M Street Podcast Episode 17

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is M Street weekly podcast of Mercy Street Reformed Church in Denver, Colorado. If you live in the Denver area and would like to know more about us like when we have our weekly Bible studies and services visit Mercy Street reformed. O RG. That’s Mercy Street reformed. Org.

This is Pastor Chris Moulton. Thanking you again for listening to em Street as you just heard this podcast is produced in part any way to promote interest in Mercy Street Reformed Church in Denver, Colorado. And so if you live in the Denver area, or if you know someone who does then please know that you or they are invited to join us for our Bible studies and Lord’s Day Services. Of course, this podcast is also produced. So as to be a blessing to all who take the time to listen to it and so by God’s grace, I hope and pray that this episode like all the others will be just that for all who hear it including yourself.

What’s up, about 20 years ago or thereabout. I was working as a part-time carpet installer in between my full-time teaching job. And on one occasion. I was installing carpet in the family’s basement wherein I opened what I thought was a closet door only then to find that instead. It was a small area maybe 2 foot deep by about four foot wide with about three or four shelves on it all lined with various trinkets statues and pictures I ask the homeowner what it all meant. Did he explain to me that as a family they practice the Hindu religion and that all of those little trinket statues pictures and what have you were or at least represented their gods their many deities that they worshipped and prayed to having never seen anything like that. I remember taking a minute or two to process at all after which I asked the man if he had ever heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As I recall, he said that he had not and so I was able to share it to present it to him as best as I knew how at that point at the conclusion of which he told me that he would like to add Jesus Christ to the rest of his collection of deities. So as to worship him right alongside all of his other so-called Gods little G.

So sadly that man that family and many others like them had some idea that there is such a thing as a God who deserves our worship, but neither he nor they had any idea who the one true and living God is or that there is only one true and living God and again the same thing holds true for a multitude of people all across this world.

I’ll come back to that. In just a minute. But first let me say a few words again about Auto fireguard the device that is designed to immediately extinguish fires in your home vehicle or business whether you are present when the fire breaks out or not. I read recently that according to the National Fire Protection Association nearly one-third of all total loss house fires occur in the months of December and January and February and also that the average household can expect five fires in the lifetime of us residents most of which are put out before they do much damage, of course, but not all and in many instances those same fires as well as the damage that does occur because of them could be greatly lessened. If only a certified auto fireguard device were in place.

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So getting back to the reality that there is one true and living God and only one true and living God. We as human beings and therefore as those made in God’s image have what we might call an innate desire and motivation to worship a god a being who is worthy of our praise and adoration. And yeah because we also naturally did the one true and living God we instead worship a God or Gods as the case may be of our own making the famous 16th century reformer pastor and theologian John Calvin wrote that we are all Naturally Speaking Idol factories. In other words, those that are ready and able to produce in our own minds all sorts of false gods that we enjoy worshiping praising the voting at least some portion of Our Lives to and again, that’s because as long as we’re left to ourselves, we will consistently and stubbornly refuse to believe the revelation.

The one true and living God which he gives us both from his word and also from his creation.

This episode of M Street I want to talk about the fact that first there is a God and that he reveals himself to us and those two ways through his word and through his creation and then Lord willing next time that he is one rather than many followed by the fact that he is also a Triune God, which I probably won’t get to until two or three episodes from now.

But so in the opening few words of the Apostles Creed which I spoke about last time. We State we confess that I believe in God the Father maker of heaven and Earth and yet even just the first four words of that statement namely I believe in God is worth considering before we go any further since like I just said in a sense that’s what all human beings believe I’ll be at in most cases. They believe in a God or an idol of their own making so what do we mean by the word god? Well stated simply the name God means one who is above all and or Supreme and therefore worthy of our Adoration of Our Praise of our worship and so on that there is such a one and only one is something like I said that many people deny and so instead of adoring praising and worshiping The God Who is

They come up with one of their own making even if it’s themselves, which sadly is often the case.

But now the next question we might ask is since there is one and only one true God how might we know that in other words if he has revealed himself to us. How did he do it so that we might by searching out his revelation of himself to us. Come to know him.

The answer to that question is that he has revealed himself to us primarily in two ways one is through what we call Natural Revelation or the evidence of his creative Majesty that we experience all around us on a daily basis.

