The Uncreated Creator

Romans 1, beginning in verse 18. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

! Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their heart to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised.

Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged the natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.

They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them.

Well, we began last week a new series of sermons on the topic of the attributes of God. A mammoth study to undertake. The God that is.

As soon as we're aware that there is a God, our first great concern must be to find out what He is like. And that depends on who you talk to.

There is God as Satan says He is. From the beginning, He was a liar. And He has been filling the earth with this slanderous propaganda about God.

He's been telling people what God is like. One of His versions of God is that God's a killjoy. He's out to ruin your life.

He's out to make your life miserable. And He does it by those restrictive laws, His commands that He gives in the Bible. He's not interested in your good.

He doesn't want you to be self-fulfilled and live a meaningful life. God. As Satan says He is.

But then there is God as man thinks Him to be. All men have their own ideas about God. We hear them. We hear them talk, don't we?

I think God is like... Watch out. I think God is like this. I think God should be like that. It's God as He exists in their imaginations.

It's God created in their own minds. And this God varies from person to person. But He's always and ever a shrunk down model from the living and true God.

A diminished God. A manageable God. A God that we can handle and live with. And so, one of the popular views of God that man has today is that He's a casual and a carefree sort of God.

The old grandfather image of God. He doesn't see well. He doesn't hear well. A God that doesn't make too many demands.

Whose attitude towards people is live and let live. Totally irrelevant to us. He judges no one. Condemns no one. Interferes with no one.

And a God who takes all people to heaven when they die. Especially children. Man's tendency is to make God in our own image.

To bring Him down to our level. After all, this is what I would do. So God should do that. In Psalm 50, God has a word for the wicked.

You thought I was altogether like you, He says. Well, you thought wrong. Because I'm not like you. There is none like me, He says.

And so we must learn to distrust our own thoughts about God. We must not put stock in what we think God ought to be.

Or how He ought to work. Or how He ought to act in our world and in my life. That's why Luther said to the Renaissance scholar.

The great thinker. The great human thinker. Erasmus. Your thoughts of God are far too human. Paul said it to the thinkers of his day. Man by his wisdom did not know God.

All the man's wisdom. Plato and Aristotle. And all the great thinkers. By their combined wisdom. Did not find God out. And come to know Him as He is.

And even though God has revealed Himself in nature all around us. Romans 1 has taught us that men have suppressed that knowledge. They've perverted it. They've rejected it. They've said, we don't want it.

The knowledge of God that they had. So there's God as Satan says He is. There's God as man thinks He is. And then there's God.

God as He is. God as God says He is. I don't know about you. But I don't want to know this God.

As Satan paints Him. Or as man imagines Him. I want to know the real God. I want to know the God I'm going to stand before one day in judgment.

And give an account of my life. I want to know that God. When all shadows from the truth will fall. And all men will see Him as He is.

And will bow and confess. That Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Children, there is a living God.

There is a living God. And blessed be His name. He has told us what He is like. In a book. And we have that book in our own language.

God revealing Himself. In the scriptures. To us. This book is not man's gropings after God. It's not the Apostle Paul's thoughts about God.

It's not Moses' thought about God. No. This is revelation. This is God telling man. What He is like through His servants. The prophets. And the apostles. This is where we meet God.

As He really is. Are you reading your Bibles? This is where you meet Him. This is where you see Him. As He really is. Oh then scour it. From beginning to end.

Word for word. Read it over and over. How sad that some of you are receiving more of the world's ideas about God. From your music. And your movies.

And your friends. Than you are from God Himself. This is where you meet Him. This is where He tells us. What He is like. Then scour the book.

And cry out for illumination. Open my eyes. That I may see. I want to see your glory Lord. I want to see who you are. What you are like. Take the blinders from my eyes.

Give me a heart to know you as you really are. So we come to the Bible. To be taught to think about God. And as we open our Bibles to the very first page.

We come to the first verse. Of the first book. And we find that God is introducing Himself to us. You know it.

You don't need to turn to it. Say it with me. Genesis 1. 1. In the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.

Now evidently this is very important. Because it is God's own introduction. To who He is. God's very first words to man. In the beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth. And He goes on for the next two chapters. Talking about this wonderful God.

And His glorious creation. There was nothing. And He spoke. And there it was in six days. All made by His hand. In the beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth. It's like God is saying right up front. If you're going to understand me. If you're even going to understand yourself.

