The Heavens Declare

Introduction

Good morning. In baseball, some pitchers have what’s called their personal catcher. And basically, in baseball, there’s starting pitchers, and they pitch about every five games, give or take. We’re kind of messing with that here in 2018. But in general, they catch every five days. But some pitchers, if they’re good enough, and if the teams cater to them enough, have their own catcher who only essentially catches for them or otherwise in case of emergency, because they understand them, they have a good connection. And for the second time in a row, and don’t let me down on the third, Cody has done a really good job picking out songs for my for a lesson that I’m preaching without much to go on. This morning we’re going to talk about the existence of God, and there is no better song, perhaps, that we sing on a regular basis than our God is alive.

It’s an amazing fact to know, believe, and understand that our God is alive. Amen. We can look around and we can see that the heavens declare the glory of God. We look around and we see creation shows that it mandates there was first a creator. In Psalm 19, turn there with me. In Psalm 19, of course, you’ll recognize verse 1, but even the first several verses, as it was read at the beginning of worship this morning, in Psalm 19, verse 1. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the earth.

In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. We look around and we see that there must be a creator for this creation to be true. First Peter 3.15 says we should always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us. And I have to ask the question of myself and of everyone this morning. If somebody asks you, why do you believe in God? Why do you believe that there is a creator? Would you have an answer for that question?

Right now, the high school class is covering the subject titled Creation versus Evolution. And of course, there is a parent class that runs parallel to that, studying also creation versus evolution. This morning is not necessarily a deep dive into the science of creation or evolution, but rather is there a creator who started creation? Or did the world just happen? Do you have an answer for why God was necessary? Would you be able to discuss with somebody why you believe that there is a God? This morning at the 11 o’clock hour, we’re going to discuss biblical prophecy and how we would go through the Bible and prove to someone that you see there has to be inspiration. There has to be a higher power that gave us the scriptures.

1. Not Everyone Is Reached the Same Way

Otherwise, there’s too much that goes unexplained. Too much phenomenal inspiration that’s found in the Old Testament and then mirrored in the New Testament hundreds of years later. But for this morning, we’re going to try to point out things we can learn about God from looking around, from thinking in a way that God blessed us with the ability to think through, to study what it means to believe in God. Paul had these types of studies frequently. If you’ll turn with me to Acts chapter 17, quickly, though, before turning to verse 16, start in verse 1. In Acts 17, beginning in verse 1, Paul, as was his custom, would find himself in the synagogue of the Jews. In verse 2 of Acts chapter 17, note what he does and how Paul reasons with Jews in verse 2 of Acts 17.

And Paul went in as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying, This Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. So how did Paul deal with the Jews? He showed them their scriptures. He said, You can see who Jesus is, you can see the necessity of Jesus being the Christ from your own scriptures. In verse 2, it says he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. Interestingly, though, Paul understood that speaking to others, explaining who Jesus is, who God is, that he is real, that it happened, that Jesus did die, he was resurrected, that we can live and please our God.

Look at Acts chapter 17 now, beginning in verse 16. A little bit of a different audience than the Jews he was reasoning with in the synagogues. In verse 16, now Paul was waiting for them at Athens. His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the epicurean and stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, What does this babbler wish to say? Others said he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities, because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and said, May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting.

For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean. Now, all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. Can we see the difference between those found in verse 21? The Athenians who spent their time just listening to new, wanting to hear new, whether they agreed or disagreed, they just wanted to talk about it. They wanted to debate about it. They wanted to just hear about it. From the group in the first three verses, the Jews, who Paul found where again? In the synagogue. And he reasoned with them how? From their scriptures. We find beginning in verse 23 that Paul starts by identifying who God is.

In verse 23, as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. You notice that Paul doesn’t take these Athenians and say, I want you to study in the Hebrew scriptures. You need to know the Hebrew scriptures talk about Jesus. Would that not be true? Of course it was. That’s how he reasoned with the Jews. Did Jesus not live and die and become resurrected from the grave?

