Welcome to Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist church here in Sacramento, California on the west coast of the United States of America. We are so glad that you're tuning in and joining us like you do every week. If this is your first time, an extra special welcome and I hope that you will really enjoy today's presentation by Pastor Doug Batchelor who is our senior pastor here at central. And we, of course, start out our program every week with singing your favorite hymns. So today we are starting with ''tis almost time for the Lord to come' - I think this is a very appropriate song for the times that we live in and so we're going to start with that.
It is a request from pedro in barbados, Mark in Canada, gloria in florida, lew and katie in Georgia, bob and Paula in Idaho, thelma in Illinois, dave in Indiana, valerie in Massachusetts, and joyce in south africa. #212 - And we'll be singing the first, second and fourth stanzas. #212 - ''Tis almost time for the lord to come.' Thank you so much for that song request - and I know that there is many more of you that just love opening up your hymnals and singing with us and we love hearing from each and every one of you. If you have a favorite request that you want to sing with us, it's very simple. Go to our website at 'saccentral.
org', click on the 'contact us' link, and you can send in your favorite song and we will do our best to sing that for you sooner than later. Our next one is #34 - 'wake The Song'. Veronica in bahamas requested this, laura, lavonne, sanita, and wayne in barbados, hezron in brazil, joan in the cayman islands, pastor Joel in england, jim, dianne, jamie, and buffy in florida, the hankey family in grenada, corrine and cheryl in india, anjuii, chloe, Danielle, donna, and dorrett in jamaica, Karen in Louisiana, leonie in Maryland, shiferaw in the netherlands, kevin in the netherlands antilles, clavia, kelly-ann, kevin, leo, maria, martin, rene, stefan, genevieve, joyann, and wendwell in new york, francis in palau - we don't get many requests from palau - that's exciting, gilbert, leah, and shirwin in the Philippines, marsha in saint lucia, marion, suzanne, and zelda in trinidad and tobago, and kasibe Isaiah in uganda. #34 - We're going to sing all three stanzas this morning - 'wake The Song'. Thank you so much for sending in those requests.
And we enjoy learning the unfamiliar ones with you so keep sending them in. At this time let's bow our heads for prayer. Father in Heaven, thank you so much for The Song of joy and gladness that you put into our hearts. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be here where we can sing praises to your name. Thank you for blessing us with the Sabbath - the opportunity that we have to come together once a week and worship you with fellow believers.
Thank you for loving us unconditionally. I just pray that each day we will be ready for the day when you come in the clouds to take us home to heaven. May we live our lives in such a way that people will know that we are Christians and that we are your children. Come soon dear Jesus and help us to be ready. Be with Pastor Doug as he brings us our lesson study and please continue to bless him and his ministry and each person that can hear my voice.
Father, please just help us to be ready to meet you when you come in the clouds so that we can all spend eternity together in heaven singing praises to you. In Jesus' Name, amen. At this time our lesson study is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug Batchelor. He is our senior pastor here at Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist church. Amen.
And thank you very much for our musicians and our singers - it sounded good with the little chorus there to help. How is everybody? Happy new year. It's not too late to say that is it? Now, for our friends who are watching this is going to air three weeks from now and you'll be thinking 'it is a little late' - but at the time of recording it's the first Sabbath in 2013 and so that means we're one year closer to Jesus coming, amen? Whatever that year might be. I want to welcome our friends who are studying with us and it's always exciting to hear the prayer requests - song requests that come in from literally - literally around the globe - and because of the internet and satellite television people are able to study together all over the world. I also want to thank the various stations that broadcast this program each week - you know, they do that for free.
I also want to thank amazing facts that edits the program every week. It takes a little bit of energy to do that - we do it really as a service because these Sabbath school programs are what you would call 'dated material'. In other words, once we broadcast them there's not a lot of re-airing value because we're going on to the next program. But we really think it's an important service to provide a way where people can study from all over the world. And we are continuing, in a moment, in our new quarterly dealing with the subject of origins - we'll be going to lesson 4 - before we do that we'd like to make a special offer available that we hope will enhance your Bible study and the offer today is a book called 'the ultimate resource'.
