the words that God is speaking. Notice that He mentions fish, birds, and every living thing that moves on earth. He is speaking about the different kinds of animals that He created. And you can see that in Genesis 1:24, "Then God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind." And then He lists various examples. This is very straightforward, but let us keep looking.
My wife (a couple weeks ago or it might have been a couple of months ago), decided to give all of our information up to the digital ether and jumped onto ancestry.com, and after a few days of swiping up, down, left, and right, and doing some forensic scientific stuff (because she is really good at that), she figured out that her 15th great grandfather was Henry the VIII. Now, that is pretty cool and frightening all at the same time. They were tracking people all the way back to the 1500s. But it actually goes further than that.
Please turn with me over to I Chronicles 1 for our next scripture. Now, some folks are into genealogy like my wife, and others may be reading the Bible from cover to cover and you get to the genealogy parts and you kind of maybe read the first one and then jump to the end and move on. But God does not do things without purpose. God purposely kept a record of the lineage of man. Now notice here in I Chronicles 1, verses 1 through 28. No, I am not going to read all of it, but I am going to point out that we can clearly see in black and white the bloodline from Adam, who was created by God, to Abraham in verse 28. So you have an opportunity right there to see that.
Now, please turn over to Matthew 1 for our next scripture. I will actually read verse 1 and then we will jump to verse 17.
Matthew 1:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.
Matthew 1:17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.
God, with purpose, has done a far better job than any website or genealogy app could do at tying together the bloodline from Adam all the way to Christ our Savior and He even has a set of three 14 generations in the middle there.
Now, there is another interesting thing that we can consider through ancestry and that is what we humans pass along to our offspring. You might recall from biology class that men pass on to their children the Y chromosome. Now, specifically the Y chromosome is passed down through the male line, which means we are able to trace the ancestry of humanity backwards. We just read that. I will submit those two scriptures as evidence. God was tracking the bloodline specifically of the male lineage. Quoting from compellingtruth.org,
In the early 1990s, a group of researchers, Dorit R L, Akashi H, and Gilbert W. wrote a book, and in the book, they said science ran an experiment in which they analyzed a segment of the human Y chromosome using 38 men from different ethnic groups. What they found was amazing! There was no difference at all in the base pairs of the segment they compared in all 38 men. The results were exactly the same. What this means is that every man alive descended from a single man. That person is now called Y Chromosomal Adam.
Something similar was found while studying mitochondrial DNA. Now, mitochondrial DNA is passed from the mother to both daughters and sons. This type of DNA is never passed down by the father so a maternal line can be established using mitochondrial DNA. Scientists were able to use this data to trace the ancestry of every person living back to one woman, who they now call "Mitochondrial Eve."
For your notes, you can write down Genesis 3:20 where it says, "And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living." And as I was pulling this together, I thought to myself, finally, some science I can trust.
Let us turn our attention to space and the heavens and the stars and the galaxies that God has created. Now, remember that God said in Genesis 1:1 that He created the heavens. So please turn with me to Job 38. This set of scriptures is where God proclaims His omnipotence to Job. And we are going to drop into verses 31 through 33. This is God speaking to Job.
Job 38:31-33 "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs? Do you know the ordinances of heaven? Can you set their dominion over the earth?"
Now again, I will go back to my statement earlier that God says things with purpose. So why would He mention the Pleiades and Orion? Well, let us find out according to science.nasa.gov. This website comments, "Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades, can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured exposure covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon, also known as the Seven Sisters and M-45."
It is interesting that God points Job to the heavens and specifically to a cluster that is easily observable. The Seven Sisters is an open star cluster in the Taurus constellation. Now, quoting from coldcasechristianity.com, "It is classified as an open cluster because it is a group of hundreds of stars formed from the same cosmic cloud. They are approximately the same age and have roughly the same chemical composition. Most importantly, they are bound to one another by mutual gravitational attraction."