Yes, he did. And yet, where did Paul meet them? An important lesson for us to learn is not everyone is reached the same way. Whether it’s an evangelistic method or an apologetic method of proving that there is a God, of who that God is, how we can understand who he is and what it means to worship him. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. So Paul starts with the most fundamental aspect of identifying that there is a God and that he can be known. It’s one of my favorite Bible verses to picture. If you go back to verse 16, see what Paul’s doing. As Paul is in the city, see what it says about him. While he was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he’s looking around and seeing what?

He’s seeing all the idols. Can you imagine Paul, the great apostle? Even before that, the Jew being in Athens and seeing all these ridiculous altars, like he mentions in verse 23, an altar to the unknown God, even? Can you imagine Paul’s wrath, his anger, his frustration, his sadness, his despair over this? And yet, where does he start? He doesn’t berate them. He starts with what they know. He says, I was passing by, I saw an altar to the unknown God, who you worship as unknown, I know who he is. And who is that God? A God that is greater than us. He doesn’t dwell in a temple made by human hands. He doesn’t need us. In fact, in verse 26, he even explains how and why, how and why we can find our God.

In verse 26, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. As even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Now note, back up, just in broad strokes, what is Paul doing here? Yes, he starts by identifying who God is, and that he knows who he is.

But what does he do first? He starts painting how we can understand God. One of those first descriptions in verse 24 was what? He does not live in temples made by man. Verse 25, what does he add? He’s not served by human hands as though he needs anything. We don’t feed him. He doesn’t need us. And in fact, even in verse 29, God has to be beyond what? Man’s imagination. He has to be on man’s creations of what we do with gold and silver and stone. God is greater than our understanding. We have to know that. But as great as God is, understanding that he’s beyond our comprehension, the question would then be how can we understand such a powerful force, such a powerful being. You see, a very important verse in verse 27.

As verse 26 begins this sentence that’s unique perhaps to Paul more than any other in the New Testament, this very long, very fragmented sentence. In verse 26, he made from one man, and what did he do with them, verse 27? That they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Our God is great, he is known. And here’s the best news of all this morning. We can find him. We can know who he is. And then Paul teaches the so what? Why does it matter? Why would you have to go through this process? Why does it even matter? Why not let people believe what they want? In verse 30, the times of ignorance, God overlooked. Now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Why, verse 31? Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, We will hear you again about this. It’s interesting in verse 33 and 34. You see, when Paul left, some did believe with him. But in verse 32, this great, powerful fact that all Christians, everywhere should know axiomatically that if there is a God, that we are accountable to that God, that he will judge us, that we are responsible for his standard of morality that God sets forth in righteousness. That in verse 32, what was the reaction of some?

2. Understanding God from Creation and the Cosmological Argument

Some mocked. This idea that Jesus could be resurrected, the idea that we could be resurrected after this life, perhaps more alarmingly to those Athenians Paul is dealing with. The fact that there is erection is nonsense to these learned men or these men who loved hearing and telling something new. But that didn’t mean Paul wasted his time. It didn’t mean he shouldn’t have spent his time. But we need to recognize this morning that Paul identifies God, and we’re going to focus on the second part this morning. How can we find God? And then finally, of course, what would that mean if we can find him? Consider two main lines of reasoning this morning with me. First of all, understanding God from creation and the cosmological argument. In Romans chapter 1 and verse 20, if you’ll turn there quickly, in Romans 1 and verse 20, speaking of the Gentiles, the type of people Paul accounted for in Acts chapter 17.

Note what Paul says to these people, who in verse 18 are described as unrighteousness, committing all acts of ungodliness. In verse 20, he describes God as saying, His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been what? Clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse. God’s eternal power, that’s intangible. His divine nature, by definition, intangible. Something you can’t see directly, you can’t touch, feel directly. Then how do we understand then that we can see in creation these invisible attributes? Consider with me the following line of reasoning. If the first two are true, the third would be true. This is a basic setup of reasoning through a discussion. If what begins to exist has a cause, and the universe began to exist, it would stand to reason then that the universe has a cause.