It's dealing with the word of God written by yours truly and the importance of knowing the Bible and the power of the Bible - how it really is the ultimate resource in life. It's offer #104. If you'd like a free copy of that just call the number on the screen - that's 866-study-more - that translates to 866-788-3966. And we'll be happy to send that to you. In our lesson - go with me now, please, to lesson #4 'creation, a biblical theme' and we've got a lot of Scriptures we're going to consider: Genesis 2, Matthew , Psalms 8 - matter of fact, we're going all the way through the Bible to illustrate that creation is a biblical theme and there's a memory verse.
Now, if you are a good seventh day adventist you should know this by heart so you hopefully have it memorized but it's Revelation 14, verses 6 and 7 - part of the three angels' message. Why don't we say that together? Revelation 14:6 and 7 and this is from - they're doing it from the new international version - bah humbug! Let me see here, I think in my lesson I've got it from the new king James version - that's what I'm going to do. There's some good things in the niv, but there's some things I don't like. So let's do Revelation :6 and 7. I'm just curious - I'm going to do a poll - show of hands.
How many of you here today are reading from the King James version? Let me see your hands. Okay. Now don't be embarrassed - whatever version you have that's okay, I'm just curious. How many today are using the new king James version? Okay. That's a little less, maybe, than the King James.
How many of you are using some other version? Don't be embarrassed - it's okay. There's some good versions out there - new American standard version and a number of others. I just was curious. So it looked to me like 70 - 80 percent are using one of those two versions. So that's why I'm going to read from the new king James - because that way we sound like we're reading from the same version - there's very little changes and it doesn't sound like the tower of babel when we read together.
You ready? Revelation 14:6 and 7, "then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people saying with a loud voice, 'fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water." Now this is especially important to us in our study today because it's talking about God in creation - creation in the Bible and it says, 'worship him who made.' Now here we are in Revelation - it's calling us back to worship the creator. The idea that God is the creator is a constant theme throughout the Bible and you might be wondering 'why are we even dedicating a lesson to this subject? Isn't this a given?' It used to be. Unfortunately today, there are people who read the Bible and they say, 'well, you know, the things in the Bible about God creating everything in six literal days, that really can't be trusted. That's sort of, you know, people weren't as educated back then as we are today and so they had to fabricate a fable - they had to invent some idea of how things came into existence, but we know now that things have evolved through slow process over millions of years and so we sort of wink at the ignorance of the Bible writers when they talk about creation.' And so there are people who try to mingle these long ages of evolution with the Bible. You can't do that and really believe the Bible, in my opinion.
I think it's very hard to reconcile the two. And I respect - I've got friends out there that they say when it talks about a day in the Bible, those days really were great epochs - each one of those days were epochs of millions of years or thousands of years. I think the jehovah's witnesses, for instance, believe those seven days are not seven literal days but seven thousand years - because 'a day is as a thousand years' - it says there in Peter chapter 3. That was their answer for that and then others say those days are not to be literal epochs but it's seven ages of evolution before man sort of rises up from his knuckles and becomes a man with a soul in the image of God. But before that he was really a lower form of life.
Real problems with that because, according to the Bible, sin and death and pain came into the world because of man's choice. If you believe in evolution there's animals killing and eating each other and there's death and pain for millions of years before man ever comes along. The whole scheme of Genesis doesn't work if you try to say it's millions of years. The explanation for why there's sin - the whole world view of the Bible doesn't work. But it's not surprising today that people try to read their beliefs into the Bible.
I didn't know whether or not I was going to say this but I think I will. Just in the past couple weeks - it's probably been around for awhile but, you know, sometimes it takes a while for me to learn about something. Now, we just talked a minute about the new king James version and we talked about the King James version. Have you heard of the 'queen James version' of the Bible? How many of you have? Some of you have. Recently there was released a new translation of the Bible they call the queen James version and it is 99% king James version - they've only changed about a dozen or eight verses in the Bible that specifically deal with the subject of homosexuality.