Isabel Lewis of the United States Naval Observatory is quoted as saying, "Astronomers have identified 250 stars as actual members of this group, all sharing in common motion and drifting through space in the same direction." Lewis said that they are journeying onwards together through the immensity of space.
Dr. Robert J. Trump is quoted in the same book saying, "Over 25,000 individual measures of the Pleiades stars are now available." And their study led to the important discovery that the whole cluster is moving in a southeasterly direction. The Pleiades stars may thus be compared to a swarm of birds flying together to a distant goal. This leaves no doubt that the Pleiades are not temporary or accidental agglomerations of star, but a system in which the stars are bound together by a close kinship.
Now, it would appear, based on the celestial movement of the stars and God's statement to Job, that God has in fact bound the Pleiades.
In contrast, God asked Job, "Can you loose the belt of Orion?" Well, in the same article, the author quotes Garrett P. Serviss, a noted astronomer who wrote about the bands of Orion in his book titled Curiosities of the Sky, "The great figure of Orion appears to be more lasting, not because its stars are physically connected, but because of their great distance, which renders their movement too deliberate to be exactly ascertained."
Now, two of the greatest of its stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, possess, as far as can be ascertained, no perceptible motion across the line of sight. But there is a little movement perceptible in the Belt. At the present time this consists of an almost perfectly straight line, a row of second magnitude stars about equally spaced, and of most striking beauty. In the course of time, however, the two right hand stars, Mintaka and Alnilam, will approach each other and form a naked eye double, but the third, Alnitak, will drift away eastward so that the Belt will no longer exist. Hence, the loosening of Orion's Belt.
Once again, God is using the observable creation to prove a point to Job and it should mean something to us today. God goes on to say in Job 38:32, "Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?" Mazzaroth is Hebrew for constellations. The Great Bear refers to Arcturus in the Ursa Major Constellation (and I will not go into these for time's sake). But we see in verse 33 that God is showing that it is He who has created the heavens, it is He that guides their movement and established their influence on each other and the earth.
Now, we could have gone to a number of different psalms here; probably Psalm 19. But instead, if you will, please turn with me to Psalm 148. We will read verses 1 through 5.
Psalm 148:1-5 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all you stars of light! Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created.
As we read here in the psalm, there are many other heavenly bodies that we can observe that show us evidence of our Creator and how perfectly He has brought these things into existence and continues to uphold all things by the power of His Word. And we have seen evidence of our Creator in both humans, and we could say, the earthly things. We have also examined evidence of the Creator in the heavenly things. So now let us consider the Creator in order to broaden our understanding of how awesome He and His creation really are.
So please turn with me to John 1, verse 1. It is another beginning that we all know by heart.
John 1:1-5 In beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Here, John takes some cues from Genesis and repeats "in the beginning" When time was established the Word was with God and the Word was God. Simple English here explains that the Word was from the beginning and that the word is part of the God Family. Now, it is difficult for us to understand eternity. It is challenging for us humans who have a finite amount of time here on earth to understand what it means to have always existed and to continue existing.
Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
For a final scripture on this, let us go over to Ephesians 1. We will be reading verses 3 through 6.
Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
These scriptures reveal a period before time actually existed, they reveal that God and Christ were before time and that They inhabit eternity and that time is a dimension that has been created. They also reveal for what purpose God has created. We just read that in Ephesians. Interestingly, astronomers over the past couple of decades have been studying general relativity and have developed several space-time theorems. These theorems actually prove that the universe has a beginning. In fact, not only does the universe have a beginning, but space and time have a beginning along with the matter that occupies space and time. This points to a causal agent who is outside of space and time and matter as the Creator of them.
Now, I will attempt to sum this up even more precisely. We know that there are two Beings that are from everlasting, God and Christ. We also know that (we are doing some basic math here) everything else that was created and all the things that were created were created by and through Jesus Christ. That means that God and Christ are everlasting and everything else that was created—absolutely everything else that was created—has a beginning and an end.
