Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.gracespringfield.com/sermons/42524/sunday-school-roger-phipps-from-creation-to-the-deluge/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Okay, good morning. We're glad to gather this morning. Oh, is there still a glare? I'm sorry about that.

[0:16] Yeah, it's perfect for you. I'm going to get the lights in a minute. We're not starting with this. This is just a distraction. Let's look to the Lord for his blessing this morning, please.

[0:36] Father, thanks so much for gathering us together and for the blessings you've given us. And as we look into your word, especially here in the beginning, we're reminded that the eternal God who created and sustains all of this loves us.

[0:54] And we are so very grateful. And as we think about these things, Lord, in your word, speak to our hearts.

[1:06] Help us to glory in you, to revel in our salvation, and to always live our lives so that we will not only be pleasing to you, but before the watching world, we will honor you.

[1:27] It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Okay, it's time for a little review prior to the examination.

[1:38] So, a little review. Where have we been? Let's start back. Okay, we have been in the beginning.

[1:51] And the big words there are important to me. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

[2:03] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. What can we observe from this creation? His majesty.

[2:15] Well, I guess we should observe that, but God being majestic is something of an inference I get from the observation, but we can observe a couple of things directly.

[2:33] Power. Power. Power. Creativity. That is, something had, it didn't, it didn't happen by accident.

[2:49] And I, you go out into a field, and you start digging a hole, and you find in there a couple of boards with nails in them.

[3:01] You expect that that happened by accident, right? What do you know? Automatically. Somebody put that together.

[3:15] And then I look at the complexity of just, just my hands. And I say, well, that happened by accident.

[3:30] So we, we, we know that there's an intelligence. I've forgotten his name. We have the VHS, so it's been around a while.

[3:42] We, we have the tape, but he, he, I believe he's Jewish, but he's a, he's a comedian and a commentator.

[3:56] And he, a few years ago, he, he did a film, and he called it No Intelligence Allowed. Ben Stein.

[4:06] Ben Stein. Ben Stein. And it's pretty telling. And this is years old. And 15 years.

[4:21] That there is a concerted effort to destroy or block anyone from university or, for that matter, most public school levels, from teaching if they do not wholeheartedly subscribe to the evolutionary disease.

[4:49] And I have debated, and some of you may have some input for me privately later. They're, they're, this, what I'm going to go to now is just a sample.

[5:04] This is done by Answers in Genesis. It, it was the show in their planetarium. Is it the current show? I don't remember.

[5:15] I think they updated it. But, this is, Nathan and his family will remind me, they were there six months ago.

[5:28] this is just a sample of this creation. And he made the stars also.

[5:47] Any comments? How many of those stars does he know? How many of those stars does he know? That astounds me.

[6:02] That astounds me. How many of us does he know? How many parts of me does he know?

[6:16] He knows every hair on your head and every hair that used to be there. Well, that's only, that's funny and I intended it to be so, but it's also astounding.

[6:32] It's astounding. And since God is omniscient, he hasn't forgotten any of it.

[6:43] And yet, this is probably, by the way, and I'm going to, I'm going to make a pitch if you ever get a chance to go to the Creation Museum, go.

[6:56] But, this is probably the most emotionally moving to me of anything I got to see there. Just simply because of the rapidity, I think, and the vastness.

[7:14] But, the amazing thing about Creation is, it goes the other way. It goes microcosmically as far as it goes this way.

[7:25] It's, is it not? It, I can't even comprehend, begin to comprehend. And, and, comprehending the distances.

[7:40] And, that's just what they've cataloged thus far. So, that's, that's why I played it. Just, just to, to get a picture of that.

[7:52] Okay. So, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So, we know something. And, I was just reminded about the power and infinity of the God that we gathered here today.

[8:15] We, we gathered as a church to encourage one another. But, because we have a like precious faith in this God.

[8:26] And, in what he has done. So, let's look at that just a moment, please. When you're in the planetarium, it's even more.

[8:43] Oh. Because it's all in the sky. yeah. And, and it's, it's, it's, I don't want to use the term globular, but it is a, it's, you're surrounded.

[8:56] It's a, there's a word that they use for those kinds of theaters. But it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, you're, you're looking at it, you're looking at it from the inside of a sphere looking, looking against the wall of the sphere so that it, you get a very three-dimensional feel to it.

[9:22] Oh. It's a panoramic view. It's panoramic view and it's pretty, pretty exciting. Okay. Would we, let's look just briefly at a couple of verses just as reminder.

[9:38] We have looked at these before but these are reminders. Most, now we know, we know what about natural revelation.

[9:48] What can we know from the created universe? Intelligence of, of the creator creator.

[10:03] So, first of all, I know there is a creator and that he's, he's pretty smart.

[10:16] Of course, I'm going to forget that quickly, am I not? just as a reminder and I know you're, you're familiar with it.

[10:30] Let's say I'm with the children of Israel and I had just come out of Egypt and I'm down here in, in the red sea. I know I'm jumping several chapters away.

[10:41] I realize that. But, I'm down here. I, God has purposely led us into a trap. Or, at least from my perspective, it's into a trap.

[10:56] Because, instead of getting away and heading down the highway, he said, no, you turn down here and go into the wilderness and now I'm hemmed in by the mountains and the, the sea.

[11:13] And God tells Moses as Moses is crying out to God, what do I do? What do I do? God says, why are you praying about it now?

[11:25] He said, stretch out your hand. And so Moses stretched out the rod and what happens? The sea parts and they cross.

[11:39] And now, they turn around and here come the chariots and the armies of Pharaoh. And what does, what happens now?

