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  THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN CREATION
  by Paul van Engelenhoven
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the undeniable evidence of God's
existence through His creation, highlighting that all individuals have
seen the work of God's hands and are without excuse for not
acknowledging Him. It challenges believers to live in response to what
they know about God and to proclaim His glory to others, urging them to
seek salvation through Jesus Christ.

Topics: "God's Creation", "Proclaiming His Glory"
Scripture References: Romans 1:19, Matthew 22:13, Isaiah 55:6, Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:20

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the undeniable evidence of God's existence
through His creation, highlighting that all individuals have seen the
work of God's hands and are without excuse for not acknowledging Him. It
challenges believers to live in response to what they know about God and
to proclaim His glory to others, urging them to seek salvation through
Jesus Christ.

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CONTENT
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Let us open our Bibles. We're going to read from Paul's epistle to the
Romans, which is written by the Holy Spirit, inspiring the Apostle.
Romans 1 verses 19 to 20.

Romans 1 19 to 20 is the living word of the living God. This is what it
says. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world
and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Let us
pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you would help us to see through your word
that your world reveals your glory, that there is no excuse, for we see
the work of your hands. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Beloved, is faith in God a leap of faith or common sense? Do we, as
Christians, are we people that take a blind leap of faith, or do we
follow what is common, what is clear, what is logical, and what makes
sense? The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard came up with the phrase
saltus fide, which is Latin for a leap of faith. It's a very common
expression in our days. Well, you have to take a leap of faith.

And he argued that God is only spiritual, but so spiritual that he is
completely separated from the physical world. And so a man of faith has
to take a leap of faith out of what he thinks is common sense and what
is clear and obvious, and he has to take a leap of faith to cross into a
reality even though there is no evidence of the reality of God. In other
words, his believers are people that have, that take a leap of faith
hoping there is someone on the other side that answers the call.

Kierkegaard's understanding of God was that a God was so separate from
this world that there was really no way of knowing whether he existed or
not. And this is really how the world looks upon the church, isn't it?
If you meet people that are not believers, they see you and they respect
you, maybe, or they don't, but they consider you a person who has taken
a leap of faith hoping that your religion, hoping that your prayers,
hoping that what you've learned and what you trust in has a receptor on
the other end, but for them it's completely a leap of faith. The church
in their eyes is a group of people who place their entire hope in a God
they cannot even see, an imaginary God, a people who take a blind leap
of faith hoping that there's a God somewhere in the universe, an
invisible God who cannot be seen, who cannot be heard, and therefore
cannot be known.

And so the world lives without God. They consider this world as a
physical world where there is no God, where you live in your own way,
make your own morality, and perhaps say something like this, well you've
got to make sure that we can all live together in this world, where
another person takes his morality and say, well it's survival of the
fittest that we got to kill off the weaker ones, or another person in
the world says I am just concerned about the happiness of me and those
around me. Always convinced of their own morality and giving good
reasons in their own mind that this is the right way of living, because
they consider that there is no God.

After all they don't believe in God, why would they follow an old book?
They can't see God they hear people pray but they never see, they never
hear an audible answer, why believe in God? Well this morning the
Apostle Paul responds to this these arguments and this is what the
Apostle says, oh God can be known and is known in this world. In fact
you have seen the physical evidence of God every day of your life. You
have so much evidence of God that you cannot deny God other than
transforming and just jumping out of logic and closing your eyes and say
there's no world out there.

Kind of like the the rabbit and the hunter, right? When the hunter is
chasing the rabbit and finally the rabbit is outrun by the hunter and
then he looks at the hunter and what he does, he puts his two little
paws in front of his eyes because he thinks that if he doesn't see the
hunter, the hunter is gone. That's what the person that doesn't believe
in God does. You have to put your hands in front of your eyes, in front
of your understanding, in front of your reason to say that there is no
God.

Because the Bible says the evidence is so clear you have to willfully
ignore the evidence of God. And so what I want to do this morning is ask
three questions and then seek the answers to these questions. These are
the three questions.

How can we see an invisible God? Secondly, what can we know about God?
And thirdly, are we responsible for not seeing God? Let us begin our
first question. How can we see an invisible God? And I want to answer
that question with two other questions. First of all, in what way can we
see God? If the Bible says we see God, what does it mean when we see
God? I told the children, I asked the children the question this
morning, can you see God? And they all said no.

And if we're honest, you and I cannot see God. You cannot point and say
God is here or you can say God is there. Or if an atheist on the street
asked me and say, well show me the evidence of God, I cannot bring God
into the conversation and say, well here He is.