While the other is what we sometimes call special Revelation or the word of God revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which is as Louis berkhof. Put it special Revelation par exsalonce.

I want to pause here and say that in considering the fact that there is a God and that he has made himself known to us through those means even though that’s absolutely true. Neither. I nor anyone else can simply provide the evidence to someone who dis believes that he exists and y La now, they suddenly believe

As we heard last time faith is in the saving variety wherein we believe and hold true all that God has revealed to us in his word is a gift which he gives to his own and not something that we merely figure out after having been given enough evidence.

For by grace, are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God Ephesians 2:8 and so I make that point now so as to be clear that some will likely hear what I’m about to say and give a hearty. Amen. While others will hear it and yet remain like the Hindu man in that house. I worked at and unbelief.

But so and thinking first then about God’s revelation of himself to us in nature, the evidence literally abounds of there being not some kind of accidental or chaotic first cause of all things that has now brought about what we know through evolutionary change, but instead it reveals an intelligent designer and Creator who himself is the first and sustaining cause of all that we touch see hear smell Etc when it comes to the earth and the space all around us.

Many of you have probably heard before the analogy used by Fred Hoyle years ago where and he talked about the possibilities of hurricane sweeping through a junkyard and thus assembling a Boeing 747. He been stated that the possibilities of that ever happening or something like one and 10 to the 40,000 power. In other words. It’s impossible in a similar but perhaps more advanced analogy Hugh Ross writes in his new book The Creator and his Cosmos that the universe is fine-tuning or another words the intricacy in intelligence and its design is 10 to the 43rd times more Exquisite more detail than its Precision. Then someone blindfolded with just one try randomly picking out a single marked proton from all the existing protons within the entire extent of the observable universe.

It’s so not simply from all the existing protons within your own backyard mind you or even in your own city, which is in itself a massive amount. But from all the protons in the entire observable universe universe. And again, it’s basically just another way of saying that what we call nature is abounding with evidence of an intelligent designer Creator and sustainer of all things rather than it all coming into being due to some sort of random explosion or through time plus chance, which is the god of evolution.

Horse much more can be said about that aspect of God’s revelation to us in nature. But because this isn’t a very long podcast and because we just ran out of time. I’m now going to say a few words about God’s other means of Revelation to us namely his special or written Revelation which we receive in his word the Bible.

So is beautiful and as clear as natural Revelation is to us that there is a God and that he did create it all including us. It still doesn’t tell us very much about himself like who he is his attributes what he requires even who we are as Fallen sinful human beings that need to save your to redeem us from our sin. And so God has graciously seen fit to further revealed himself to us through his written and preserved word from about the early fifteen hundreds BC up until about two thousand years ago. God inspired certain human Riders to take pain and hand as it were in right or record exactly word for word what he wanted them to write and nothing more. That’s not to say that is each one of those human writers wrote that they were then put into some kind of Supernatural trance where they became like robots writing words without any knowledge or understanding what they were doing.

But instead to court again from Louis berkhof got to use them just as they were but their character and temperament their gifts and talents their education and culture their vocabulary diction and style. He that is God a lumens their minds prompted them to write repress the influence of sin on their literary activity and guided them in the choice of their words and in the expression of their thoughts.

And again in doing so God therefore produced or offered for us a special written and preserved revelation of himself so that we could then take it up and read it. So as to know all that we need to know about him and in the context of what we’re hearing in this episode most particularly that he and he alone is the one true and living God.

Also adds with God’s natural Revelation more to can certainly be said in regard to his special or written Revelation to us. But for now, I’ll close with this besides his word simply reviewing to us the fact that he is God also reveals to us in his word the way that we can come to know him and be loved by him. And that way is Jesus Christ. He is the way the truth and the life only through faith in him only by resting our souls upon his finished work only through saving faith in Jesus Christ. Can we have the one true God as our God and have him in that way forever.

From beginning to end the way of Salvation through Jesus Christ is revealed to us in God’s word. And so may we all take it up and read it to the glory of God and to the edification of our soul. I’ll close with that and until next time May the mercy that God bestows on sinners like myself be yours.

This is Benham Street a weekly podcast of Mercy Street Reformed Church in Denver, Colorado to find out more about us or more about the Reformed Church in the United States to visit Mercy Street. Reform. O RG. That’s Mercy Street reformed. Org.

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