I know this is thrilling stuff, but it’s really important, and we’ve got to be able to break down how we can understand this. The first part, what begins to exist has a cause. Frankly, this is one of the easiest things to prove as somebody who just looks around. Right? This says if something is there, something had to what? Cause it to be there. Something had to cause it to have that effect of existence. Right? This is why we like to go and see a magician show, or some of us like to see a magic show. Why? Because they seemingly do the impossible. But you know what’s interesting about magicians? They use far more tools than nothing. They often have a hat or a rabbit or a table or a saw or a coworker.

There’s always something they use to produce something or to do something unexpected or unknown. And we marvel at that, and we know that’s a trick because rabbits don’t just pop out of hats. No hat I’ve ever bought has a rabbit that just popped out, fortunately for my household. If we can understand the idea that nothing can’t bring something. The first premise is true. Of course, that doesn’t fix it because the first premise has to be true. The second has to be as well. The universe began to exist. Here’s where we had a little bit more of a scientific and philosophical rub. Has the universe always existed? It’s pretty easy for a Christian to say, no, of course it didn’t. In Genesis 1 and verse 1, what does it say?

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But what’s interesting about scientists today, they actually do us a favor for this line of reasoning, by and large. No one can be painted with one broad brush, of course. But I’m sure you’ve heard of the model of the big bang theory. The reason that that has come into being is because as scientists look back at how the world is expanding, and how we see we see how creation has evolved to use that word in a fair way to both contexts. Scientists, by and large, at this point in time agree that the world started from guess what? One specific moment in time. Hence why scientists add the big bang, why someone who reads the Bible has known that has always been God.

If the universe had one defining moment from which all came, it stands to reason the universe began to exist. And if the universe began to exist, you can’t say that it’s eternal as long as it is continuing to expand. And scientists warned that in billions of years, if not earlier, we are going to run out of what’s called usable energy. If the world was eternal, we would already be out of usable energy. Does that make sense? If the world is expanding, and we’re being warned that we are going to run out of usable energy. If the world goes back for all of eternity, it has always existed, then it would have already run out of energy. The eternal would outlast the temporal. We understand that concept because we know our bodies are temporal.

They don’t live forever, but what can? Moving forward, our spirit can return to our God who is beyond time, beyond our limitations. Of course, if what begins to exist has a cause and the universe began to exist, then the question left is what caused it? The universe has a cause. Now, this alone doesn’t prove God. This proves that there was a start. There was something that caused it to come into being. Was it the big bang theory? Well, we have a problem. You go back to premise number one. Something can’t come from nothing. Have you ever seen a scientist try to explain this? This is quite fun. And one in one panel, I guess you’d say there was a Catholic cardinal or some kind on the same panel as noted atheist Richard Dawkins.

And the cardinal started laughing as Richard Dawkins was explaining nothing. He said, Oh, actually, something can come from nothing. And he started to explain if you start with nothing that’s carefully defined by Dawkins, he’s going through all this complicated stuff. And he stops and he says, What’s so funny? And the Catholic cardinal says, I just think it’s kind of funny you have to define what nothing is. We know this stuff basically. We understand that if something came to exist, there was a cause. What is more reasonable? I think what the Bible puts forward is more reasonable. In Genesis 1 and verse 1, again, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1 does not say at what year God created the heavens and the earth.

He doesn’t say how old he made the heavens and the earth. It says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And for us as Christians, that has to be sufficient. It doesn’t mean that we can’t look for and examine more evidence, but it means that when we look at the world around us, we have to see that God was there first. That it’s just reasonable, not just because the Bible said or because a preacher said, but because when I look around, I know that God put something within me that means I can look for and find my God. And I look around, as Romans 1 20 says, I see the creation, I see what he’s made, and I see there has to be something bigger than this world to create this world.