The world you live in. If you're going to understand the rest of this book. The whole of the Bible. Then you must get it clear from the start. I am the uncreated creator of all things.

The uncreated creator of all things. In the beginning. God. Have you thought about those words lately?

In the beginning. God. Not talking about the beginning of God. But the beginning of the universe. The beginning of all else. That He made.

In the beginning. At the outset of creation. God was already on the scene. Except you can't even say that. Because there was no scene. There was no time. There was no place.

There was no space. There was nothing. Nothing that is. But God. God. God the Father. God the Son. God the Holy Spirit. Living. In unity.

In harmony. In the beginning. God was there. He predates creation then.

Doesn't He? As Colossians 1.17 says. He is before all things. And in Him all things hold together. Before all things. So. In the beginning.

God tells us. God is eternal. We learn that right from the beginning. Don't we? God is eternal. Now. Eternity is a mind boggling thought.

I remember as a child. Lying in bed at night. And thinking about eternity. And I would tremble. At the thought. I would let my little pea brain mind.

Go as far as I can. When I grow up. I'll be an old man. And then someday I'll die. And then. Then I'll be in heaven or hell. And then. A million years will go by. And I'll still be there.

And another million. Billions. And I go. I would think. There will never be a time. When I will cease to be. And it shuddered me. It just made me.

Have goosebumps. Eternity. The mind cannot comprehend it. Well now I was thinking of eternity. Future. Wasn't I? Now put your mind in reverse. And go the other way.

And think back. Backwards in time. Think back. To where there was no you. Some of you got to go back. Five years. Fifty years. Seventy years. You didn't exist.

Think back. 231 years. Our nation did not exist. Go back. Four to six thousand years.

There's only two people on the earth. Adam and Eve. And go back six days. And nothing.

Exists. Except God. At the ballpark. One Saturday morning. Watching a ball team. Warm up. Half the team here. The other there. Throwing back and forth.

Talking like kids talk. One hollers to the other. Where'd that come from? Well he says well. It came from this. It came from that. And then where? And he keeps pushing them back.

And finally the kid says. Well God made it. And the other kid then. Had the trump card. And who made God? He said it with an air of superiority.

As if he got him there. You say. And who made God? And the coach spoke up. And says. Nobody made God. He's always been. Dead right?

He's always been. He's always been. Never a begin. Without beginning or ending of days. The everlasting Father. For before the mountains were born.

Or the hills were brought forth. From everlasting to everlasting. You are God. You see it? From everlasting. Eternity in reverse. To everlasting.

Eternity in forward. You are God. You are God. God. And it is this God. This eternal God.

Who we are told in the next word. Created. the heavens and the earth. Now I say this is something huge.

This is something of first importance. We've not got to first base in knowing God until by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Hebrews 11.3 God meets us right up front. Genesis 1.1 with His Creatorhood. But it's not just Genesis 1.1 it's Romans 1, isn't it?

We read it there. And it's Colossians 1 and it's John 1 and it's Hebrews 1 and it's Revelation 1. It's shot right through our Bibles.

God keeps bringing us back to who He is and He's the same one that He introduced at the very first verse in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. By the way, children, heavens and the earth are just the Bible word for the universe.

All that exists. All that God has made. And God is the one who made it all. In other words, it tells me God would be known as the Creator of all things.

He wants Himself to be known by this. It is the name by which He's often identified in Scripture as the Maker, the Creator. Abraham knew Him in Genesis 14 as the Lord, God Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth.

In Psalm 115.15, the people of God bless one another by this name. May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. In Revelation 10.6, the angel swore, quote, by Him who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it.

Him who created it. That's the name God goes by. That's the identification. And there are too many references to read this morning. We can come to no other conclusion than this.

That this is how God wants to be known to man. As the uncreated creator of all that exists. Now this was part of the message that he put in the mouth of the apostles to take to the heathen world.

In Acts chapter 14 and verse 15, Paul and Barnabas come to Lystra and they heal a man lame from birth and then the whole town is ready to offer sacrifices to them as gods. And Paul and Barnabas said, Men, why are you doing this?

We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news and telling you to turn from these worthless things. That's what he calls their idols. These gods. These worthless things to the living God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.