Or let me open up the heavens and you see God. So how can we see God?
What does Paul mean that he is clearly seen? Unfortunately, our ESV
translation, I think, cuts the corner a little bit on this translation
of Romans 1 verse 20. So if we have it on the screen, I have two other
translations and you can see what I mean.

The words that I'm speaking about is the being understood. So the LSV,
that's the Legacy Standard Bible, says this, for since the creation of
the world, His invisible attribute, both His eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what have been
made, so that they are without excuse. The King James does the same for
the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen being understood by the things that are made, even as eternal power
and God had, so that they are without exchange or without excuse.

You see the difference? Being understood. In a way, the ESV says the
same. You have seen it and seeing and understood in our language can
mean two things, right? If you see the light, it can mean that you
understand something more clearly, right? He has finally seen the light
on this or that.

Then what we mean is that He's not seen physical light. It means He's
understood. But Paul is putting two things together.

He's saying this, you have seen God by being understanding. In other
words, you've seen the evidence with your eyes and in your mind you will
make the connection to God. You don't see God in trees.

You don't see God in plants. You don't see God in the rocks or the
valleys or the rivers or the rain. But when you see it, there's a
connection in your brain that you understand someone must have made
this.

Even a little child understands that the trees must come from somewhere.
That the plants come from somewhere. When we see design in our
understanding because we're intelligent beings, we understand someone
made these things.

But that's what the verse, that's what Paul is saying. In your mind, if
you have a normal functioning mind that is open to knowledge, to
understanding that is logical, you will understand that there is a God.
You see what Paul is after? So we're not saying look at the tree, that's
a picture of God.

No, what we're saying is this. Look at the tree. You know the tree must
have come from somewhere.

Look at your hands. It must have come from somewhere. Someone designed
this.

Someone made this. Someone formed this. Somebody put thought in this and
material.

Somebody brought the material and thought together. And that's you. When
you look in the mirror every morning, you have evidence that God exists.

The atheist, when he looks in the morning in the mirror, he sees the
evidence that God exists. It's undeniable. Now you can say I don't want
to know this.

I want to come up with different reasons. But if you open your heart and
you think logically, you will come to the conclusion that someone has
made this. That's what the Bible tells us all.

All of us have seen the evidence of God's hands because we understand.
We see and perceive that this must come from somewhere. Now what happens
in our brains and our understanding is this.

When we see color and we have a functioning brain, we must say somebody
made the color and somebody has given me eyes to see that color. This is
not from nowhere. Someone has put this here together.

Someone has made smell and somebody has given me a nose to be able to
smell it. Somebody has made sound and somebody has given me ears to
receive the sound waves and in an amazing way translate those sound
waves into sound that I hear in my mind. And it brings to us the
overwhelming argument of God's existence.

There was someone before the rocks were created. There's someone before
water came into being. Either we don't exist at all and all of this is a
dream but that's a problem because then how can we dream if there's
nothing at all.

Or all of us made ourselves or the rocks made us but rocks don't have a
mind. We don't make ourselves. We come from somewhere or God created the
heavens and the earth.

It's really the only three possibilities. We've made ourselves. The
world has made itself but how can something made itself when it's not
there in the beginning? There's nothing.

It cannot create something. Or we have been from everlasting but we
haven't because there is a beginning to all that is time and material.
Or God created the heavens and the earth.

There was someone who was eternal but not only that. There was someone
that was so brilliant that he can create something out of nothing.
Someone that can make the world.

Someone that is so intelligent that he has created all the animals, has
created a perfect environment where we can live that is not too hot or
too cold, that is so far from the moon to the exact distance. If it'd be
further we'd be freezing. If it'd be closer we'd be burning in our
relationship to the Sun.

That has placed the universe and hung up the stars in such a way that we
can have a livable environment for thousands of years. God has made it
plain that he exists. There is no other option because God has made it.

Every flower is a sermon. Somebody made me. Somebody has not just made
me, somebody has given you the eyesight, the scent, the heart to
appreciate it, the mind to think about it, to consider it, to look
around it, your arms, your legs to perceive it, to study it, to
understand it.

God has made the flower a sermon to your heart and to all of us. Every
day our atheist neighbors have to shut off their minds all throughout
the day not to see that God exists. God has made it plain.

And so in a sense when I talk to somebody who says that doesn't they
don't believe in God, I don't have to convince him that God exists. All
I have to do, this takes the power of God, is to take his stubborn arms
away from his eyes that he can see what his eyes actually already see.
You see that? They're willfully ignoring what their mind can see and
know.