It has to be so. The world does not come out of itself. Of course, many have tried to get around this with ideas of the multiverse concept. But again, the odds of the multiverse even spitting out an earth that survives and is fine-tuned to this degree are so infinitesimally small that we have a problem. But even beyond that, the idea that there would be a multiverse popping out galaxies and universes, you know what the big problem with that is? The number one question always comes back to where did that come from? Where did that ability to pop out a universe begin? Even if you change the ideology of how God created the world, it doesn’t change the fact that there was a God first in the beginning.

3. Objective Morality Demands a Standard

God created the heavens and the earth. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so that they, the Gentiles in us today, are without excuse. As Paul reasoned in Acts chapter 17, God made us. He is beyond us. And yet, luckily he made us to where we want to find him, and we can if we’ll look around and reason through it. Consider with me, secondly, this morning, the idea of the morality argument. If we’re going to understand creation and invisible attributes, we need to examine some invisible attributes. Objective morality demands a standard. And by the way, a mean God would not disprove God. I went ahead and put two points up at once because I think we know the first part.

You’ve heard this for generations and for decades and centuries. There’s been a discussion between those who do not believe in God and those who do, about if you do not believe in God, where does your standard of right and wrong come from? And of course, the answer is. We’re still waiting on it. There is none. There is not an efficient answer. Of course, atheists have gone back and forth on whether there is, whether we have if we don’t have free will, does that mean that our morality comes from a sense of teamwork and cooperation through evolutionary baggage? But the truth is, objective morality demands a standard. And that standard cannot be subjective. And that’s exactly how atheists respond. They say, Well, you say your morality comes from God in the Bible, but the God in the Bible was mean.

He’s a tyrant, he’s genocidal, he’s into slavery. First and foremost, even if God was a mean, tyrannical, awful God, calling him those names would not make him stop existing. Okay, do we see that? That’s a critical point. No matter how many names you call God, no matter how much you denigrate what God has done in the Bible, if it is true, God exists, period, end of story. You may or may not like him, you may or not be looking forward to that day of judgment to meet him, but God would still exist. So a mean God does not, will not, and will never disprove the idea of a God. Of course, secondly, we can study many times, and we have lessons in our sermon archive on is God genocidal, is God mean?

And we see how the scriptures show that God is holy. God exhorts his people to holiness like him. God is our standard. If you look at 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 16, you would expect to find a God who revealed how he is to be found to identify what it means to follow after him. And in both in the old and the New Testament, God sets forth the standard, and it’s exactly what we think it would be. In 1 Peter 1 and verse 16, Peter’s sight, since it is written, it was written first in Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 2, you shall be holy, for I am holy. The question becomes where did God get the idea of morality? What does it mean? Is everything God says good?

Does God make anything good? No. God is good. God is our standard. You see, we are to be holy as who is holy? God is. One of the most amazing things about music in the 21st century, besides the fact that I can log on to a computer and download a song within about a minute or two if my computer’s working correctly, is the fact that our quality has gone so high up that it sometimes makes listening to a live performance difficult. Because in a recording, what do you have? A lot of editing, a lot of making sure that the auto-tune is correct, people aren’t singing out of pitch. But when we go to a live show, what do we want to hear? We want to hear the performer sing his songs or her songs live.

We want to hear the vocal talent, the performance of the artist. How would you judge a recording? Based on how well it sounds like what? How well it sounds like the original. The more that a song, a recording track, sounds like the original, the better quality it is. Now I know there are some people will call you holdouts who like music from the 50s and 60s, the way it sounds kind of scratched up and such. Everyone has their brother-in-law, right? But as you think about the idea of a recording being high quality, of a recording being important to us, that we care about how it sounds. We care about does it sound like the original? We see the same idea with God. God says, what? Be holy, for I am holy.

Here’s what you’d expect to see if there is a holy good God. The more we conform to his image, the more we sound like the original, the perfect, the better we will be. Do we see that in our lives? Absolutely. When we are to love one another in John chapter 13 and verse 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love what? One another as I have first loved you. We are to love as Jesus has love and lay down his life for the brethren. We are to love because God is love and has first loved us. When we understand that objective morality not only comes from the Bible pages, but most importantly, it comes from God who inspired those pages to exist. We understand the secret to this life.