They took these very clear statements in the Bible that forbid homosexual practice - whether it's gay men or lesbian - and they said 'those are really not understood and so we retranslated them to help save people from their homophobic ideas - that these things really weren't in the Bible. For instance, in the Bible in Leviticus 18:22 when it says, "thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind." Well that's always been clear enough to everybody who read it but, you know, if you want to believe something bad enough you can rationalize almost anything. So they retranslated that with some just mind-bending gymnastics of how they get to these conclusions to say, 'thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind as they do in the temple of moloch - it's an abomination.' They said the reason they say that back in Leviticus is because of what was happening in these pagan temples but it doesn't say that even in the original whether it's the septuagint, or whether it's the Hebrew - it just is not there. It's manufactured, concocted and pushed into the text and they do that with eight verses. They relabeled it the 'queen James' version of the Bible because they say king James actually was bisexual and so it really should have been the queen James Bible.
Now, you know, you've got to admit - if you read history, king James was an odd character. He did marry, he did have offspring that was the heir. They say that he didn't seem to pursue a wife for a long time but he was a bookworm. Matter of fact, english history will tell you that king James was probably one of the few monarchs of england that could rightly be called a scholar. He spent all his time reading.
Well, a lot of people try to read into that - that means he wasn't interested in women, which there's only one other alternative. But, you know, you really can't prove it. There was a lot of rumor and I'll admit that, but to come right out and rename the Bible - one of the greatest masterpieces of english literature that has had the greatest impact on the english language - the King James Bible has impacted the english language more than any other document - and to change the Word of God to try and make it say that it just goes to show that people can do whatever they want to do with the Bible if they don't want to read it as it says. Now, I know there are sometimes verses in the Bible - there are some verses that are difficult - on different subjects. You know, when you read there in Revelation chapter 20, where it talks about the devil will burn day and night forever and ever - on the subject of the state of the dead - that takes some explanation.
But it's one verse that says that. And there are verses about women covering their hair and not cutting their hair. There are some difficult verses that, when read by themselves without comparing them with other Scriptures - you have to say, 'now what does that mean?' But you - in the mouth of two or three witnesses these things become clear. And so they need to be studied together, right? But when you have to take eight verses and try to totally change them, it's suspect. That's like a person going blindfolded into burger king and saying 'there is no beef.
There is no beef. There is no beef.' And all around you you hear it frying, you know? Or you go into a zoo on a sunny day and say, 'there are no animals. I don't hear it. I don't smell it. There are no animals.
' I mean, if you want to, you can deny the obvious. When you read the Bible it is obvious that God created. You have to torture the Scriptures to get anything else out of the Bible. But we've dedicated this lesson to showing that creation is a biblical theme even though the first words in the Bible are what? 'In the beginning God created.' You realize that means the whole foundation for all Scripture is in the context that God is a creator? And so, you just go from there. And so, there's that verse in the Bible - matter of fact, I'll have someone read this for me.
Psalm 11:3. Who has that verse? We gave out some verses so you should have a slip - over here. Hold your hand up so they can see you. We'll get you a microphone. Psalm 11:3 and while you're going there I'm going to - I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 4, verses 5 and 6.
Paul said, "for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Paul draws upon the theme of creation - when God said, 'let there be light' to explain Christ. In other words, it's the same creative power that brought the world into existence that changes our hearts. If we don't understand that God created through his power and by His Word, people will have problems with understanding recreation - that we are recreated - that God that said, 'let the light shine' - it's the same power that lets the light of Jesus shine in us. So we need to understand this truth that God is the creator and he can recreate us, right? Alright, go ahead and read for us psalm 11:3.
"If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Everything has to do with the foundation, right? Jesus talked about 'wise man builds on the rock, the foolish man builds on the sand.' And if we are building on the sand of paleontologists our idea of the world view then - it's going to change with every wind of doctrine. If you've built on the rock of God's Word - Jesus and what he said - then there's hope. If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do? What's the foundation for the Christian? Jesus said, 'he that hears these words of mine and does them.' Christ is that rock - that's the foundation. The storm is going to come. Storm comes for the wise man, storm comes for the fool.
