Sermon Central
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Jehovah - The One And Only Series
Contributed by Jerry Shirley on Jul 9, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: 1. The Proclamation 2. The Prohibition 3. The Plea. God’s first commandment must be received Submissively, Sincerely, and Scripturally. Link inc. to formatted text, audio, and PowerPoint.
Jehovah: The One and Only
http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/JehovahOneAndOnly.html
I. A Proclamation.
v. 2 “I am the Lord” – a statement of the reality of God. For centuries scientists and philosophers have tried to ‘establish’ the existence of God. But nowhere does the Bible make attempt to prove God’s existence. The Bible simply asserts His existence. Genesis 1:1 proclaims, “In the beginning God...”
So how is God’s existence known so emphatically without concrete proof?
A. By Creation.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
In other words, you can see the invisible God by looking at visible creation. Everything you see bears the stamp ‘made by God.’ This is true whether you are looking with your eyes only, thru a microscope, or a telescope.
With a microscope you can look at a single cell, the smallest unit of living matter. One single living cell is more complicated than New York City. Imagine millions of people running to and fro, all the network cable, lights, cars, rats, etc. It’s a complicated place. But the cell is more intricate. How can anyone look at that and say, ‘That happened by accident.’?
With a telescope you can look at the vast universe, where light travels 186,000 miles per second, and probably faster the deeper you go into space. The space shuttle moves at up to 17,000 mph, but that is less than 5 miles per second. Light makes it from earth to the moon in 2 seconds, and then in a matter of minutes it passes the inner planets, and in a couple of hours it’s out of our solar system. But how long does it take it to get to the closest star to us? 4 years at that speed! But that’s just one of billions of stars in our galaxy, which is one of billions of known galaxies. Should we believe this just happened on its own?
Ill.—I look at my watch and say there must have been a designer and maker. I look at my house and say there must’ve been a designer and a builder. I look at my own eye and wonder in amazement.
The evolutionist says, just give nature enough time and it will come up with amazing things. They say if you blindfold a room full of monkeys and gave them a typewriter and enough time, one of them would eventually type out a Shakespeare quality play. And yet that would be a small miracle compared to the creation of one living human cell by chance.
B. By Conscience.
Go back as far as you want in human history, and you’ll see that mankind has always had a need to worship. There has never been a people group anywhere in the world, from dark jungles of Africa to frozen tundra, that was not engaged in some kind of worship. They may not have been worshiping the true and living God, but they were worshiping something. Why? Because man has a built in need to worship. It’s a universal hunger placed there by God.
Every universal hunger, and there are many, has a universal fulfillment.
• Food. God has placed on the earth milk, grain, fruit, and vegetables and meat to satisfy that hunger.
• Water. God gave us rivers and streams so we can drink.
• Companionship. God gave us others to interact with.
• Oil. God gave plenty of this...for some reason He gave it to someone else!
So why does man have this innate need to worship? Because God has written it on the wall of every human heart: “There is a God.”
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
In order to believe that you have to suppress your natural instinct, and that’s a foolish thing to do.
How many here know someone who claims to be an atheist? Someone who claims to believe in nothing. Well, it’s not true, for even the atheist worships something. They find something to replace God with. Many become radical environmentalists. Everyone wants to have some cause they are behind, and these today that want to say we are killing the planet are actually worshiping the planet! They are doing what Paul said they would do in Romans: worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. Some of them stare into crystals. Some read their horoscopes...they want some kind of direction in their life as well, and tho’ they don’t want it to be God, they still need something! Maybe a movie star or a rock star or a sports star, because they have rejected the Bright and Morning Star! Their real problem is not in their head, it’s in their heart. [fool hath said in his...] Their problem is not with their intellect, but with their heart. It’s a moral problem! It’s not God they don’t like as much as having to be accountable to God. The words ‘there is’ are in italics in that verse because they are not in the actual text. The atheist addresses God directly and says to Him, ‘no, God!’