That's the message sent to the world. A little while later, Paul makes his way to Athens. Idolatrous Athens. And he finds that there are altars to all sorts of gods. He even finds an altar to the unseen God.

And he says, Now what you worship is something unknown. I'm going to proclaim to you. Listen up. This is the God that you don't know. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth.

He does not live in temples built by hands and he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

You must know this about the living God. He made the heavens and the earth. Creation is proof that there's none like him. There's none like God.

And exhibit number one is creation. Listen to the way the Bible puts it. Nehemiah 9.6 You alone are the Lord who made the heavens even the highest heavens and all their starry hosts the earth and all that is on it the seas and all that is in them You give life to everything and the multitudes of heaven worship You.

Isaiah 45.18 For this is what the Lord says He who created the heavens He is God. He who fashioned and made the earth He founded it He did not create it to be empty but formed it to be inhabited.

He says I am the Lord and there is no other. Creation shows there's none like Him. I mean there was nothing.

Who else was there when there was nothing but God? He has no equals. He who can speak and the universe springs into being with such intricacies as the human cell with such largeness as the universe that men cannot find the ends of.

creation shows He is absolutely unique set apart from all comers that goes not only for human beings but for other gods as well.

For all the gods of the nations are but idols but the Lord made the heavens Psalm 96 Don't you like that? For all the idols or for all the gods of the nations are idols but Jehovah made the heavens.

Enough said. Moving on. Who can you compare me to? Jeremiah 10 contrasts the worthless idols of the nations with the true and living God and he's got a message for the idol worshipping nations.

Tell them this these gods who did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens but God made the earth by His power He founded the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.

He goes on to call the idols worthless frauds but He who is the portion of Jacob is not like these for He is the maker of all things.

You're getting the flavor of the Bible. God wants Himself to be known as the creator of all things. It's something He's very proud of.

It's something He's very jealous of. This is part of that glory that He will not share with another. It's His boast. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these?

It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens. I marshaled their starry hosts. Well, folks, we just get a concordance and you will see that it is a huge thing to God that He's the creator.

the uncreated creator of all things. Now, we've got two parts to our message. The first part we've just seen. The fact that God is the creator is very important to God.

We're moving into the second part. It ought to be very important to us. It carries certain implications. It carries certain applications to it.

Remember what we said when we started this study. We're not just interested in our theoretical view of God, but we're interested in our practical, our functional view of God. What's the God that I'm living with in my mind when I go to work in the morning, when I have this problem in my family?

We're going to talk now about our functional view of God. I trust every one of you believe that God, the uncreated God, is the maker of heaven and earth. I trust you've not listened to the evolutionists.

I trust you've not been moved by them to say that God is not the one who in six days created things by the breath of his mouth out of nothing. But it's not enough to say I believe God's the maker of all.

What are the implications? What difference does it make in our lives? And I've only had time to scratch the surface. There's dozens of them. Make for good fellowship after the service with each other tonight as we gather.

If God is the creator. Then so what? Well, number one implication. That means God has ownership rights over you.

Means you are his and he can do with you whatever he wants to do, whatever pleases him. You read in the early part of our history about folks that went out and made a claim for a certain ground.

They said, this is mine. Well, in Psalm 24 and verse 1, God is staking a claim. It says, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. This is mine.

And he's got his arms around the whole earth and everything in it. Mine. And so we must ask, on what basis? On what basis can you claim that the earth and everything in it is yours?

The answer is creation. Creation. I made it. I made it. It's mine. Drill that principle through your head.

The principle is this, that he who made it has creator rights to it. He owns it. Psalm 95, 4 and 5.

The mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his for he made it. Psalm 95, 5.

The sea is his because he made it and his hand formed the dry ground. There's the principle. It's his because he made it. Now, you've got to apply that to yourself because I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that you would fit into this category of the earth being the Lord's and everything in it.

You all are on the earth. You're his. You're his because he made you. He made you. And so he has the right to rule over you and it's grounded in creation.

Your life is not your own to do with as you please. He has ownership rights. And that is why when you open his book and start reading and he tells you who he is, that he's made you, you'll also find very soon after he gives you commands.

He tells you how to live and what not to do and what to do and what not to think and what to think. I mean, he gets right down into your lives and tells you about everything, what you must do and not do.

