Why Serve God? 02
A. What about the relationship we are to sustain with our maker?
Certain associations, in life, carry with them intrinsic responsibilities.
One of those is that of the Creator/ creature relationship. The
thing, created always sustains a subordinate status
to that which created it. In Rom. 9:21, Paul asks a rhetorical
question ; Does not a potter have a right over the clay?
In the Greek text such a query implies an affirmative answer.
YES. The term right is the Greek EXOUSIA and literally
means authority. The potter, by virtue of his status,
has authority over the vessel he has fashioned.
1. The historical facts are stated in Gen. 2:7; 3:19, Jehovah
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
The inspired writers of both testaments affirmed that the Lord
God is our Creator and Maker Eccl. 12:1; Isa. 40:28;
Rom. 1:25. Thus, by virtue of this Creator/creature relationship,
Jehovah has a right to human loyalty.
a. But there has always been a propensity in man to repudiate
this Creator/creature relationship in
order to justify human self?centeredness. More than anything else,
some people want to be their own God. 700 years before
the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote to the children
of Israel, Isa 29:16, You turn things upside down, as if
the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed
say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can
the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"? Israelites
were making this arrogant claim, He made me not.
Words more wrong, more foolish, more soul?destroying have never
been uttered by human
lips. We need to tremble at the thought of repudiating God in
such a way. Instead we should
herald the words of David in Ps. 100:3, Know that the Lord
Himself is God; It is He who has
made us, and not we ourselves.
(A) What causes such arrogance in a person? This haughty and independent
attitude, of
course, is the motive behind all attempts to ignore and repudiate
Gods Word. Foolish
man wishes to cut loose from the moral and religious ties that
bind him to a sovereign
Creator. Thats why people pick and choose or even mock Gods
Word. Thats why man
makes up gods of his own design Mother Nature and Father
Timeto whom he owes
no responsibility. They follow the longings of the paleontologist
and evolutionist of
Harvard University, George G. Simpson, who wrote: Man stands
alone in the universe,
a unique product of a long, unconscious, impersonal material process
with unique
understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but
himself, and it is to himself
that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable
and undeterminable forces,
but is his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own
destiny.
(B) That is diametrically opposed to the claim of Gods Word
the Bible. All you have to do is look at the world as it is and
you discover the human conditions as is has been stated for thousands
of years by Gods Word. The human condition, the status
quo of the human family is, as an old, country philosopher
put it: Thats Latin for the mess were
in. Nothing could be further from the truth, than
the old cliché: Every day, in every way, were
getting better and better. You can see the absurdity of
that statement by observing the actions of people in this community.
The facts are, exactly as Paul once wrote: in 2 Tim. 3:13, Evil
men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being
deceived.
b. The presence of evil is apparent universally. It has been acknowledged
from time immemorial.
The Roman philosopher Seneca said: We have all sinned, some
more, and some less. An
old Chinese proverb states: There are two good men: one
is dead and the other is not yet
born. Gods inspired spokesman said in ROM. 3:23, All
have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. Another Divinely inspired spokesman bluntly
stated, If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1
Jno. 1:8.
(A) Man has never been able to concoct a solution. John Dewey
alleged that education could provide the answer. But,
to our dismay, we discovered that education, without spiritual
values, makes only more skillful criminals. Those who touted psychology
as the panacea for human woes now admit that we have created a
world of escapistsalcoholics, drug?abusers, and dream?world
mystics. A recent news feature
suggested that by the end of the next decade, the third leading
cause of work?disability
will be clinical depression. We have more material security than
any generation that has
gone before us, but generally speaking we are miserable in our
inability to be content,
happy, satisfied with our materialistic hoarding of things.
(B) The truth is, there is no abiding contentment in a world without
God. Out of a background of materialism and hedonism, Solomon,
an inspired penman, proclaimed in Prov. 13:15, The way of
the transgressor is hard. Fear [reverence] God, and
keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
Eccl. 12:13.
c. We need to understand that all accounts are not settled in
this life. The facts spell out the
conclusion. There are multiplied thousands of people who are willing
to give intellectual assent
to the fact that God exists. But they dont really think
that such an idea has any relationship to
their daily personal lives. To believe and not obey makes one
nothing more than a practical
atheists. Paul said that God, has appointed a day on which
He will judge the world in
righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance
of this to all by
raising Him from the dead." Acts 17:31. If Jesus has been
raised from the dead we shall all
stand in the judgment before Him and give an accounting.
d. Thats why I always leave you with the words of the apostle
Paul in Acts 20:32.
Spur - 07/20/03 pm
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