This is the secret we find in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verses 13 and 14. This is what Solomon realized. What is the whole duty of man? To fear God and to keep his commandments, knowing by the way, going back to Paul in Acts 17, what? That there is a judgment, that we will give an account of every deed, whether secret or an open, but we are to fear God and keep his commandments. We understand the idea of morality and the problems that a lack of standard or a subjective standard would pose. Anytime we walk around and we even have the thought, whether it’s incorrect or correct, that’s not fair. That somebody deserves good, somebody deserves punishment. We’re operating from a standard, whether it be subjective or objective.

Does anyone here want to be judged by the standards of centuries past? Does anyone here want to be subject to the standards of Germany in the 1910s in the 1920s, even in the 30s and 40s? If we can understand that that is objectively wrong, there’s not a single evolutionary process that would prove those actions to be incorrect. But our God has for centuries shown to be holy as he is holy, and the worst of mankind would have never happened if we assimilated to and matched the original. Imagine a world that operates on the principles of love, self-sacrifice, and concern for others, rather than greed, selfishness, and pride. We see when we succumb to the standard, when we trust in God, we understand not only that objective morality exists for a reason, and that is because God placed it there, but that we have to have God to understand who we are to be like.

4. Paul’s So What: He Will Judge the World

It’s no surprise then in John chapter 12, turn with me there in verse 48. In John chapter 12 and verse 48, not only will we be judged, but note the Bible lays out for us a clear standard by which we will be judged in John 12 and verse 48. Jesus says in verse 47, if anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. Verse 48 the one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. How will we be judged? According to the word of Jesus the Christ. Hey, Matthews, Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 1 and 2.

Hebrews chapter 1, long ago, at many times in many ways, God spoke to the fathers through the prophets. But now, verse 2, how does he speak to us? In these last days, he speaks to us through his Son. Who is his son? Jesus, the resurrected Christ. So we go back to Acts chapter 17 and we see Paul’s so what. Every message needs to have that so what. Why do I care? Why does it matter? Paul gave a so what to the Athenians, and that’s the so what for our lesson this morning. In Acts 17 and verse 29, being then God’s offspring, knowing that we came from God, that there is a creator, knowing that that creator has to be beyond us for this creation to make sense, that there has to be a cause to this world’s existence of an effect.

That there is a morality that we can succumb to. We ought not to think, verse 29, that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone and image by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now what does he say in verse 30? God commands people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed the day on which he will judge the world. How? In righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Again in verse 31, not only does God say it’s important to find me, to know who I am because there is a judgment, but how can you be sure? How can we know we will be judged by Jesus?

That we will be judged by the law of God in verse 32, and this he has given assurance to all by what? Raising him from the dead.

Conclusion

Hebrews 11 6 says, without faith, it is impossible to please him. But you must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. But as we think about the Bible and how Paul laid out the case to the Jews, and how Paul laid out a case to the Athenians, and that we will be judged by Jesus, we need to be struck by one awesome fact: that there is a God, and God has time, time and time again said, You can find me, you can know me by looking at what I’ve done. And what has God done? He created the heavens and the earth. The world that goes back to a single point, we know God was there when? In the beginning, He created the heavens and the earth.

We can believe that Jesus is the Christ, that there was of necessity, according to the Hebrew scriptures, a Messiah to come, to die on the cross for our sins, and how is he to be attested to us? As Peter says in Acts 2.36, this Jesus, who is both Lord and Christ, whom you crucified. The Jews knew who he was. They knew that God had raised him from the dead. God has shown himself in creation, he’s shown himself in Jesus. He has shown himself in our life all around to where we know that there must be an objective morality. We know that there is right and wrong. And that’s not even touching the hem of the garment of the idea of intelligent design. The fine-tuning that if any so many of our different functions that keep this world rolling and humming, suitable for life, that if they were off by less than a hair’s breadth, we would cease to exist to either direction.

Our God is alive. And we must find him. Will you go to God in prayer with me? Our dear God and mother.