Now the Bible tells us that they're in the power of the prince of
darkness, that this world is holding them in a grip so they're not
probably not even conscious that their eyes are in front of their face
and in front of their minds and in front of their ears and in front of
their nose to see what they actually see. But by God's grace their arms,
their hands can be pulled off their eyes, taken off their nose, taken
off their ears so that they're free to see, free to hear, free to smell
the evidence of God's creation. You see the beauty of all of this? God
has given us evidence in every possible way.

I mean if God had only created the human mind it would be enough, isn't
it? The human mind is evidence that God is intelligent. Rocks don't
create brains. Rocks and soup and chemicals don't create brains.

Wisdom creates brains. Somebody who can see can create eyes. Somebody
who cannot see cannot think of what sight is so somebody who has made
the eye must be able to see himself.

Somebody who has ears can create an ear. Otherwise how can he know what
ears do? Somebody that can taste can create taste. Otherwise how can he
know what taste is? So what God does is he has created the eyes, created
the ears, created all our senses as reflections of what he is, who he
is.

And so it is absolutely obvious to the human mind that God exists. So
you find that even atheists on their deathbed when all is said and done
they often shout and scream to God when they feel their lives slipping
away saying God help me because that which they have been denying all
their lives now becomes plain as they stand before God and their
weakness is taking their stubborn hands away from their eyes and now
they can see. But often it's too late.

You see God has made himself known. And we if we are believers in God we
should praise the Lord because he has weakened our arms and pulled them
off our eyes and pulled them off our nose and all the rest to see God.
That's his grace because by nature we said I don't want to see him.

I don't want to know him but God by his grace has lifted our eyes or our
hands away from our eyes so that we can see him. So where do we look?
Well the Bible literally tells us that we don't have to go far. Romans
119 for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has
shown it to them.

It doesn't say God has placed it somewhere in creation on the other side
of the hills on a long journey following after the rainbow you found a
golden treasure. No. God has revealed his treasure to our eyes.

He has shown it to us and it says in verse 20 ever since the creation of
the world in the things that have been made. God shows us clearly and
every part of creation says here I am. This is who I am.

This is who I am. I am eternal. I am powerful.

I am creative. I am able to create all the world out of nothing. This is
not something that is hard to find.

It doesn't require a degree in theology or philosophy or the natural
sciences or anything else. Every human being can see that God exists and
more often the less intelligent people are wiser than the more
intelligent people. The less intelligent, the youngest child can see
that God created the heavens and the earth.

Isn't it? Every plant. It doesn't come there by nowhere. It's silly.

You ask a three-year-old and tell him, you say by the way this plant you
know how it came into being? There was a big explosion and there was a
plant. They laugh at you. They think you're making a cartoon.

It's silly. Sometimes intellect separates us from God. Makes us put all
kinds of ideas and places a self and a pride in the place of God so that
we no longer see God as he is so easily seen.

A child can see it. You would have to be willfully ignorant and place
yourself above God and above creation to ignore God. When you see trees
moving back and forth, do you jump out of your couch and say, whoa the
trees have come alive.

Whoa you call the whole neighborhood. You see the trees are waving to
me. We're friends.

No, what you say is the wind is going through the trees. Something is
moving the trees. If you see a leaf falling on water and the leaf is
moving away, you jump after the leaf and study it to see if you can find
an engine somewhere in the leaf that propels this strange leaf forward
and moves it in different directions.

Of course not. You realize there's a current in the water even though
you don't see the water moving in the current, you know that the water
is carrying the leaf away. In the same way you see all creation in front
of you.

You don't see the hand of God as a physical hand, but we know that God
made all these things. You see, God is like the wind. He has brought
forth all creation and given life to all the earth, all the trees, the
plants, the animals.

He has created and given it life and we see creation and then we know
there's a God just as you see the moving of the trees and you know
there's wind. And so creation requires a creator. Life requires a giver
of life.

Color requires the making of color. You see, I'm often fascinated by
life. What makes something alive? If you've had the sad experience of a
pad dying, you see this strange thing, isn't it? In the morning the
animal is alive and well and then by night the life is gone.

What's the difference? All the molecules of the animal are still there.
It's got just as many teeth, same heart, same kidneys, same amount of
blood, but the life is gone. Who gave life? And why can we not give
life? You cannot go to a dead animal that's been dead and breathe into
it and bring them back alive.

Where does life come from? God breathes it in to all that is alive.
Well, I could go on but let's move on in our sermon to our next point.
What can we know about God? Romans 120, for His invisible attributes,
namely His eternal power and divine nature.

Many translations translate it in a different way. The most literal be
something like this, His invisible things, His invisibleness, which is
the eternality of His power and deity. We can simplify it.