And the reason he can do that is because he made you and has a right to rule over you. And you're accountable to him and that accountability is rooted in creation.

But you say, what if this is not my view of God? What if I don't believe he's made me? Doesn't change God. Let Satan paint a picture of God. Let man imagine God what they will.

But God is God. just as Pharaoh. There he is, that Egyptian Pharaoh. I'm sure he had other cosmologies than the Hebrew Bible.

He didn't believe God, Jehovah, Yahweh created the heavens and the earth. They had their own explanation for how the earth came into being. And so here comes Moses and Aaron, servants of the Most High God.

And they go to Pharaoh and they said, what? This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, let my people go so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert. And Pharaoh says, who is Yahweh that I should obey him and let Israel go?

I do not know Yahweh and I will not let Israel go. So God gave him a ten point lesson on who Yahweh is. He is the creator and all creation knows creator's Lord.

Not only do the winds and the waves obey him, but so do the frogs and the flies and the locusts and the gnats and the boils and the plagues and the hail and the heavens and human bodies.

They all answer to the Lord, their maker. Woe to him who quarrels with his maker.

That should be written on Pharaoh's tombstone. Woe to him. Judgment to him who quarrels with his maker. And yet some of you are quarreling with your maker.

You're not submitting to his will. He's given you commands and you say, I don't want to do that. I want to do this. And you're trying to carve out life for yourself your way rather than submitting to the commandments that God Almighty has given your creator and Lord.

you are quarreling with your maker. You've turned your back on him and you've gone your own way. Woe to you. Judgment to you. Woe to him who quarrels with his maker.

Because to fight against the maker of all things is to lose. No, rather than fight against your maker, remember your creator in the days of your youth.

Ecclesiastes 12.1. Now children, here's a word especially to you. Did you hear your name there? Remember your creator in the days of your youth. Children, youth, that means young while you're a little guy, you're a little girl.

And while you're little, your creator says, remember me. Do you know you're quarreling with your maker if you have not trusted in him to save you? Do you know if you've said to yourself, I'll put it off.

When I get older, then I'll serve God. Then I'll trust in Jesus. Then I'll obey him. Then I'll serve him. To procrastinate and to put off Christ is to quarrel with your maker.

Woe to you. Rather, remember your creator. When? In the days of your youth. That's right now. Right now is the call from your creator. All things were created by him and for him.

Colossians 1.16. Kids, you exist for him. You were made by him and you were made for him. And your purpose for living then is wrapped up in God the creator.

You'll never make sense of life until you come to terms with this. He made you for himself. Gladly live for him. Don't live your lives one day more out of touch with the greatest reality of all.

this God who in the beginning created all things and made you. Well, that's the first implication. And can you see how it grows out of creation? God has creator rights over you.

Ownership rights because he made you. But secondly, since God is the creator of all, you ought to be thanking God a whole lot. You ought to be thanking God a whole lot.

What do you enjoy of created things? What do you enjoy of created things? Well, we don't have time to enumerate, do we?

We do so on Thanksgiving service very often. But we need to be doing it more often than that. How often do you stop and thank the creator for all those created pleasures that you enjoy?

1 Timothy 4 and verses 3-5. Paul's warning Timothy, the man of God, about doctrines of demons. Doctrines and teachings that have their home in hell.

They've come from the devil and his cohorts. And one of them was forbidding people the right use of created things. They forbid people to marry and they order them to abstain from certain foods.

Must not eat this. Must not eat that. Must not be married. Which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.

For everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. Created to be received with thanksgiving.

That's a pregnant line that deserves some meditation. Why God create the dog created to be received with thanksgiving.

Why God make that tree make this tree different from that tree created to be received with thanksgiving. all day long every day of our lives we're using the creator's stuff.

We're walking on his earth. We're breathing his air. We're enjoying the warmth of his sunshine. The coolness of his breeze. we eat his food. We drink his water. We use his clothing in shelter.

We watch his birds. We play with his animals. We enjoy his institution of marriage and the family and friends and the body that he made. And all these things were created by God not to be denied but to be received with thanksgiving.

That's why he made them. Received. with the grateful acknowledgement that he is the creator and giver of them. Children, that's why we stop before we eat and we bow our heads and we fold our hands perhaps or we hold hands.

