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 God’s Word. Foolish
man wishes to cut loose from the moral and religious ties that bind him to a sovereign
Creator. That’s why people pick and choose or even mock God’s Word. That’s why man
makes up gods of his own design— Mother Nature and Father Time—to 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 God’s 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 God’s Word. The human condition, the “status quo” of the human family is, as an old, country philosopher put it: “That’s Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.” Nothing could be further from the truth, than the old cliché: “Every day, in every way, we’re 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.” God’s 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 escapists—alcoholics, 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 don’t 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. That’s why I always leave you with the words of the apostle Paul in Acts 20:32.

Spur - 07/20/03 pm