[11:55] The sea, the sea no longer is parted. The sea comes back together. And then I turn around and forever I'm walking with the Lord and trusting him.

[12:07] Because that was a pretty big deal, right? How long did it take me to start complaining again? Do you remember? Three days. You can check that out if, you can check it out.

[12:23] In three days I'm complaining again. I'm glad God's memory is a lot better than mine. I'm glad his faithfulness is better than mine.

[12:38] by the way, in this dispensation, when we can come to God through Jesus Christ and just by believing that what God said is true and that what Christ did, Christ is who he says he is and that by believing that what he did which was die for me so that he became sin for me so that I might become the righteousness of God in him.

[13:22] By the way, God does not accept everybody, does he? it says that I'm accepted in the beloved. So, yes, anyone can come, but the only ones who are accepted, that is eternally accepted, are those who trust what Christ did on the cross.

[13:47] that's why it is so important that churches never forget the foundational doctrine of substitutional atonement, right?

[14:01] Without the substitution, I'm on my own. We're still in our sins. And, at the great judgment, I'm going to stand on my own without Christ.

[14:18] And, the wonderful thing is, in Christ, we're not going to be there. We're not going to stand in that judgment. Because, in that white throne judgment, the books will be open, and every man will, in fact, be judged according to his deeds.

[14:38] By the way, when I start thinking about how good I am, and how much I deserve God's benefits, without Christ, it's going to be a rude awakening, and it will be too late, won't it?

[14:57] So, today, that's why Peter says today's the day of salvation, right? Don't wait around, don't wait around. Okay, but, let's look, just briefly, at Isaiah, chapter 57, verse 15, or the first portion of verse 15, this is about God.

[15:18] Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabited eternity, whose name is holy. Two things there, regarding what we've just seen.

[15:31] The high and lofty one who inhabits what? Okay, so, God exists in and of himself.

[15:43] Now, this part we don't get from natural revelation other than infer it. The creator of the universe can't be part of the universe, right?

[15:54] That's why he's holy. He's separate from it. So, the creator, he does not create himself. He has always existed, quite outside of time.

[16:10] 1 Timothy chapter 6, Paul writing to Timothy uses this blessing. It's 1 Timothy 6.16.

[16:21] I know this is review. Writing about God, God only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach to.

[16:34] whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. God inhabits eternity, and he's the only one that has or does exist eternally, quite separate from time.

[16:53] I know, my head doesn't get around that. How did Michelangelo portray God on the Sistine Chapel? when he painted, remember, you've seen the picture of creation, the fingers?

[17:13] What did God look like? An old man! What almost every representation I remember seeing, even in the illustrated Bibles that we used to have a while ago, right?

[17:34] Even in those, the pictures, if they portrayed God at all, they portrayed him as an old man. He's not an old man. He's ageless, and he's not a man, by the way.

[17:47] So, those things I can see from creation and from revelation. And then it's important to remember about Christ.

[18:00] In the beginning, John 1, 1, you know this one, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word, and through him, all things that exist were made.

[18:17] right? Nothing exists, so this is Christology. So, this has to do with God the Son and God the Father.

[18:30] So, Christ is active in creation. And, I'm going to have to end our review with this, but I want it, it impresses me, this creator God.

[18:50] And, I'm going to use the word before creation, because I can't get out of time. Yes? You said that God was not a man.

[19:01] What is your proof? Because he created man in his image. Okay, so he's not a human.

[19:19] Right. Well, he became a man. He took, he, being found in the form of a man, he humbled himself.

[19:39] Then, so there would be one man that exists eternally. God is a supreme being. He created man on earth in his own image.

[19:52] Right. You said he's not a man. Right. What's your fruit? Okay, well, that's okay.

[20:06] I, I, I, okay, I should, I should look that up. Someone who has, who has a, a concordance at hand can look that up.

[20:22] There is a scripture, I think it's in Isaiah, that says God is not a man, that he should change his mind. I can't tell you the verse right now.

[20:34] But he does say of himself, God is not a man. God. So, back to Christ.

[20:47] Christ not only is active in creation, but from the foundation, and I, once again, I'll go back to using time because my head can't, I don't have any words to describe outside of this, yet before creation, from the foundations, the Lamb was slain.

[21:09] creation. So, in, before God created, he saw the fall that we just are going to revisit next week, God willing.

[21:23] He saw the fall, and he had already planned what's going to happen, and what he's going to do. I find great comfort in that, especially as I've looked at this, and considered the magnitude of God, and from the foundation, he said, I'm going to not only create this world, I'm going to save this world.

[21:53] He will be just and the justifier. Have a great morning, and before we dismiss, John. Okay, read it for us, please.

[22:05] I'm just lost. But it does say that I'm not a man, but I should lie. Right. Numbers .390. Pardon?

[22:17] Numbers .390. Oh, numbers. Numbers. Also, for people who are interested, Tuesday morning, I think it's morning, but look it up for sure, there's going to be a total lunar eclipse on Tuesday.

[22:35] Yeah. Yeah, I looked it up in the middle of the night last night. I woke up and saw the moon, and I remember hearing about it, and so I don't remember the exact time that there's a total lunar eclipse on the day.

[22:51] this coming Tuesday? Yeah. I heard it was about four anymore. It's about four? I think it starts, you know, a lunar eclipse takes a long time, not like the sun.

[23:06] Right. So it starts like 1230 or one o'clock, and then it goes quite a long time. That was completely good. Well, enjoy it.

[23:17]  Um, if you