Again, hard for us to wrap our minds around. But God does give us a glimpse into His perspective on time. And you can write down II Peter 3:8. I will just read it. The reference here is to Psalm 90 but it says, "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." For us humans a day is roughly 24 hours. It is the time that it takes the earth to revolve around the sun. And we are also allocated days. The same Psalm 90:10 says, "The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow, for it soon cut off, and we fly away."
Time for us humans is moving horizontally. It has a start and an end. Now for God to be able to, and I will kind of put it like this, zoom in and out of specific moments in time, scientists have proposed that He is operating on no less than two dimensions of time. This means that it is possible for God to give dedicated time to our prayers, specific events, points in our time dimension, because He is not bound by our time dimension nor is He constrained by linear time. Said another way, for what is one second to us could be to God infinite time. If your brain is hurting right now, I completely understand because it took me a while to understand all this. I still do not think I do. It is truly amazing.
Now, recall that in the beginning, God created the earth. The earth, as well as stars above, are made of matter. Matter exists in what we call dimensions and those dimensions are well known: length, width, height, and we also say time. Typically we hear about the three dimensional things because that is what we can see and measure. However, time is an important dimension since it can be calculated similar to length, width, and height.
Scientists have also attempted to figure out how we integrate the physics of the very large with the physics of the very small. How do we have a universe with quantum mechanics, gravity, and relativity, which are needed for life to exist? These scientists, what they discovered is that there is simply not enough room within length, width, height, and time for all of the symmetries demanded by quantum mechanics, gravity, and relativity. So they looked at how many extra dimensions would be required. Now, keep in mind (and I probably should have said this earlier), this is a team of theoretical physicists and astronomers at Caltech. So these people are pretty smart.
Several years ago (it might have been 20 or so), they arrived at the conclusion that we would need an extra six dimensions of space, however small, that are tightly wrapped around length, width, and height in order for all of those symmetries to coexist! Brethren, this means that God, that the God that created our universe, must be able to operate beyond 10 space-time dimensions. And I showed this to Jack [Ryan's 13 year old son] this morning and he said, "Dad, it's up to 12 now." And so apparently, within that amount of time, 12 different space-time continuums. All we know are length, width, height, and time. It is truly mind boggling to try to understand how wonderful our Creator is. This shows that God exists outside of what He has created and He is able to, with awe inspiring accuracy, engage with it.
Now, credit for the above points goes to Hugh Ross who is a PhD and astrophysicist of Reasons to Believe. I will also note that I do not agree with him on all of his points of view beyond what I have stated. But he and his team have brought forward some very compelling evidence that point to our Creator.
One final point I would like to highlight regarding our Creator. Let us go to I Peter 1.
I Peter 1:17-21 And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Before time was established, God and Christ developed a plan of salvation, redemption through the sinless sacrifice of our Creator and Savior Jesus Christ. When we truly look at creation and what and how everything was created, we can see that the entire universe as we know it was created with redemption in mind. Christ was foreordained, and we were chosen, before the foundation of the world. You can write down Ephesians 1:4. God has a purpose and God began His redemptive work before He created anything.
Now, the evidence of our Creator does not stop here. The Bible itself provides the evidence and yet also points us to creation which offers countless evidence of the Creator. In a way, it is twice the evidence. If you do not believe what you read, you can contemplate what you can see and what you can observe in your mind. You should be able to see that the Creator God has done all these things.
Humans do themselves a disservice by choosing to deny the Creator. When we look at God, what God has done and is doing on our behalf, especially the tremendous sacrifice that was made for us, it should motivate us to continue to seek Him, to understand His purpose for us and all His creation. And as we see, God's plan for all mankind is intricate, complex, yet easily understood for those who truly seek Him.
Please turn with me to Hebrews 3 here as we wrap things up.
Hebrews 3:1-4 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.
All things—all things—were created by our Creator and our Savior, Jesus Christ. All things were created with purpose and with redemption in mind. If we look for and seek after the One who created us, we will find both our Creator and our Savior.
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