There are many things we cannot see, but some of God's attributes come
visible to the world in His way of creating the world and it's this. He
is incredibly powerful and He is God. He is not part of the creation.

He stands outside the creation and He forms the creation. Somebody
outside this world must have made this world. Someone that is not
physical and stuck in this world must have created the world by His
power.

In creation, simply said, God shows us His eternal divine power. You
have seen the eternal divine power of God. You don't have to be a
systematic theologian to know these attributes about God.

You don't even have to be a Christian to see this attribute about God.
You know God is God and He has eternal power. He can create things by
His will.

God has revealed Himself through His work and we can see it. See that
He's powerful. You know God is powerful.

When you give birth, well when you're a woman, you give birth to a
child, you see the divine power of God. That something is not there 10,
11, 12 months before and then a year later there's a crying baby in your
hands and you have no idea how that formed in your womb. Now we have
videos that there's one cell that multiplies and multiplies and after a
while at a very young age you can see little fingers, little feet,
little toes.

You can see a little heartbeat and then you realize that it's this big
on your monitor but in reality it's like a peanut. How is that possible?
How can we be formed out of something that is smaller than a peanut? How
can that develop and create into a brain, eyes, lips, nose, mouth? How
is it possible? It shows us that God is divine. He can create something
out of nothing.

He can create you in your mother's womb. It literally says that he has
woven you together. God when you were unknown before your parents ever
took a test and see if you were pregnant, before your mother was
nauseous, God was at work in your mother's womb forming you together.

That's the power of God. You say I would love to see the God, the hand
of God at work. You do see it.

Look at a child when he grows up. It's incredible isn't it? When you
hold a child in your hand all he can do is open his eyes, make dirty
diapers and then after a while they can turn around and as you're a
first time parent you're excited. Wow my baby can turn around.

This is amazing. The muscle, you know how many, Abigail what did you
tell me? How many muscles does it take to say a word? 70 muscles? It
takes 70 muscles to say a word. I've been exercising this morning.

It takes 70 muscles to make a word. It takes God to create 70 muscles
for you to say mama, papa. Papa is more difficult.

It's got to be more more muscles because you got to let your lips
explode. The power of God is visible when you look in the mirror. To me
I love the eye.

I've probably said this before but I love eyes. It's incredible isn't
it? The light reflects from your forehead to my eyes. I can see your
forehead.

Same on mine. I can even see that some of you have a mustache. I can see
your hairlines.

I can see whether you're smiling or sleeping. I can see because God has
given me eyes to see. It's the power of God.

It's so visible isn't it? I could preach on this for a year you know. To
just think on everything God created. I'm becoming self-conscious now
when I put my hands together.

I just makes no sense this movement but I could put my fingers together
and then open. I could put them together again and open them. It's the
power of God.

I didn't make myself. My mom has no clue how she made me. She had her
choice.

She might have made some changes. God made you. Now what do we learn
about God? We learn of his majesty and how he ought to be praised.

If all my life I would just meet you. I'd be in a box for my whole life.
Completely oblivious to myself but only see you.

I would have to praise God for the majestic creation that you are. That
you have a functioning body. We see his grand design and his majestic
power and how he formed the universe and the world in it.

We learn of his strength and how he ought to be revered. For we see all
that lives he has received life from him. How he has both fed the lion
and the rabbit and made them all.

We learn of his beauty and how he ought to be loved for his beauty and
his creation of the flowers and the sand and the beautiful rays of the
sun when it goes down or rises up from the horizon. We learn of his
wisdom and how he ought to be followed if we see the intricate detail
that he has created in creation. I don't even know how oxygen is made.

Well I have the same books as you. Probably in Dutch rather than
English. I know photosynthesis but I don't understand it.

I don't know how oxygen is made and yet I've been breathing it all my
life. I see his wisdom in all of this. We learn of his sight and how he
ought to be sought.

He has given us eyesight so that we would seek him and his glory. We
learn of his graciousness in giving us all these things and how he ought
to be thanked. Do you realize that you have been sucking oxygen this
entire sermon which was a gift from God? Do you know that your heart has
been pumping blood this entire sermon? God formed that in you? Do you
realize that your kidneys have been working? That just the system has
been working and you're not walking around with your bread or your
Cheerios in your stomach and hurting all morning? And that could go on
and on.

How many things in your body are there to clean your blood so that it
doesn't clot all the time and you die? The muscles you have in your body
so that you don't fall over like a potato bag and sit without strength.
You have muscles in your neck that your head doesn't roll down from your
neck. It's amazing isn't it? In other words, creation tells us that he
deserves to be worshipped.

