According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Creation, it speaks of a creator. Here’s Pastor Damian.

Damian Kyle: Wherever you look in life, creation always speaks of a creator. Whether you’re talking about a house, a bridge, a watch, a poem, or a painting, anytime we see any created anything, when we see these things, we realize that they didn’t just happen. They exist because someone created them.

There’s always a creator behind any creation in life. What is true, the Bible says, of a house or a watch is also true of the heavens and the earth. As we look at the heavens and the earth and everything in them, it speaks of a creator.

Guest (Male): Hi there, and welcome to another week of According to the Scriptures with Pastor Damian Kyle. Glad you could join us. We’re about to continue our series, Gleanings from Genesis. Last time, you may recall that we began to consider the very first verse in our Bibles: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

As we did so, we quickly realized that no verse is packed as full as this one. Here now is Pastor Damian to finish unpacking it for us, beginning with what is owed to God our creator.

Damian Kyle: The creation always owes a debt to the creator, the debt of the lesser to the infinitely greater, that is, to God himself. What we owe to God as creator, as a result of being his creation, is our worship and our service.

Any human being who worships or serves anything of the creation, worships anything other than the creator of the creation, that person is engaged in an irrationality because the creator is always greater than his creation. Paul brings it out in the New Testament, in the book that we just recently finished in Romans chapter 1 verse 24.

He said, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God,” that is, the truth of his existence, “for a lie,” and that is that God doesn’t exist, “and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever, amen.”

Sometimes people will ask, “What was God doing before he created the heavens and the earth?” The fact of the matter is we really have no revelation of that. We know certainly that God is eternal and he existed before anything that he created. The oldest, in terms of chronology, oldest verse in the Bible is not really Genesis 1:1; it is John 1:1 that speaks of Jesus within the Godhead and the existence before even the creation of anything.

But in terms of what he was doing before the creation of the heavens and the earth, we have no revelation in Scripture of that. Maybe we'll know in heaven, but personally, I don't have a problem with not knowing that. I figure that God tells us what we need to know and I don't have any problem with mystery in a relationship with God, not understanding everything. The fact that anytime you're going to have the infinite, that is God, in a relationship with the finite, that is man, then you're going to have to get used to mystery because we can only follow God on any subject that we might choose to talk with him about only so far and then drop off.

So, he reveals to us what we need to know. Isn't it interesting? John Calvin is reported to have had an answer for that question. When a man asked John Calvin what God was doing before he created the heavens and the earth, apparently mockingly, Calvin is alleged to have replied, “He was heating up hell for those who would ask such questions.” So, clearly John Calvin got off the wrong side of the bed that morning. The more accurate answer, actually, and the more gracious answer is that we simply do not know. It is a mystery, and God has not given us that revelation, and only he could.

Now, in this opening verse, seven words in the Hebrew, ten words in the English, he covers a lot of ground in ten words. I mean, in the opening verse, God flatly refutes virtually all of man's false philosophies concerning the origin of the world and the meaning of life. He clearly refutes atheism because it avows the existence of God. He refutes pantheism, the idea that God is another name for everything, because God is differentiated here as infinitely greater than what he has created.

It refutes polytheism because one God created all things. It refutes materialism because all material had a beginning. It refutes humanism because God, not man, is the ultimate reality. It refutes evolution as an explanation for the existence of the universe because God created all things. God has done all of that in just one sentence in terms of providing clarity to mankind about what this world is about that we find ourselves in the middle of.

One time I heard a pastor, a Jewish pastor, speak about a letter that had been sent to him by someone who was displeased with him in some way. The woman wrote this letter as a word from God to him, and she wrote page after page of it. After he read it, he responded to her. He said, “I don't believe that this is from God at all because it doesn't take God that long to say something.” There’s certainly an element of truth in that as you look at Genesis 1:1.

Now, some of what we see here in this single verse, it’s amazing what it reveals to us about God: that he has no beginning, that he's eternal, that he's omnipotent, he's all-powerful, he's omniscient, he knows everything, he created everything, he knows everything, he's omnipresent, he's everywhere all at once, he is clearly very wise, he is clearly very creative, he is self-existent, he is not a part of the creation, he is infinite, and he is personal. It isn't an impersonal force that created the heavens and the earth; it was a personal God who did so.