The storm comes to everybody. What is the foundation? The devil is attacking the foundations. He's attacking the foundations of marriage - is that happening? I mean these are foundational truths you find in Genesis. He's attacking the foundational truth of creation and what good does a Sabbath day commemorating creation mean? What good is that if God did not create in six days, then how sacred was that seventh day? Was it a literal day? Everything begins to be questioned if you attack the foundations - you see how that works? So this is very important truth to understand. Okay, Genesis 2, verse 4 and we're going to look at creation in Genesis.
Now we spent some time in former studies talking about Genesis chapter 1. Now Genesis 2 sort of does a review of creation. Genesis 2, verse 4 - it says, "this is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Now some people have been a little confused because in Genesis 1 it seems like God's done creating - he does it in six days - Genesis 2 begins by saying he rested the seventh day. Now it's talking about creation again. Are these two separate creations? You know, there are - there's a group - they're not very many, but there are a group of professed Christians believing that creation really happened in two kind of bizarre stages - that there were two separate creations.
They believe - because you read in the King James version God told adam and eve to replenish the earth - replenish - and they say the word re- means to do something over again. No, it's very simple, in Hebrew they give headlines then they back up and they give details. It's just a very common way - you'll often see a story headline, then you'll see a caption gives a summary of the story, then you have the details of the story. Well, a lot of the Bible books are written that way where it kind of gives the overview of what happened then it backs up and gives the details and that's what's happening. It's really - chapter 2 is backing up into the sixth day - it says God made the heaven and earth - and it gives more details.
Prophecy often works that way, where in Revelation and Daniel - Daniel chapter 2 gives a summary of the world's history then these other visions give more details in those different aspects of the visions. Same thing with Revelation. You'll find this a lot through Hebrew writing so don't let that throw you. Overview headline - in the beginning God creates the heaven and the earth - then it gives some detail about how he created it in the rest of chapter 1. Then it backs up into the sixth day and gives more detail into the most important part of the creation - the creation of man and so forth.
It does that many times in Genesis - it backs up. It gives the genealogies of cain that passes Abraham but then it backs up and talks about Abraham. You see what I'm saying? And so, that's what's happening here. Alright, somebody look up for me Genesis 2, verse 18. Who has that? Right up front here? And while we do that I want you to notice something that's happening here, God creates the environment, you know, first he makes light, then he makes water, and then he makes plants that cannot live without water and light, and then he makes a gardener for the plants and there's an order for all these things that are done.
In Genesis 2, verses 5 and 6 we read "before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God has not caused it to rain on the earth, for there was no man to till the ground." Some people say, 'oh see, there was no men yet.' No, it means nobody was tilling the ground back then, man didn't have to do that. No farmers were plowing with oxen at that point. "But a mist" - it says something different happened - "a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." Now why is this included in the lesson? This verse? Is that how the world is watered today? Did something environmentally change? Was there a radical change? We talked about this but I always repeat some of these things from week to week because we have some different viewers and they miss it, but prior to the flood the environment was different. The whole world had some form of an envelope of water that covered the earth and it polarized the rays of the sun - that's why you had a temperate climate all over the planet.
That's why you find fossils of ferns in these arctic regions. Why are there such vast oil reserves in siberia and Alaska? The only thing - the only explanation is the climate was different then for it to have the vast vegetation for it to produce all that coal and oil. And so, it's telling us that things were different back then. That's a very important fact to remember when we're wondering how things came into being because geologists and paleontologists and scientists and anthropologists are all looking at the world based on what we see today and they're leaving out the very important factor that things radically changed and that affects the dating methods. I think I explained to you before that if I open a door - there's just four walls in a room - nothing but a door - and I open a door and there sitting on a barstool in that room is one candle burning and I ask you 'how long was that candle burning? You might say, 'well, it's hard to tell exactly but we can look at how quickly it's burning now, measure how much wax is puddled up at the bottom, try and get a rough estimate about how long it's been burning and how tall it was when it started.
