In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1).
The Bible begins with God. It never attempts to prove that he exists, or that we ought to rise through nature up to God. The Bible doctrine of creation implies spiritual law in the natural world. Here let us deal with two religious aspects of creation.
I. An Inspiration to Worship. The contemplation of heaven and earth fills the mind with adoring thoughts of God. Such inspiration to worship is needful now, when many live in cities and seldom see the sky.
Also, our religion is one of redemption, and we often concentrate it on ourselves. A man with a bad conscience may imagine that God exists to minister to him, and that he, not God, is the center of spiritual concern in the universe.
“What must I do to be saved?” is a question apart from which there can be no Christianity. (Quote Isa. 40:12). These also are religious questions. It is a poor religion that does not ask them, and thus find new incentives to worship.
The New Testament is not to be cut off from the Old. Many churches would enrich their worship if they abridged their hymnals, in which “personal religion” has run wild, and praised God in Psalms such as the 19th and 29th.
II. An Incentive to Trust God. This is what the Bible stresses most. The doctrine of creation reassures those whose faith is being most severely tried. In our minds heaven and earth should become pictures of God’s omnipotence. Because creation is an index of God’s resources, it teaches us not to despair if we come to an end of our own resources.
Nature is also a revelation of God’s faithfulness. True to his Word, we can count on seedtime and harvest. In times of despondency stay your faith by lifting up your eyes to the hills, to find God.
If God is faithful there, he will be faithful here. He will prove true to every hope he inspires, to every promise he implants, to every trust he invokes. Trust in the “faithful Creator.”
SERMONS ABRIDGED BY DR. ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD
JAMES DENNY’SThe Bible Teaching About Creation (Parts I and II)
GEORGE H. MORRISON’SThe Gospel Message of the Rainbow
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