1296. Creation: The God Who Made Everything

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Dr. Nathan Crockett. The scripture passage is from Psalm 104 and the title of his sermon is Creation, The God Who Made Everything. Please turn to Psalm 104.

Psalm 104. And our topic today is creation, the God who made everything. Creation, the God who made everything.

So far, we've had Dr. Benson introduce the series on our great God, Dr. Goecher, the Trinity, Dr. Stikes, the exclusivity of God, Dr. McGonigal, his incommunicable attributes, and Dr. Miller, his communicable attributes. And today, we're going to talk about God as the creator, the God who made everything. Psalm 104 begins, bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, thou art very great, thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who covers thyself with light as with a garment, that stretches out the heavens like a curtain. You lay the beams of your chambers in the waters, who maketh the clouds as chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind, who, verse five, laid the foundations of the earth.

Just keeps going on in all these amazing things that God has done in creation. Look at verse 25. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping and innumerable, both small and great beasts.

There go the ships, there's the leviathan whom you made to play therein. These wait all upon thee, that thou may give us them their meat in due season. Look down at verse 31. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever. The Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth and it trembleth.

He toucheth the hills and they smoke. We want to talk today about the God who made everything. And because scripture is so practical, I want to look today at four specific responses that we should have to this God who made everything.

I'm going to preview them with you now and the rest of the sermon we're going to work our way through them. The first is that we should enjoy God's creation because it's his gift to us. Secondly, we're going to see that we should study God's creation because it has something to teach us. Thirdly, we're going to see that we should steward God's creation because he values it. And fourthly, we're going to see that we should worship the creator because he alone is worthy. If you could turn to Romans 8, we're going to end up there. So Romans 8 will be the final passage we'll look at.

We're going to look at a couple dozen other passages very briefly on the way there to see what God says about himself as creator. For ourselves, oftentimes there are things that we hide about ourselves, things that we don't want people to find out, things that we don't want to be revealed to the world. With five young children, I often find myself that we'll be at a restaurant and they'll say something or they'll point to someone or and I'm really hoping that that person didn't overhear it.

It's not that they were trying to be rude, but maybe unintentionally they were. I remember several years ago I was teaching one of my sons to swim and we were at a resort in an indoor pool and we were the only ones in there and I was teaching him how to swim. I was two and a half years old and I noticed a gentleman come in. I found out later he was in his 80s and he came in and was swimming laps on the other side of the pool, kind of a large gentleman and just swim in laps to get some exercise.

My son didn't really seem to notice him until he got out of the pool. When he got out of the pool, my toddler son looked at me and he said, Dada, what was that that just got out of the pool? And I said, that was a person. And he said, oh, I thought it was a bear. And your voice kind of echoes in the pool and the guy's on the other side.

I'm hoping he didn't hear it. I'm like, no, no, it's a person. It's a person. He said, well, it was very hairy. And I was like, yeah, but it's a person. And the man left and went to the locker room. And then my son, I think, maybe jokingly said, Daddy, it's a bear.

He's going to come back and eat us. And I was like, no, no, it's fine. And in my mind, I'm like, I really hope that guy didn't hear what my son said.

We need to keep this fact hidden. And I forgot all about it. We swam for a few more minutes and went into the locker room and I held the door for my son. And you can probably guess who was the first person he saw when we entered the locker room, this gentleman. And he said, hi. And I just thought, oh, good, my son's being friendly.

I didn't realize that for him it was an identity test. See if this really was a person or a forest creature. And the man said, hello, Sonny. And my son looks up at me kind of relieved and says, Dad, you were right. It's a person, not a bear.

And the guy's right there. I'm mortified that he was so kind. He made a joke about his appearance.

And we talked about the weather on Hilton Head. There are times that something gets revealed that we didn't want to be revealed. Aren't we grateful to have a God who is willing to reveal things about himself? If I had brought a large picture this morning, maybe perhaps of my family, and it was covered with a blanket and right now I pulled off the blanket, I would be revealing something.

I wouldn't be creating something. It was there all along. I'm just pulling back the curtain so you can see it. And theologians talk about God's general revelation. It's general in its content. It tells us broad truths about God. Everybody in the world gets it. It's general in its scope. Everybody gets creation.

Everybody gets a conscience. And they talk about God's special revelation. It's very specific in its content. It teaches you special things about God.

And it's specific in its audience. Not everybody in the world through all history has gotten special revelation. Probably 99% of the sermons that we hear are about God's special revelation, the incarnation, scripture. But today as we talk about the God who made everything, I want to look at God's general revelation. So first of all, enjoy creation because it's God's good gift to you. Enjoy creation because it's God's good gift to you. I thought these were going to come up one at a time, but that's fine.