' But I say, 'well what if, when you shut the door it burns at a different speed because you're not in the room now? Or if you are in the room you're breathing some of the oxygen it's going to burn differently, right? Or what if when you shut the door - you don't know it but when you shut the door it knocks open a vent that rushes more oxygen in and it burns much quicker than you thought? There's factors people may not know that change everything. The whole evolution castle crumbles and blows away like dust if they don't have their dating system. It's all built upon a dating system that is testing things based on what they observe today, but we know from the Bible those things were not always the same and so the dating Numbers that are being gathered today - I also thought, it's just really interesting, you know you - they talk about volcanoes - they say, 'yeah, it took millions of years for this volcano to rise.' And they don't have good explanations of how a volcano rises in iceland in 30 days. And when they do measurements of the rocks of that volcano they'll be getting dates that are thousands of years. Or how they say it took the grand canyon millions of years to form, then when mt.
St. Helen's blew up they found a very similarly shaped canyon was formed in a matter of weeks. And so, there's a lot of things we don't know. Alright, I hadn't forgotten. So, Genesis 2:18 - do you have that mike? Yep.
Genesis 2, verse 18, "and the lord God said, 'it is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.'" Alright, so we see again in Genesis it's taking us back and giving us more detail on the sixth day and people are going 'how in the world could adam name all of those animals in one day?' Well, there weren't as many different varieties of animals as there are today. In other words, adam did not have to name dachshund, great dane, lapsu hapsu, labradoodle, german shepherd, yorkshire terrier, beagle, pit bull, boxer, poodles - which really aren't dogs, they're sort of amalgamations - golden retrievers, labradors. Did he have to name all of them or did adam go 'dog'? Right? And so, it was probably that way with a lot of animals. Now a lot of these animals - tigers and lions, you know, can mate. It says each one after their kinds and so I'm sure he named the kinds on the first day and he could have done that very quickly.
And - but he noticed that they all had their partners but he did not and so, you know the great varieties that we see today really spring from a few kinds. There are thousands of different dogs and there are thousands of different kinds of cats and a number of other animals but before that day was over he was feeling a little lonely and that's when it says that he then made eve - and still talking about what happened in chapter 1 it's giving us more detail. And if you're going to doubt Genesis - if you're a Bible Christian and you say you're Christian - a Christian follows Christ - do you believe Jesus? What does Jesus say about that? Matthew 19 - got your Bibles? Matthew 19, verse 4 - was this just some old testament fable that Moses developed to give us a scenario or did Jesus endorse what Moses said? Matthew 19:4 - Jesus is speaking - he said unto them, "have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female," - one man, one woman - singular male, singular female. He did not make two men to be married. He did not have two women.
He established what his design was for those marriage relationships. There's one reason it's so hard to argue that in the secular courts is they don't recognize the Bible. They don't recognize, you know, this divine pattern. - "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wives." - You following along with me? I warned you you should follow. Does it say 'wives'? His wife - singular - "and the two" - it tells how many are supposed to be involved.
How about creation in the Psalms? Someone look up for me psalm , verses 13 and 14. We've given it out? Over here. Hold your hand up. Alright, we'll get to you in just a moment. I'm going to read psalm 8 - creation is clearly through the Psalms.
We're only able to read a few of these because we'll run out of time. "When I consider your heavens" - psalm 8, verse 3 - "when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and The Son of man that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas." God clearly gave dominion of the world to man. There's no creature like man when you look from space - some cases good, some cases bad - you can actually see the impact of man on the planet. The dominion of this world was given to man.
We did not just evolve - when you think about how helpless humans are compared to animals - little human babies are the most helpless creatures. A little gazelle is born and it's up and running in half an hour - and so many of these other creatures that just - they're so powerful. But little humans - I mean, we have no fur to protect us against the elements - well, most of us - but, you know, we can't walk for ten months and then when we do we waddle and fall down. We're just so utterly dependent - how did we manage to rise - suddenly if we evolved - to be so superior? I mean, why weren't we all just gobbled up by alligators? You think about it and it's just - no explanation except that we started out with these very remarkable minds that were given because they were - we were made in the image of God. You notice a word that keeps appearing? It says 'God made.
God made. God made.' 'What is man that you made...' Alright, go ahead psalm 139, verses 13 and 14. "For you formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well." Lord, you formed me. We didn't evolve.