He deserves the voice, our voices to praise his holy name. He deserves
our hands to be raised up on high and give him the glory. He deserves
our lungs to sing forth with praise to God.

He deserves our feet to walk in his paths, our hand to touch what he
desires us to touch and work how we work for his glory. He deserves to
be thanked and glorified. You know, I love to hear the choir sing.

I love the way they sing and they sing beautiful. But I especially love
that they're using their gifts to give praise to God. Because he
deserves to be praised.

That's the glory of the choir. It's the glory of us singing together.
It's not about if they are perfectly singing and the best choir making
the angelic choirs jealous.

I'm impressed about the way they sing. But that's small compared to the
joy of singing them praises to God. And how he deserves to be praised.

God is invisible. But you can see his work. And you can know God.

You do not know the gospel from creation. But you know God. It's very
evident.

For the moment you open these eyes until this very moment you have seen
the work of God. Every step of the way. Which brings us to our last
question.

Are we responsible for not seeing? Not seeing and understanding. Why
does Paul tell us all these things? He tells them for this little
sentence in Romans 1 verse 20. Which is terrifying.

So they are without excuse. They are without excuse. Paul is making a
very strong statement here.

It's saying no one in this world has an excuse when he stands before
God. None of us have an excuse not to worship God. Not to be thankful to
him.

But the sinner says, but Lord. I didn't know. I wasn't told.

I wasn't shown. And the judge of all the earth will say I have shown it
to you. I have made it plain to you.

I have shown you the work of my hands every single day of your life. The
sinner will say. I am guilty.

For I have ignored all the work of your hands. All your love. All your
wisdom.

All your words. I have willfully ignored. And the judge of all the earth
will say to the angels.

According to Matthew 22 verse 13. Bind them hand and foot. And cast them
in the outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping. And gnashing of teeth. Do you
understand the seriousness of this? What Paul is saying is God has made
himself and shown himself in the world.

And we're saying praise the Lord. Hallelujah. But he says that also
means that you have no excuse before God.

For any of your sins. Means that there will be a multitude standing
before God. On judgment day.

That will be cast into hell fire. As they marched up to the judgment
seat. They thought we have confidence.

We have reasons. We have excuses. And when God is done with reading out
why they have no excuse.

They're bowed hand and foot. And thrown. Into the judgment.

My dear friends. It is a terrible thing. To fall into the hands of the
living God.

Now you may say. I have drunk from the grail of atheism. And have
persuaded myself that God does not exist.

But it won't help you when you stand before them. For one day there will
be no more atheists. Every person who lies and cheats.

People that we say how does God let them live. That question will no
longer be asked before the judgment seat of Christ. You know I'm
terrified.

When I see. Politicians paying lip service to God. And then live as
though he doesn't exist.

I'm terrified for their soul. Because they will have no excuse before
God. As they're cast into eternal judgment.

For their willful ignorance of God and his creation. Can you imagine
standing before God. And you have written into law.

The destruction of his creation. That would be a terrifying thing isn't
it. Can you imagine.

Butchering the family of a judge. And then be judged by that judge. But
to all of us.

If we're honest. Do we respond to what we know. I'm talking to you as
believers.

Do we live according to what we see and what we know. Do we live for him
the way he ought to be lived for. This is a message for.

For us as well isn't it. He has given us so much. How do we live.

In return. Let us live in this world. Until our dying day.

Proclaiming Jesus Christ and what he has done. Revealing to the world.
All the works of God's hands.

Pointing them to our neighbors and our friends. And saying look. Don't
you see.

What God has made. And then what God has done. And then how they can
come to God.

Let us take this message. Not as. Something to go into our neighbors and
say.

You should have known. But in humility. In love.

Never to give up and tell them. That there is a God. And he has created
the world.

And even though they have sinned against him. And used the breath that
they freely received from him. To use their lips to curse him.

He is still willing to forgive. The sword is still down. The judgment.

Is still held back. For today is the day of salvation to sinners. Such
as you and I. Let us call them.

To see what they already know. To come to the God. They've already seen.

To find life. From him who has given them life. In this earth.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father. Oh Lord.

How we love. Your word. And the works of your hands.

Father when we turn to scripture. We see you. In intense ways.

Speaking to us. When we lift up our eyes from our word. We see.

The evidence of your power. Help us Lord to bring more in. So that they
will not hear.

Have to hear. That there is no excuse for them. But they would come now.

And flee through your. To your throne of mercy and grace. And be saved.

For father we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/2rqPCIYdyAY.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/paul-van-engelenhoven/the-knowledge-of-god-in-creation/
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