We'll put all four of them on there. 1 Timothy 6, 10 tells us the love of money is the root of all evil. Seven verses later in verse 17, it says, charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us all things richly to enjoy.

1 Timothy 4, for every creature of God is good and nothing to be received to be refused if it be received with Thanksgiving. Have you ever noticed the wide eyed wonder of a child? Some of you have younger brothers and sisters. I love going on hikes with my kids, but the hikes often take a long time because with five different kids, they're all seeing something. A little pinecomb here, a butterfly that they want to try to catch for 25 minutes, a little, you know, a little pebble that's a slightly different color than the pebble next to it, a pinecomb that becomes their favorite toy for the next three hours. When you're with little kids, you see this wide eyed wonder of the world around you that we oftentimes as adults walk right by and never even notice. Do you enjoy God's creation? When is the last time you laid flat on your back on a field and you looked up at the clouds and you noticed that one looked like a shark and another like a stingray and another one like a unicorn?

Kids do stuff like that all the time, right? God gave us his creation to enjoy. You should stop to savor a sunset or to wonder at the ocean or to marvel at the mountains or to enjoy a well-made omelet or to take a hike to a waterfall. These are God's incredible pleasures that he's given to us to enjoy. When we look at the variety and complexity of God's creation, we marvel. I think about times with my wife, even before we had kids, we'd go kayaking a lot off the coast of Hilton Head or times when whole dolphins just came up right next to our kayaks or a time we kayaked over a school of jellyfish or I think about seeing Niagara Falls that most of you have probably seen or having the chance to hike the Grand Canyon. The incredible beauty in God's creation. When was the last time that you took a prayer walk? You went to Paris Mountain State Park or Jones Gap or Caesar's Head or Table Rock and as you hiked, you kept your eyes wide open and you just prayed and you thanked God for the things you were seeing around you. Studies show us that modern parents talk more than any other parents about getting their kids outside and yet if we look at the time children are actually spending outside, it's the lowest that it's been in recorded history. We spend so much time indoors, so much time in front of screens that we oftentimes miss out on God's incredible creation he's given us to enjoy. They've actually proven health benefits from being outside. Japan is famous for this. In Japan they talk about forest therapy.

They have 48 official forest therapy trails because as they've done research they've seen that God's creation, being out in his creation or what people call nature can lower your blood pressure, fight off depression and even some people have tried to help prevent cancer. Enjoy God's creation. Secondly, we should study God's creation because it has something to teach us. You're familiar with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, 26.

Listen to this. Behold the fowls of the air. That word for behold is the idea of observe with fixation. A couple verses later, consider the lilies of the field.

That word consider means to learn thoroughly or examine carefully. Proverbs 6, 6. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Ecclesiastes 12, 1. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth. We are told to behold, to observe, to consider, to learn, to examine, to remember. We should study God's creation. How does that line up with some people who say, well I like my creature comfort so much I hate being outside.

Or cities that several decades ago created whole systems of skywalks so you could go to Starbucks and go to your workplace and go back to your apartment, go to the parking garage and never step foot outside. Listen to Job's response to Zophar in Job 12, 7 through 10. But ask now the beast and they shall teach thee. And the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee. Or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee. And the fish of the sea shall declare unto thee, Who knoweth not in all these things that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? And whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind? We should enjoy God's creation.

We should study it. Thirdly, we should steward God's creation because He values it. The creation mandate in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air and every living creature. A couple of verses later in verse 28, God blessed them and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it.

In Genesis 2, 15 we read that God put Adam in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. We sing this is my Father's world and it is. This world is God alone's. God's alone.

But He's given us a temporary stewardship of it, right? Job 41, 11, whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. Psalm 24, 1, the earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. I love Psalm 95, 3 through 6.

Listen to this. The Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His. He made it.

His hands form the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.

We steward a world that does not belong to us. Did you know that God cares even for animals? He chose to save all the animals on the ark. In Exodus 23, 12, six days shall thou do thy work. On the seventh day thou shalt rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest.

Deuteronomy 25, 4 tells us don't muzzle the ox that treads the grain. In Luke 12, 6, we see that God remembers even the smallest sparrow. And the book of Jonah, many of you remember learning that even as a child. At the end of the book of Jonah, Yahweh says you had pity on the gourd for which thou has not labored and neither madeest it grow. It came up in a night.

It perished in a night. Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein our more than six score thousands, 120,000 people that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, probably infants and also much cattle. That's the last phrase in the book of Jonah. God recognized there was much cattle in Nineveh.

And should I destroy Nineveh with all these innocent people and much cattle? Now, when I'm talking about stewarding creation, I think that has particular relevance to some of you that are artistically inclined. Maybe your major is in the fine arts. It's music. It's the visual arts. Maybe you have a gift for engineering. Don't buy into the world's lie that it sometimes talks about, you know, the starving artist and someone finds out you have a major in the fine arts.