It’s interesting to me in this verse that God does not argue his existence here. He simply states it matter-of-factly. Apparently, as you would certainly expect of God, he is very confident in his existence, whatever anybody else might be thinking. God never takes a trip to Sedona or to Colorado to try and find himself or to question who he is and does he really exist and what is the meaning of his existence.

The fact of the matter is that he doesn't need to lay out a case to mankind for his existence because his creation does that for him. As the Holy Spirit put it through King David in Psalm 19, let me read you a handful of verses. David wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” not just his existence but his glory, “and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day it utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard,” the voice of creation speaking to mankind about the existence of God.

“Their line has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices like a strong man to run its race,” talking about the sun making its move across the horizon on a daily basis in the world. “Its rising is from one end of heaven and its circuit to another and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” In other words, the psalmist is declaring that all of creation around us testifies to the existence of God.

All that we see again with the naked eye, we see with the telescope, we see with the microscope, all of it is communicating to us that there is a God. You say, "How does it communicate this?" Because wherever you look in life, creation always speaks of a creator. Whether you're talking about a house, whether you're talking about a bridge, whether you're talking about a watch, whether you're talking about a poem, whether you're talking about a painting. Anytime we see any created anything, when we see these things, we realize that they didn't just happen. They exist because someone created them.

There's always a creator behind any creation in life. What is true, the Bible says, of a house or a watch is also true of the heavens and the earth. As we look at the heavens and the earth and everything in them, it speaks of a creator. In the same way, everywhere we look in life and we see design, we realize there is a designer behind that design. Design always testifies to the existence of a designer behind the design.

Whether it's Mount Rushmore or whether it's a jet plane or whether it's a car or whether it's an iPhone, no one would deny it. No one would claim that an iPhone is self-existent. Clearly, there's a designer behind it. What the Bible declares in both Old Testament and New Testament is that what is true of that designer is also true of the amazing design that we see all around us in the world. Again, the seasons, the four seasons in the year, the tides, the orbits of the sun and the moon, the intricacies of the human body.

The fact that any surgeon can have any hope of being successful in a surgery or an engineer building anything, whether it's a bridge or building a building, all that we operate from in life is the recognition that there is a design to this universe that when we cooperate with it, we're going to do fine. But everybody acknowledges the design, and always in life, there's a designer behind the design.

Even further, not only does creation and design speak of the existence of a creator and a designer, but just as the creator and the designer in every other area of life is greater than what they create and what they design, the heavens and the earth declare that God is greater than all of the creation by virtue of being the creator and the designer of all that we see on a daily basis. This is why, once again, it is foolish to worship the creation because it is to stop always one step short of the progression.

The creator is always greater than the creation. So our worship is due the one who has created everything, not the creation itself. This argument from creation and design is something that is so simple that a child can understand it, a child can speak it. Any person can understand it, any person can speak it. You should use the argument, as God does in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the argument from creation and design anytime you enter into these kinds of conversations with other people.

In entering into that as a case for the existence of God, you will never be disappointed for having done so, and it is to simply give God in that conversation with another person what God wants to have in order to work with them. But no scientific discovery, no anything, is ever going to disprove the arguments of design and creation because they're God's arguments and they're simple. Somebody says, "Well, then who created God?" Nobody. He's as upfront as can be related to things that he existed when the beginning began.

That's his story. That's his account. Now, what a person's going to do with that, they're going to do with that. But there's no lack of logic in it, and certainly no absence of evidence. You can spend all of your life reading scientific journals and feel free to do that, or all of the books on evolution or on creationism and listen and watch the videos and all of these different things and fully gorge yourself on the subject, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you'll come right back to this place. You'll come back to this argument, this statement of fact from God related to the evidence for his existence. God considers this evidence for his existence to be so straightforward and so indisputable that in Psalm 14 verse 1, he declares that the fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” From the vantage point of heaven, for a person to live their threescore and ten or however many years in this world and to see what we see on a daily basis with our own eyes and to live life and then to conclude that there is no God, it's incomprehensible from the vantage point of heaven.