Psalm 33, verses 8 and 9, "let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." God brought things into existence through the power of His Word. Now, we talked a little last week about what physics might be involved in that and I don't know, but I believe it. I believe he has the power and it's important for us to believe in that creative power of God because it's only by trusting that he can recreate our hearts - that we can be new creatures formed in the image of Jesus - that he speaks and it is done. Same Word of God changes us.
Psalm 148, verses 5 and 6 - still talking about creation in the Psalms - "let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. He also established them forever and ever; he made a decree which shall not pass away." Now, when you look at the language all through the Bible when it talks about creation, it's not using a special code that leaves us with the option that these are millions of years. It's talking about instantaneous response to the Word of God. Things were happening quickly. 'Creation and the book of job'.
Somebody look up for me job chapter 2, verse 13. I don't know - we gave that out to someone. Right over here - let's get a mic to you. It's - right over here - richard's got that. That'll be job 2:13 in just a moment.
Job is a unique book and it's interesting - the Sabbath school lesson dedicates a whole chapter or whole section to the book of job and creation in the book of job because there's a big section in here that deals with that subject and job, of course, is written before Genesis. Now you realize the books in the Bible are not all arranged in chronological order. The most ancient book in the Bible is job. Job probably lived somewhere in mesopotamia, maybe in the area not far from where abrahm came from in the land of uz - not to be confused with oz - job lived probably the same life span as Abraham's father. It tells us that he may have - which back then men were living - 215 years - that's like the life span of job and so you can kind of place him there.
The other interesting thing about the book of job - in everything that's said in the book of job - and it addresses a lot about God's Word - job makes absolutely no reference to anything written. There's no reference to anything being written because back then their minds were so powerful everything was handed down orally. They had probably virtually photographic memories at that time. Go ahead - I want to show you something interesting about the book of job - richard, if you're ready, read job 2, verse 13 for us. "So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
" You know, the book of job is sort of like the book of Genesis in that it tells us about beginnings. It tells us about a great controversy between God and the devil. The devil is contesting God's goodness and he's saying that the only reason job serves you is because you protect him. So the Lord allows job to go through this test as a demonstration to all of humanity. Just as this world has become a battleground as a demonstration of God's grace to all of the universe.
But it's interesting it's after seven days of job and his friends sitting there then they start to explain and to talk about what's going on - it's after the seven days of creation in Genesis that we begin to understand what is this battle between good and evil. It's after Genesis chapter 2 - you've got Genesis chapter 3 and sin enters the world and you've got the suffering that takes place as a result of that. The end of job - the suffering is withdrawn, job's peace and happiness are restored - his family is restored - everything's restored. At the end of the Bible everything is restored again. And so there's a lot more I could say about the comparisons, but do we find creation in the book of job? Look, for instance, in job chapter 38 - now this is a big section and I don't know if I'm going to have time to read it all, but I'll take a stab at it here.
In job chapter 38 it talks about the - let's start with verse 4. Job has now gone through his suffering, God is speaking to him - it says the Lord answered job out of this whirlwind and he says in verse 4, "where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?" - You know back then when they had a tape measure they called it a line so it's like a contractor getting his tape measure out when he's first going to start building and he paces things out - "to what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all The Sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and issued from the womb; when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band; when I fixed my limit for it, and set bars and doors; when I said 'this far you may come, but no farther,'" - talking about the limits of the sea - "'and here your proud waves must stop!' Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?" And he just goes through this incredible soliloquy where he talks about everything in creation that God made - you have to read the whole thing. "Where is the way to the dwelling of light?" - Verse 19 - "and darkness, where is its place," - do you understand the power of light - "that you may take it to its territory, that you may know the paths to its home?" - Where does light come from? How fast does it go? He's talking about these mysteries of life - "do you know it because you were born then, or because the number of your days is great?" It's talking like in light years now. And you read the whole chapter - we don't have time to read the whole thing, but you know what he's really saying? Why this is important to us? Now in the story of job is job the good guy or the bad guy? Does job ever sin in the story of job? It says he never sinned.