Oh, when are you going to get a real job? That type of thing. Don't buy into that because that creative ability inside of you is a reflection of the image of God. God is the ultimate artist.

He's the ultimate creator. And you can use those God-given gifts for his glory or for evil. You can use your gift of creativity to create an incredible movie that magnifies God's creation or perhaps even presents the gospel. Or someone could use that same gift to create a pornographic film that objectifies women and enslaves men. You could use that scientific gift you've been given to develop something like penicillin that would save the lives of millions. Or someone could use a similar gift to develop anthrax for the purpose of destroying many people. You could use a gift for engineering to create artificial limbs so that a child who lost his legs in war is now able to walk. Or one individual used a similar gift for engineering to design, you've maybe heard of it, the euthanasia coaster, a roller coaster designed to kill everyone who rides on it.

He's trying to find funding for it right now. You can use your God-given creativity and stewardship of his creation for remarkably good things or for terribly evil things. You should enjoy God's creation. You should study God's creation. You should steward God's creation. And finally, you should worship the creator because he alone is worthy. In Revelation 4-11, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Romans 1-25 tells us about sinful people who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator. Creation should have driven them to worship God, but they did the opposite.

They started worshipping creation. You probably have some young ladies in the audience who are engaged. And you likely have a ring on your finger. And your diamond ring has a setting, but the purpose of the setting is not that people would look at those small little stones or those sparkles or whatever and examine and magnify the setting. It's to point out the diamond. If your family takes a trip to Disney World when you were younger and you're 10 miles outside of Disney World, let's say there's a sign that says 10 miles from Disney and your family jumps out and you take a picture by the sign.

You don't get back in the car and drive back to Michigan. The sign told you that Disney World was coming. And creation is not meant to be worshipped in and of itself. It's a signpost. It points us to the creator.

Worship God for He alone is worthy. A few months after my dad went home to be with the Lord after a battle with cancer, I was putting my son, Shepherd, to sleep. He was about three years old at the time. And I was singing with him. I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but I was trying to sing. And I was singing one of my favorite songs, Give Me Jesus. It was a song we had sung at my dad's funeral. And I got to the last verse, and when I come to die, and when I come to die, give me Jesus.

You can have all this world, but give me Jesus. And Shepherd stopped me as he had many different times, and he said, Daddy, did granddaddy die? And I said, yes, Shepherd, granddaddy died. And he said, Mama told me that everybody dies.

Is that true? And I said, yes, Shepherd, apart from the rapture, Mom's exactly right. Everybody dies. Does that mean Mommy's going to die? Yes, Shepherd, someday your mom's going to die. Who will make me chocolate chip cookies?

Long pause. Daddy, are you going to die? Yep, Shepherd, one day I'm going to die.

Who's going to teach me how to swim? Is Shepherd going to die one day? Yes, Shepherd, I hope I never live to see that day, and I hope that you come to faith in Christ as you get older, and that I'll spend eternity with you in heaven, but someday you're going to die.

Who's going to eat all the candy? He said, Daddy, so everybody dies. And I said, yes, Shepherd, everybody dies. And then perhaps without even realizing what he was saying, or maybe in a moment of toddler brilliance, he said, but Daddy, God can't die, because then who would save us? And I just paused as it hit me that the world around us points to an undying creator who made us. And as we read his special revelation, we find that the artist who shaped us became the lamb who died for us, so that God can do what God does best, he would save us. Psalm 8 begins and ends with the same exact wording, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. And the third verse, it says, when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?

Several years ago, Time Magazine carried an article entitled, why there are no atheists at the Grand Canyon. The subtitle was, all it takes is a little awe to make you feel religious. This is throughout the Bible. Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare, the sky proclaims, the days speak, the nights reveal. First Chronicles 16, the heavens are glad, the earth rejoices, the seas roar, the fields exalt, the trees sing for joy.

Nehemiah 9-6, the host of heaven worship God. Psalm 93, the floods lift their voice. Psalm 96, the heavens rejoice, the earth is glad, the sea roars, the fields are joyful. All the trees of the forest rejoice. Psalm 98, the rivers clap and the mountains sing. Isaiah 55, the mountains and the hills burst forth into song and the trees clap their hands.

And in Luke 19 verse 40, Jesus said at the triumphal entry, if the religious leaders could get all these people to stop praising his name, the very stones would cry out. All of creation magnifies its creator. In fact, creation has been called God's first missionary. And when God chose to reveal something through his creation about his nature, his design, his goodness, his love, his power, his attention to detail, he took this galaxy and he took this blue planet floating in a black void and he created something remarkable.