God says it's a very hard thing to go through life and to miss God. The Apostle Paul is just as strong in the New Testament on the issue again in the Book of Romans, chapter 1 verse 18. Paul said, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” What is the truth they suppress in unrighteousness? The existence of God. This is as old as the hills.

Paul addressed it by the Spirit of God. He says, “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.” Paul continues interestingly. He said, “Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Ah, now we come to the foundation, the core of the denial of Genesis chapter 1 verse 1: futile thinking and dark hearts. A refusal to acknowledge the existence of the God of the Bible because if he truly is what he reveals himself to be, then logically I must make myself accountable to him in obeying him and serving him and living for him and worshiping him and supremely in trusting in his Son as my savior and as my Lord.

The real reason for the denial of the existence of God and a person offering the praise and the worship that the creation owes to the creator is at its core, "I still want to live a self-dominated and a self-directed life, or there are sins that I like practicing that I don't want to give up for anyone, not even for God." Behind all of the bluster and all of the arguments and all of the words, from the vantage point of heaven, that is what is the core of the denial of all of this.

People can convince themselves, they can fool themselves, but God is never fooled by any of it. Even Jesus himself revealed as much in John chapter 3 when he was talking with Nicodemus, religious leader of the Jews. I’ll read it to you beginning in John 3:16. Jesus said, “For God so loved the world,” speaking to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

But it's important to remember Jesus did not stop with that gospel. He moved on to speak of why people reject that gospel. He said, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. And he who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation: that light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

Don't ever be put back on your heels as a Christian or intimidated over all of the words that just fairly flood every means by which words can be communicated. They just flood forth as a rationale for rejecting creation, rejecting the existence of God, rejecting God the Father, rejecting Jesus Christ. But always to know that at the core of all such rejection, once a person knows the truth, at the core of all of it is this love for sin and self-will, and God knows it.

One day at the Great White Throne Judgment of Christ, that will be revealed as the true cause and the true source for all unbelief. The first chapter of Genesis is one of the most God-centered chapters in the Bible, and that’s saying a lot. God is mentioned by name 32 times in the 31 verses. When you add the use of personal pronouns, he's mentioned no less than 43 times in the 31 verses.

What I would like us to take away from this opening verse of the Bible is that no one will ever make any sense of life, not on the macro, not on the micro, not on the universal, not on the personal level, unless we begin where the Bible does: with God and not with man. If we begin with God and we work from God toward man, our understanding of the world as a whole, ourselves individually, then our conclusions are going to be true. They’re going to be wise, they’re going to be safe.

Ask in every circumstance that we find ourselves in life, as it's modeled here in the very first verse of the Bible, in every circumstance, in every thought, every emotion, ask, “What does God say about this in his word, the Bible?” and then to embrace that truth. But if we begin with man in an attempt to understand and define God, with all of man's limitations, with all of man's theories, with all of man's speculations, if we begin there in an attempt to understand and define God, we will have it exactly backwards.

The result will be confusion and ignorance and danger and deception. The question always is, in every situation in life, of every emotion we feel, every thought that comes into our mind: What does God say? And to begin there, and never to begin with what does man say or what do I think. What does God say is the starting point to true wisdom and to knowledge.

It's where God begins his book, and it is a vital, vital truth that is ignored all around us in the world, not by an unsaved world alone but by many, many Christians where every circumstance that comes our way, every feeling that we have, every thought that we have, every fork in the road, every decision, we begin with our own wisdom. We begin with the collective wisdom of people who are as severely limited in wisdom as we are. That becomes the dominant influence, and then we work our way to God. It’s always to have it exactly backwards. It is to go to God first and receive what it is that he says on anything, and then we can safely work our way toward ourselves and toward our fellow man and navigate the world that we live in day in and day out.

Guest (Male): God is and must be the starting point. That begs the question: have you surrendered your life to him who not only is the creator, but the redeemer who died and rose again to give you life? We trust you have, and that you will do so now if you haven't. Thank you for joining us here on According to the Scriptures.

Pastor Damian Kyle is offering up Gleanings from Genesis. To order resources like today's message on CD, you can give us a call: 209-545-5530. Again, you can reach out to us at that phone number: 209-545-5530. Our programs are also accessible at accordingtothescriptures.com, oneplace.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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