Whatever we do, we talk to God the creator and we thank him. Lord, this food on my plate, thank you for it. You're the creator that causes the earth to spring forth with such verdancy and blessed fruitfulness that it has good things for me to eat.

Created to be received with thanksgiving. So if you really believe God's the creator of all things, well then you ought to be found a whole lot of the time giving thanks to God.

Thirdly, if God is the creator, what is the wickedness of those who refuse to acknowledge God as creator? Those who deny the very thing that God says is so important, that reveals his glory, that which he is so proud of, they would rob God of this, tear the crown from his head.

Oh, but we're just unbiased scientists seeking for the answers to the origins of our universe. You know what Romans 1 says to that?

Hogwash. There are no unbiased scientists in the world. Read Romans 1. Think over what we saw there.

God has made himself known as the creator of his creation. Read it. Romans 1, 19, 20. How has God made himself known as the creator?

By the things that have been created since creation. He's made himself known as the uncreated creator. His eternal power and Godhead.

But although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1 says the evidence is there sufficient to condemn them. There is enough evidence there that men are without excuse, verse 20, and yet though they had the evidence and though it's all in front of them, whether they're looking through a telescope to the heavens or a microscope into the earth, it all says the hand that made me is divine.

It's God, the uncreated creator. And man says I'd rather not hang on to that knowledge. And men suppress that truth and push it down and they pervert it and they twist it and said that the God who created us is like a beast, a bird, a creeping reptile of the earth.

But two things they would not do. They would not give God the glory he deserves as creator and they would not thank him for the creation.

What must be the wickedness of men who reject who reject the glory of God's work of creation.

No wonder Romans 1.18 says that the wrath of God is being revealed against them. So this is why the Bible doctrine of God creating the world in six days is under attack.

It's why Darwinian evolution is such a revered theory. It removes God from his world. And if God is gone and is not creation's maker and Lord, then we're not accountable to him.

You see it? I'm his because he made me. He has the right to tell me how to live because he made me. But if he didn't make me, I don't have to answer to anyone but me.

And men would rather live that way. There's a part of me that would rather live that way. It's called the flesh. Young people don't let the many textbooks and all the scientists move you from this view of God.

We expect them to deny God as being creator. We expect them to suppress the truth that they know about God. We expect them to pervert it and twist it.

We expect them to reject Genesis 1 and 2. Why? Romans 1 tells us that's the fallen, sinful nature of men. We've read Romans 1.

Fallen man is prejudice against God as creator. They deliberately forgot that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.

But we by faith, by faith, we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Fourth, if God is creator, how encouraging this is for the believer in times of need. I mean, this thing goes both ways, doesn't it?

It shows the wickedness of those who reject God as creator, and it shows the comforts and encouragements for those who believe it.

Here we are. And if we believe it, it's by faith, and a faith that was given to us by God, the fact that God is creator is often set forth as comfort in the scripture for the believer.

Everyone needs help. You know that. Everyone needs help. Life is such in this fallen world that at some point in some time and place in your life, you're going to need help.

Some of you kids, you don't think you need help. You don't realize all the help you're getting from mom and dad. You need help. But all of us need help. Now, what kind of help do we have?

You know, when some people need help, they run to the bottle and they drink away their sorrows. Others shoot themselves up with drugs or pop the pills. Others run to their bank and their money and they use their money and lean on their money.

Their idols, their superstitions, expecting good luck. Their help comes from all these things. Where does our help come from?

The psalmist asked the question. He says, you want to know where my help comes from? Psalm 121. My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Isn't that something?

Not just from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Tremendous comfort to think about that. The one who is my helper is the maker of heaven and earth. Had the Lord not been on our side?

He says in Psalm 124. Why? We'd have been crushed. It'd have been over for. But the Lord was on our side. And our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

124. 8. And Psalm 146. 6. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. the one who created the billions of billions of stars and has such knowledge that he calls them each by name and such power that he brings them all out at their appointed places and keeps them in their own space.

That God is more than able to help me in any difficulty in my life. My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth and all that he has made still responds to the creation's Lord.

Okay, so there's this guy in my life and he's given me grief and he's under my creator. And so I go talk to the maker about him. And this situation is presenting a temptation in my life.

He's Lord overall. I can go talk to him about it. There's nothing, you see, no problem in my life that he doesn't reign over. What a comfort to me.