But in spite of that God is saying to job, 'as much as you know and as right as you've been in your discourse with your friends, you still know almost nothing.' Now, job is a guy that lives two hundred years. How much do you know - if your brain is sharp - if you could study - you know right now we study for 20 - 30 years and we use that the rest of our lives and - right? Try to learn all you can when you're young and then you build on that. Most of your Scripture memorization - how many of you did most of that when you were young? And you find it's a little harder when you get old? What if you could have the mind of a 19-year-old until you were a hundred? So how much did job know? How bright was he? But God said, 'even job, you don't have the answers.' So if God said that to job, what would he say to scientific man today that thinks that we're so smart? Does the Bible tell us in the last days knowledge would increase? But has wisdom increased? No, because they're two different things. And so, this is what he's really saying here. And then you go - you can jump to job chapter 42, verse 1 to 6.
Job admits - after God speaks job answers and says, "I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, 'who then is this who hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." Because we can't explain how God can speak things into existence, we think God can't do it. When I say 'we' I mean secular man. Because we can't explain it. 'You can't do that because I can't show it in a test tube.
' It's a miracle. God's creative power is a miracle and the reason we call a miracle a miracle is because we can't explain it. There are things that we don't understand and job is admitting that. "Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; you said, 'I will question you, and you shall answer me.
' I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Job said, 'you know, I tried to serve you and I thought I knew you but now I see you and I realize how little I knew. And I have to repent of my former knowledge.' Someday everybody's going to see God and all of us who thought that we could describe and define and diagnose and dissect God and melt him down into some crucible test tube and tell everybody this is who God is and this is how he does everything - I think we're all going to be ashamed in that day when we see how big God is and how little we really know. So you find creation in Genesis and in Psalms and in job. How about the prophets? Let's look.
Someone look up for me Jonah 1, verse 9 - and we're just looking at - here's a hand - we're just looking at a few of the prophets. I'll start with Jeremiah 51:15 - Jeremiah 51:15, "he has made the earth by his power; he has established the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by his understanding. When he utters his voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens: he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain; he brings the wind out of his treasuries." It says he made the earth by his power. That's in Jeremiah. All the prophets agree that God made the world.
Alright, are we ready? Go ahead, read for us from the book of Jonah. "And he said to them, 'I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." Now that was an especially interesting fact to those sailors on that boat during the storm because they worshiped all these different Gods that were responsible for different elements and there was the God of the wind and there was a different God that had the water and then there was a different God that had the lightning and there was a different God that had the land and Jonah shook them up when he said, 'I worship the God that made everything - the heaven and the earth and the sea.' And, you know, by the - and this is a short book but even in the book of Jonah he makes it very clear that God created everything. Go to Zechariah - Zechariah 12, verse 1, "the burden of the word of the Lord against Israel. Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the Spirit of man within him." You know, right there in Genesis you find it saying, 'heaven, earth, and spirit.' In Genesis 'the Spirit of God moved on the face of the water. In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth.
' Here the book of Zechariah is starting out like the book of Genesis. He's establishing what God he serves. He says, 'I am speaking in behalf of the God of creation.' Right here at the beginning you do find God and creation in the prophets. Isaiah 45 - someone look up for me Isaiah 45:18 - got a hand somewhere? Right here. Isaiah 45:18 and before we get to that I'm going to read Isaiah , verse 12.
"I have made the earth, and created man on it. I - my hands - stretched out the heavens, and all their host I have commanded." Is that clear? Does Isaiah believe that God created everything? He stretched it out - didn't do it over millions of years? Alright, go ahead, read - jolyne - verse 18. "For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: 'I am the Lord, and there is no other.'" You know, in Hebrew, the words that are being used here by Isaiah in the making of the earth - he says, 'I formed it' - it's a very personal, engaged process. It's not that God, like a deist's view, spins all these elements out into space and they sort of just ricochet and collide and end up developing life. God is there leaning over a work bench forming it.
He is involved in the creation of the world. What about creation in the new testament? Let's see if we can find it there. If we look, for instance, in Hebrews chapter 4 and - Hebrews , verse 3 - and I'm going to read through verse 5. "Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: 'and God rested on the seventh day from all his works'; and again in this place: 'they shall not enter my rest.