He formed a masterpiece. When God writes through his creation, he writes in all capital letters. I remember speaking to a high school student who had just gotten his pilot's license and he told me, Nathan, if you're a pilot, I don't think you could ever be an atheist because to fly is to see God's beauty all around you. I think it's probably no coincidence that in previous generations when the majority of people spent the majority of their waking hours outside interacting with God's creation, atheists were virtually unheard of. We live in a society that often tries to separate us from God's creation, right?

We have air-conditioned buildings and we go everywhere in climate-controlled vehicles and we fly in airplanes and people sometimes live in urban jungles that contain a lot more concrete than dirt or grass. I want to close with an illustration that I remember quite vividly even though it was March of 2012. I was sitting right down here in the yellow section. It was a Bible conference service and Pastor Dick Marcato Sr. was preaching. He had been preaching bilingually for 68 years at that point. This godly elderly gentleman had us turn to Romans 8 where I've had you turn. Look at verse 18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature, and Dr. Marcato pointed out correctly that that word could just as easily and maybe better be translated, the creation, waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. The creation was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of Him who subjected the same in hope because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And it goes on to talk about how even we as believers are waiting for our adoption.

And Dr. Marcato said, if the hills are alive with the sound of music, they're actually singing in a minor key. And he did something that maybe had never been done before from the FMA Bible conference platform before. This godly dignified gentleman stood up here and he said, moo, moo. And the students kind of chuckled and he said, that's my second rate impersonation of our bovine friends, the cows. And he said, but you often don't realize it but when Bessie the cow is mooing, she's actually praising God.

And again some people chuckled. And I was sitting right down there and I remember something clicked for me. And I actually had chills shoot up my spine and it was like for the first time in my life I realized something. That all of the beauty we see around us is still fallen creation not yet redeemed. This incredible masterpiece is still creation groaning. When you and I hiked to a waterfall at the wilds, we are seeing remnants of a masterpiece. Because God created this beautiful earth on an incredible canvas but the enemy came. And he tried to destroy it and he marred it.

And guys and girls, what is it going to be like when the master artist picks up his brush again? And I remember that day so many years ago, I thought about cows mooing and lions roaring and horses neighing. And I thought about the time that I stood on the Maid of the Mist boat and was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of Niagara Falls as I looked up 167 feet and watched the Horseshoe Falls 2200 feet wide pour down 150,000 gallons of water a second.

And the roar was so deafening I could hardly hear myself think. And I thought about whitewater rafting through the Grand Canyon. Or I thought about flying past Mount Rainier en route to Seattle and literally having my breath taken away as I saw that snow-capped mountain jutting up through the clouds when I looked out the window. I thought about the peaceful middle Saluda River that meanders through Jones Gap to the delight of all the hikers or BBC series like Planet Earth and Blue Planet that numb your mind with beauty. But men and women, when you think about sunsets and waterfalls and nature trails and starry nights and majestic oceans, do you realize that all of this is still unredeemed creation yearning for a Redeemer? The exquisite beauty that we see all around us is merely a shadow. And we get to the end of the Bible and Revelation 21 tells us about the new heaven and the new earth because we have a God who makes all things new.

And I'd like to close by asking you one simple question. I want you to go in your mind's eye to the most beautiful thing in God's world that you've ever experienced. Maybe it was last week. Maybe it was last year. Maybe it was as a five-year, six-year-old. Think about your favorite spot on this planet. Maybe it was watching the sun rise over the ocean. Maybe it was an incredibly starry sky in the middle of a camping trip.

Maybe it was a flaming crimson red leaf reflected in a placid lake where you were kayaking. Get that image in your mind of this beautiful creation. And I want to close with this question. If this is what creation looks like when it's groaning, what will it look like when it shouts?

Let's pray. Father, there is none like you. In your redemption, in your creation, we look at the Bible in front of us and the world around us and we are amazed. We're amazed at the power that could create something like this. At the mercy that would deign to share it with us. And as much as we marvel at your work of creation, Father, we marvel even more at your work of redemption. At the love that drew salvation's plan and the grace that brought it down to man at the mighty gulf that you did span at Calvary. So, Father, as we delight in you, the great creator, as we seek to enjoy your creation and study your creation and steward your creation, ultimately, Father, help it to point us back to you, that we would worship you as the one and only creator because you alone are worthy. We pray these things in Christ's name.

Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by BJU Bible professor Dr. Nathan Crockett titled, Creation, The God Who Made Everything. I'm Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. If you're looking for a college, please consider BJU, where our Christian liberal arts education will prepare you academically and spiritually to reach your highest potential for God's glory. For more information about our more than 100 accredited undergraduate and graduate programs, visit bju.edu or call 800-252-6363. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow for the next sermon from the series called Our Great God here on The Daily Platform.