So where are you presently needing help? Where are you feeling your weakness and inadequacies? So do you need help in your job, your family, your ministry, your witness, some difficult sin, some difficult providence to live through?

Well, here it is. The maker of heaven and earth is your helper. Make use of him as such. You know, he delights to be made use of as the maker of heaven and earth, the helper of his people.

And our safety and well-being is secure in his hands so that in 1 Peter, when Peter's talking to others who are being persecuted for their faith, and they're suffering not because of their own blunders of sin and rudeness, they're suffering because they're a Christian.

Peter has this closing word to them, commit yourself to your faithful creator and continue to do good.

Just commit yourself to your faithful creator. Oh, that would flood the mind with thoughts of this great creator God with all of his resources of power and wisdom, goodness and kindness and creativity, and it's all working for me.

Commit yourself to this faithful creator. He rules over your persecutors. He rules over your problems. So that means when we feel our need for help, we need to remember who our God is.

He's the maker of heaven and earth. You say, I know that, but there are days that you live as if it were not true. There are periods of your life where you are living so out of touch with who this God that is yours in Christ is.

He's the maker of heaven and earth. And that's our great need, you see, in our study of God, to get it into our minds and hearts and our very fabric so that when life happens, we look to the Lord who is this great creator of heaven and earth.

2nd Kings chapter 19, there's Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and he receives a letter from the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, and he's brought his big army and he's got Jerusalem surrounded and he's threatening their destruction and he's on a roll.

Every nation he's come to, he's just mowed over and now he's barking on Jerusalem's door and he sends a letter to Hezekiah, don't think your God's going to save you from me.

None of the gods of the nations could save them from me. And Hezekiah takes the letter and he spreads it out before the Lord. You see, Hezekiah is talking to someone when he prays.

Look, Lord, look what they're saying about you. He believes the God of prayer and he says, O Lord, how does he address him? O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of earth.

You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to the words Sennacherib is sent to insult the living God.

There was in the very thoughts of this man under such a pinch, the remembrance that his God created all things. And he goes and he pleads with this God, creation's Lord, to sway the scepter in their behalf.

And it happened. One angel sent and 185,000 are slain and mighty Sennacherib has a hook in his nose. He's taken back home and there he's killed by his own two sons one day in his temple to his false God.

But the situation was impossible. There was no way out. They were outnumbered. They were surrounded. You made the heavens and the earth. It is nothing for you to do this.

Now we need that kind of functional view of God in our days. There's the church in Acts chapter 4 and they're being persecuted and threatened by Jewish leaders.

Peter and John have been commanded by Jewish leaders not to speak or teach any more in the name of Jesus. Oh, but Jesus, Lord of heaven and earth, told us to go and preach in his name.

No, you must not preach in his name. So what do they do? They go back to the church. They come on Wednesday night and they said, folks, we've got a problem. Our great Jehovah Jesus tells us to preach Christ to the nations and these rulers of Israel have told us not to preach or teach any more in his name.

Oh, let's pray, brethren. Let's pray. And they joined together in corporate prayer and they said, Sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything and that's where they start.

That's where they started praying. And from there, they're able to ask this God who made everything to do for them. Stretch out your hands now and perform wonders. Come and give us boldness.

And the God who made the heavens and the earth answered by shaking the place where they were praying. He is the God who made heaven and earth. And we need to think of him as such when we are in need of help.

Make use of him as your creator. Act faith in him as such. It is our forgetting for the moment that our God is the creator that is the explanation of many of our fears and our worries.

I've yet to face a worry or fear and I've got many of them that would not be answered by thinking of God my creator, maker of heaven and earth.

Seeing his grandeur, seeing how big he is. This God who knows every star by name, who knows every sheep in the fold by name, who knows my name, who knows the number of the hairs on my head.

This is my God. Turn to Isaiah 51. I don't like these messages where we run all over the Bible and you don't get to open your Bibles at all, but at least turn to this passage, Isaiah 51.

Perhaps you can give some further thought to it, but it's again God talking to his people in great need and they've got a powerful ruler that's threatening them and it's interesting how we are to meet our fears in light of creation.

Isaiah 51, 12 and 13. I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men?

The sons of men who are the spirit of the Lord, your maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. That you live in terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor who is bent on destruction.

