LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH
SERMON NOTES FROM SUNDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2021
HEBREWS 1
In the past week we have been hearing a lot of global warming with the Cop26 summit in Glasgow. Jesus said in Luke 21 verse 26"Men's hearts failing them for fear". The Bereans in Acts 17 listened and went home to search the scriptures to see "whether those things be so." The word of God has to be a final authority. When Amos the prophet gathered the people together they rejected his preaching and asked him to leave the land completely. He told them "I was no prophet neither was I a prophet's son but I was a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock and the Lord said unto me, Go prophecy unto my people Israel." William Tyndale was a bible translator who lived in the 14/1500's. He was challenged about the work he was doing in translating the scriptures. He wanted to take the bible and place it into the hands of every man and woman. "If God spare my life here many years I will cause a boy that drives a plough to know God's word more than you do." I wants us to go back to the basics of the word of God and see what the word of God has to say. Look at Timothy's home. He was taught the word of God. His grandmother and mother were saved by the grace of God. They took their role of seeing him saved very seriously. What has God got to say about the world and our planet?
The God who creates - verses 1 and 2. In Romans 8 verses 19 and 20 Paul warned the people to worship the creator rather than the creature. God has created this world around us yet we want to worship the creation more than the creator. Verse 1 tells me there is a God. The writer begins with the one word "God". He doesn't set out to prove his existence but sets out the fact that God is. Psalm 19 verse 1 states "the heavens declare the glory of God. C H Spurgeon said of Genesis 1 "in the beginning God decided not to be explained but to be." We are the sons of Christ. That is to be accepted as a truh or revelation to be apprehended by faith. In Romans 1 verse 19 we have a clear revelation that God has done something very special for us. God has created the heavens and the earth and everything in them but not only that he has revealed it to every man. Verse 20 "so that they are without excuse." Verses 21 - 27 God is saying he has created the worlds and all around us. He has shown man that creation yet man has turned his back and said it is not of God. We read that it was by his Son the living word he created the world. He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. All things were made by him and was not anything that was made by him. We could get washed away with all the teaching of the world but we need to go back to basics and look at thse things in light of God's word.
We also see God who communicates "spoke in tmes past" verse 1. "hath spoken unto us by his son" verse 2. Some would say God stepped back from creation and left man to it. These are "the last days". When you go out and ask yourself 'how did God speak?' you only have to look up at the stars in the night sky - that is the revelation of God. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmaments showeth his handiwork." Psalm 19. It is God who has created and declared it. Romans 1 verse 20 "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." When we look at the stars, see the moon and sun, we see the glory of God because God has revealed that to us. There is enough evidence to prove to the conscience of man. There was a time when man knew God but now they glorify him not as God neither were thankful. It is an awful thing to see a lack of thanks for what God has done for man himself. God has spoken through his creation. It tells us in Acts 14 verse 17 "nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." We stand back and see the seasons that pass by from one to another. That is his revelation as well. "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease." (Genesis 8 verse 22) That is God's word. His communication with you and I. We can listen to these men but we need to go back to the word of God. God has spoken through his creation, communicated God's word - "but now in thse last days he has given us his son." Does not want us to live in ignorance. He took a virgin, separated her and he brought into the world the son of God. He grew up amongst men and on the cross he suffered, bled and died revealing his great love for you and I. God had sent his son for us even when we didn't think anything about him. There is no other way to get to heaven today. Nothing you can give to God to help secure your place in heaven. If you can come to Christ bow your knees, see him suffering there, dying for you, that your sins might be forgiven that you might know with all assurance God died for your sins.
The God who controls. Hebrews 1 verse 3 "upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." The word in this case is better translated "maintaining". He created all things but he didnt step back to this day. He is maintaining. It is going back to the days of Noah. In Genesis chapter 7 Noah was separated to bulid the ark. Verse 10 "And it came to pass after 7 days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth." Then look at how precise verse 11 is "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of hte great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." In verse 24 we read "And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days." Why? because God was in control. In chapter 8 we see that God was bringing it all to an end. "God made a wind to pass over the earth." God was maintaining the world. Verse 2 "The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained." God was stepping everything. When Jesus was in the boat out on the lake the storm came up. Jesus stood to his feet and spoke to the winds and waves, everything fell flat. That is the God we have - he is the God who creates, communicates and controls.
He is the God who completes. God is in control of this world and he reigns today. Even the future of our planet is not in our leaders hands. it is in God's hands. Hebrews 1 verses 10 and 11. John said in Revelation "I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth will pass away." It will only happen when God says it will happen.
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