'" So here you have the writer of Hebrews - who we believe is Paul - who's - he's harkening back to the second chapter of the Bible where God talks about summarizing the creation on the seventh day. You know, you'll often hear people say that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. Did he make the heaven and the earth in six days or in seven days? Was the Sabbath part of creation? Did he make anything on the Sabbath? Did he make a day? So we always think that God made the world in six days. Well, he made most of the stuff in six days but there's really seven days in a week because he said, 'I need one more day to finish something. I've made a period of time.
' So I like to include the Sabbath when I think of the days of creation. And here Hebrews does this too. New testament talks about six days of creation - or seven days of creation really. And here you've got a statement of Paul and this is acts 17 and this is when Paul is preaching in greece at the areopagus and he's speaking to a vast assembly and in acts 17:22 - acts 17:22 "Paul stood in the midst of the areopagus and said, 'men of athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;" - superstitious is the word that he uses - "for I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship," - they had a street - they had a stone street and it was a beautiful street and on either side of the street they had these pillars and on the pillars - or they're really pedestals - were Gods and they had dedicated this avenue to their Gods and so they had all the Gods and there were the little plaques that they had chiseled the names of the different Gods and - I don't know - they probably had, you know, mercury, venus, zeus and who knows? They had all the different Gods and then they made another God - who knows what it looked like on this pedestal and it said, 'to the unknown God' - they thought, 'you know, there probably is a God out there we're forgetting about.' You ever see someone get up at a banquet when they need to thank everybody for everything and so, just in case they forgot anybody they say, 'I want to thank everyone else I might be forgetting.' Kind of like the tomb to the unknown soldier. Actually, that's different, they just had a soldier they didn't know his name, but here he said, 'just in case we missed another God we're going to make an idol to them.
' And so, Paul says, 'oh, that's a good segue for me to talk to you about the God you don't know.' And so he starts to preach to them. He says, 'I'm going to meet you on your terms. I'm going to tell you about a God you already worship so I won't offend you. I'm just going to tell you what his name is. He's the God that made everything else.
' He says, "for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription: 'to the unknown God' therefore, the one whom you worships without knowing, him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything." Whew, you know what Paul is doing? Right there he's saying idolatry's wrong and all your temples you've got dedicated to your different Gods, the real God that you don't know that you worship ignorantly, he won't even fit in your temples. He made everything and you can't even describe him with an idol.' So he's taking a stab at - a little swipe at idolatry there. "For he is the one who gives life, breath, and all things. And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'for we are also his offspring.
'" And then he goes on and he preaches about Christ to them but he makes it pretty clear that he believes that God is the God who made all things and he made men in his image. So do you find in the new testament the teaching of creation? And, of course, our Scripture verse - we're called in the last days to worship him who made - Revelation chapter 14 - 'the heaven and the earth and the seas and springs of water.' So I think we pretty well covered our material that you find the God of creation in the Bible. I want to thank you for studying, friends. Remind you that there is a free offer. If you would like a copy of the book 'the ultimate resource' just ask for offer #104 when you call the number on the screen.
We'll be happy to send that to you. God bless you as we look forward to worshiping and studying together again next week. There are over 300 million people that live in the u.s. Today. Out of those 300 million only .
4% regularly attend church. Every year 7.9 million people discard their faith in Christ and walk away from the church. This equates to 150,000 people disappearing every week. No church is immune. On average one person will leave your church every two weeks.
Studies suggest that 85% will actually never be reported as missing and no attempt will be made to locate them. They simply disappear. % Of this group say they have stopped believing in organized religion altogether. .7 million stop attending church because life got too busy. But surprisingly, % who left the church did so due to other factors.
At this rate, the number of professing Christians will drop to 15% by 2025 and to 11 - 12% in 2050. In other words, America is becoming an ever-increasing mission field. Christian churches are in decline. The hearts of the people have grown cold. This is the future of the church.
But it doesn't have to be. 'What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?' Reclaim your faith.