You see, our fear of man shows that for the moment we're being forgetful of who God is. And how many times during a week do I forget who God is? For the moment I've forgotten that God is the maker.

And he comes to us here and he's got a question. Who are you that you're afraid of mortal men? Who are you that you forget me, the Lord your maker, who made the heavens and the earth?

You see, he's coming to us and he's reasoning with us. He's saying, time out here. Time out. You need to remember who I am. Lift your eyes, look to the heavens. Get on your hands and knees and look at that flower.

Look at that blade of grass. Study it. Who made all these? I am your God. Who are you that you forget the Lord your maker?

Stop and look at his sunset. Examine that hummingbird at the feeder. God is wanting us to live with a sense of his being our creator.

We forget him is to live without a sense of who he is and what he's done and it forfeits the peace and the confidence that could be ours. If we would but remember that our God is the maker of heaven and earth.

And lastly, give glory fifthly to God for his creation. Give him glory. Speak about his creating. In class, kids, in public school, where his glory is often given to evolution, just a time and a chance.

In the university, where evolution is almost everywhere assumed to be true, where belief in the creator could cost professors tenure in promotions, where students believing it are thought as scientifically retarded.

There, glorify your God for creation. Tell others that he created the heavens and the earth in six days. Be bold to speak of his glory in the very teeth of those who would rob God of his glory.

And then sing of it. Sing of it. It's to his glory and praise to have his people sing of his creative power. You notice our hymnal has many hymns on creation.

Good that they do because that's one of the chief ways God has revealed his glory in the earth. Sing of it. The Psalms call us to such to praise him.

When we get to heaven, what do we find the folks in heaven doing Revelation 4.11? You're worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things.

That's why. You're worthy just for creating us. They go on to sing of you're worthy because by your blood you have purchased men for God. You're worthy because you've redeemed us. We're twice yours. You've made us and you redeemed us.

Do you know this great creator is going to make a new creation someday? This creation has been marred by sin. We sang of it from the overhead, didn't we?

Someday this great creator is going to make a new heavens and a new earth. And he's already begun making new people to populate that new heavens and earth.

Did you know that? That's coming in the future. When he comes back, he'll make a new heavens and new earth. But you know what? He's already started making a new people, a new race, to populate the new heavens and the new earth.

Maybe he didn't read about it in the paper this morning. Maybe the news missed it. I don't know. But our Bibles talk about it. If any man be in Christ, he is what?

He's a new creation. He's one of those new creations that will be found in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth. Indeed, all things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. This is your creator. And he doesn't need to work with man in this business of creating, does he? There wasn't anyone there to work with him in the first creation.

Do you know there's no one there to work with him in the second creation? We're dead in sins. He doesn't say, come on, you come halfway and all go the other half. No. No. He speaks and light comes into being where there was no light.

And there is no faith in the heart and he gives faith and creates faith. And there's no repentance in the heart, no desire to turn from sin, and he gives repentance. He creates it in the hearts of men.

Now, this is the kind of savior you need, a creating savior. Because if you're honest, my sinner friend, you're going to have to be, you're going to have to confess that you don't have a heart for God.

You want your way. You want your things. You don't want to obey his commands. You don't have a new heart. heart. The gospel is, is that Jesus is the one who gives new hearts, who creates new hearts.

And you just need to be honest with him and say, Lord, I don't have what you require. But create in me a clean heart.

Oh, God, you create it in me. And blessed be God, he never turns any away.

Come to him. Become one of those new creation waiting to walk into that new heavens and new earth when the savior returns.

Let's pray. Almighty God, our maker, we ask you to open our eyes and show us the wonder of your glory in the creation around us.

We ask you to forgive us for the many times we've forgotten that. times even that perhaps we've repressed it and pushed it out. Oh, come and not let us forget it.

It's not like we don't have reminders. Lord, you surrounded us with your creation. We bump into it every moment. We swim in it. We breathe in it. Oh, then remind us of you yourself, the creator.

May it deepen our thanksgiving. May it strengthen our confidence and drive away our fears. May it cause us to bring you glory and praise as it's meant to do.

Oh, Lord, how we thank you that you without whom anything was made that was made. You, the great uncreated creator, should become a creature and become a man and die on the cross for our sins.

We might not only sing of the might of your creation, but of the grace of your salvation. So receive us and bless us for Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen.