Transcription downloaded from https://yetanothersermon.host/_/ccbrighton/sermons/88266/maker-of-heaven-and-earth-part-1/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] We are going to think about a subject in the Bible, and we are going to look at some doctrines from Genesis.

[0:13] So you might like to turn to Genesis chapter 1, but we are going to move through different places. But Genesis chapter 1 is where we are going to start off, and I will ask God's help before we do so.

[0:26] Please, Lord, you have promised that those who meditate in your word are like trees planted by streams of water. And let that be us, Lord, as we come to you in our dependence upon you as we look into your word this morning.

[0:42] Amen. Amen. So these next few Sundays, the plan is to do some doctrines from Genesis.

[0:54] And you might actually first question me, what on earth is a doctrine? What is a doctrine? A doctrine is, and the way I'm using it and the way it gets used in Christian talk, is a teaching or a set of teachings that hold together around a particular theme.

[1:13] A biblical doctrine is a doctrine taught in the Bible, and the Bible is quite a big book, and it isn't divided into themes. It's spread across history.

[1:25] So the same theme will be touched upon in different places, and teaching a doctrine, you try and pick up the thread in a number of places and bring it all together.

[1:36] So a teaching taught by the Bible in a number of places, all drawn together in an orderly way. And usually, again, in Christian talk, a doctrine is meaning to say a set of teachings on something which is important and something which is firm and reliable.

[1:56] Fundamental principles for the church and each individual Christian to build their lives upon. So it's not quite the same as quoting one sentence from the Bible, which is a good thing to build our lives on.

[2:12] We can quote a particular sentence. But it's taking a whole lot of such sentences and bringing them together in perhaps into an idea or a set of ideas.

[2:22] Anyway, that's what I understand by the idea of doctrine. And today we're going to be looking at the doctrine of God. What does the Bible teach about God?

[2:34] I'm not going to say absolutely everything, but hopefully say something that's useful. Why bother? Why bother with doctrines?

[2:45] Because you might say, well, they're just words. They're just thoughts. I mean, why not do something more useful? The words and thoughts actually matter very much.

[3:00] It matters to God, for a start, who we think he is and what we think he values, what sort of person he is.

[3:12] It matters to God. So on Facebook, three people called Angelica Noble have asked to be my friends on Facebook.

[3:24] There is one real Angelica Noble, but the other two? I don't know. Have you ever had this where somebody pretends to be somebody else and you get them mixed up and they start to relate to you in a way that is not right?

[3:43] So we need to understand the real God because there are many things with the name God, G-O-D, but aren't the real one.

[3:57] So we need the right words, the right thoughts about the real God. Corinne, if we were giving a birthday present of Christmas, one birthday present is a set of Christmas carols and the other birthday present is a set of Elvis recordings.

[4:23] This is a test of how well you know Adam and Mark. Which one would you give which present to? Yeah, which one was which?

[4:39] So the birthday, the birthday, sorry, the Christmas carols. Would you like that? Is that the sort of person you are? You like Christmas carols? Yes. And does Mark like Elvis?

[4:50] Is water wet? Yes. Okay. So knowing the right person, knowing what they like is an important thing just in human relationships.

[5:00] And when it comes to offerings to God, does the real God like the offering of a suicide bomber who goes into a group of people, blows himself up?

[5:15] Does the real God pleased with that? Does the real God impressed if somebody quietly, in the name of Jesus, goes and does the washing up when everybody else has left the dirty dishes there?

[5:32] Yes. What sort of God is the real God? What sort of God does he like? What sort of things does he like? And here's another answer to this question. We actually become like what we worship.

[5:46] Now the atheists say, ban all religions because they cause wars. I mean, not all atheists say that, but that's a slogan that would come from sort of militant atheists.

[6:00] Ban all religions because they cause wars. To which the answer is, of course, some of them do. Some, not all religions are the same because not all gods are the same.

[6:12] Some religions make people cruel. It depends on the sort of God that the religion is about. There is a God who says, blessed are the peacemakers.

[6:28] That's the God of whom Jesus is the Son. There is a God who says, be like me, be holy, for I am holy.

[6:39] That's the God of the Bible says that. We become like the God we worship. And one other answer. Why should we have the right words and thoughts about who God is?

[6:51] Because of sin. The big sins in the Bible are not actually sexual sins, but worship sins.

[7:03] There's a whole lot of things said in criticism of the wrong worship. And I don't mean in a silly way, like saying, oh, you should have had five hymns and two choruses instead of four hymns.

[7:19] Not that sort, but more fundamentally, who you worship affects how you worship.

[7:30] And the Bible condemns the worship of things that people have made with their own hands or with their own heads.

[7:43] The Bible says that is stupid because made-up gods are just made up. They're not real.

[7:54] And it's perverse because God says, I'm the real God. I'm there. Why are you worshipping this made-up thing? So here's some thoughts on why it matters that we have the right words and the right thoughts about God, which is what doctrine is.

[8:11] So then, you might say, well, tell me about the God, your God, the God of the Bible. And the thing that I'm going to say this morning is that he is the maker of heaven and earth and everything in them.

[8:28] And in Genesis chapter 1, which is where you might have your finger at the moment, I can read it to you. It says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

[8:41] And it tells us, in a user-friendly way, the process he went through to do it. And at the end of that process, it says, chapter 2, verse 1, Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array, or with all their occupants.

[9:02] Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts, all the things that were in them. And I'm not going to go over the text of the process, but I'm just going to say he did it.

[9:12] And it's there at the beginning and there at the end. God created the heavens and the earth. End of it says, so the heavens and the earth and all their hosts were completed.

[9:25] God did it. And I can tell you a few things about the process, which you might have picked up. He did it by speaking.

[9:37] So the God of the Bible is a speaking God. God said, let there be light. So God is the inventor of linguistics. Because he is a speaking God.

[9:48] We're made in his image. That's why we are speaking creatures. Animals are not. They sort of make frightened noises, perhaps, or food noises. But they can't write a PhD on the noises that other animals make.

[10:04] We can construct whole things in words. God made everything by speaking. And he put order and purpose into the universe.

[10:18] And scientists puzzle. How come the world has order in it? Because one scientific law, called the second law of thermodynamics, says that if you leave something to itself, it gets more muddled up and more confused.

[10:35] It's the second law of thermodynamics. But what we actually see is a world which is full of order. Where did that come from? Well, the Bible says God is a God of order.

[10:47] God is a God who separates things and populates things. And God is a God who sees. In the text there, it says he saw that it was good.

[11:00] So God is not a blind God who cannot see, who doesn't know what's happening. God is a seeing God. And he saw that it was good.

[11:12] And you will have noticed in the reading several times God said it was good and it was very good. So God is a God who assesses things and has a sense of what is good and less good and not good.

[11:24] And he says it's good. And he tells us about it in a user-oriented, how-to-get-to-heaven way. There's no equations in the first chapter of Genesis.

[11:36] It's just words that anybody could understand. Of course, he's interested in us. He's interested in us understanding him. And incidentally, he made it in a way which was not complete without humankind.

[11:48] So humankind is not a sort of accidental add-on to creation. It's made with human beings in mind. Okay, so that is a little summary of the statement of God as creator in the book of Genesis.

[12:10] Are you happy with that? Anybody unclear? Are you okay with that? So what I'm going to do now is draw out some of those threads.

[12:26] And pick out how some of the threads of implication go through the rest of the Bible. And I'd like you please to turn to 1 Kings chapter 19.

[12:39] And if I get there ahead of you, I can see whether I got the right text. I think that's wrong.

[12:53] I think I meant 2 Kings. So let's see whether that's right. Yeah, it was 2 Kings 19. So I'll let you find that. Somebody give a page number.

[13:05] So if you've got one like Maria has got it, the page number is? 2-7-5. So what I'm trying to do is to say, we know in the beginning God made the heavens and the earth.

[13:23] Now what are the implications of that? In the Bible, what do people say that this implies? What application does it have? What traction does it have in life?

[13:38] And I'm now in 2 Kings chapter 19, verses 14 to 19. This, we've jumped straight into a piece of history.

[13:49] It's the history of Israel. Israel is a land in the Middle East. At some point in its history, it got divided in two.

[14:04] An invading army came and started invading the Northern Kingdom, which it did successfully, and was jolly nearly invading the Southern Kingdom.

[14:19] And in that moment of tension, when the army is approaching, the king of the Southern Kingdom is in this position. He gets a threatening letter, which says, we're just going to invade you.

[14:32] Why don't you give up now? And in 2 Kings 19, verse 14, King Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it.

[14:45] Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.

[15:04] You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to the words, the invading king, King Sennacherib.

[15:18] Listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands.

[15:29] They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone fashioned by men's hands. Now, O Lord, our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, our God.

[15:50] So this is King Hezekiah of Judah, of this little, tiny, remainder, mini-kingdom, threatened by the mega-powerful and highly successful Assyrian army.

[16:05] They are very successful. They have knocked out this kingdom, that kingdom, that kingdom, that kingdom, kingdom that worshiped Molech, the kingdom that worshiped whatever other gods. Bang, bang, bang. They have knocked them all out.

[16:17] And now they are right at the boundaries of the southern kingdom. And Sennacherib is there, and King Hezekiah prays.

[16:30] And I would like us to look at what he prays. The writing suddenly went smaller, because I ended up putting lots of words on the sheet. Hope you can read it. He prays to the God who made heaven and earth.

[16:45] You see it in verse 15? You have made heaven and earth. So an important part of what he's saying and praying is, what sort of God am I praying to?

[16:56] I'm praying to the God who made everything. And he says to this God who made everything, verse 15, O Lord God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over the kingdoms of the earth.

[17:15] You made heaven and earth. So, here's something. How many gods made heaven and earth? Answer, only one.

[17:27] What is the distinctive thing about the God of the Bible? He made the heaven and earth. Interesting, when Jonah is asked by the sailors on that boat, which God do you serve?

[17:40] He says, oh, the God I serve is the one who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them. That's the God that I serve, the God who made everything. There is only one God who made everything and that differentiates him from the others.

[17:56] The Greeks and the Romans had multiple gods. They had a God of the weather. I'm just making this up now. A God of food, a God of wine, a God of rivers, a God of mountains, you know, you name it.

[18:10] You have a God for each department of life. And Roman Catholic saints seem to occupy the same sort of territory. You have St. So-and-so who's the saint of house moving and St. So-and-so is the saint of taxi drivers and St. So-and-so is the saint of sea journeys.

[18:28] And it just seems to devolve power to different gods or different saints or whatever. Hindus, I am told, by people who are not Hindus, but there are three million gods for the Hindus.

[18:43] And if you see a Hindu temple, it is almost literally crawling with gods. They make statues of the gods and they sort of crawl over the outside of the building.

[18:56] There are multiple gods. Christians, incidentally, don't have three gods, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[19:10] But the Bible says there is one God. You alone are God. You alone are God.

[19:23] Make sure we're worshipping the right God because there's only one real God. And Hezekiah says, when you answer this prayer, verse 19, deliver us from his hands so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.

[19:51] It's a great prayer, isn't it? The armies, you can almost see them outside the city wall. They're so much bigger than our armies. How on earth are we going to escape?

[20:03] I'm praying to you because you made the heaven and earth. You made all this. You made heaven and earth. And big armies are not a problem for you. You alone are this God.

[20:15] You, please, here, do something for us. And of course, it is a fact that Jerusalem did survive. They survived that attack.

[20:27] So we should learn, should we not, that the Lord does answer prayer. What else does Hezekiah say? He says, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.

[20:40] That's in verse 15. You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. Over all the kingdoms. Over the big kingdoms and the little kingdoms.

[20:57] Over the small kings and the mega emperors. You are Lord over the whole lot. That is quite a thought, isn't it?

[21:12] More than, you have more power. You are superior in authority to Mr. Putin, President Trump, Theresa May, you name it.

[21:26] The Lord who made heaven and earth is superior over all those. You alone are Lord over all the kingdoms of the earth.

[21:38] And it says that this God who made everything, verse 15, you are enthroned between the cherubim. Let's just think about this thing he says.

[21:53] Enthroned is the place of kingly power. So the God who made heaven and earth has not gone off now, you know, on holiday to the Bahamas and he's left it in charge of somebody else and, you know, he's not that interested if you ring up to try and get any, you know, leaking tap fixed.

[22:14] You can't get through to the real owner. He's enthroned. He's there sitting, looking at it all, presiding over it all.

[22:25] He is enthroned. He's in the place and role of the sovereign. And incidentally, God is enthroned full stop. He doesn't need us to vote for him to be enthroned.

[22:39] We don't make him king. He's king already. What we ask him to do is make us his servants. He is the king. He does not need a referendum to consolidate his power.

[22:54] God doesn't say, ah, I've got quite a few Christians on board now, so now would be a good time to vote for them to vote for me. If the whole world said to God, you're not God, we're not worshipping you, that would not change a single thing.

[23:10] God still is God. He is still Lord of heaven and earth. He still rules everything exactly as he wants it to be done. And you see that in this prayer, the sort of crucial point, or one of the crucial points is, Lord of heaven and earth, listen to what this invading army are saying.

[23:37] They are saying that you are a little, tiny, rubbish god like all the other rubbish gods that they encountered and all the kingdoms that they went bang, bang, bang, bang, and knocked them out one by one.

[23:50] They think you're like that. Don't let them think that. That's an insult to your glory. Don't let them do that.

[24:02] You see, God does things for his own glory. He cares about his glory. He cares about what people think about him in that sense. This is an insult to you.

[24:14] Don't let it carry on. God's honour is at stake. And to insult God, since God is still glorious, but to insult God is what it does to us.

[24:35] It puts us fundamentally out of tune with our purpose and our identity and our place in the universe. It sort knocks us out of place.

[24:47] The place we should be is honouring God. When we insult him, we put ourselves out of that place. Let's just carry on with a few more thoughts from this.

[25:03] Hezekiah prays, Lord of heaven and earth, you made everything. Hear my prayer. the defeated gods.

[25:15] He refers to these defeated gods in verse 17. It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them.

[25:27] For they were not gods, but only wood and stone, fashioned by men's hands. So in what I put on the screen, in the thought there might be some Italians here.

[25:38] We're fresh out of Italians, aren't we? So Fato Amano is the name of the pizza place along there and it means made by hand.

[25:50] I'll just tell you that story again when I was in Sri Lanka of the man who was her own Catholic who became a gospel Christian because he'd been dusting the little statues in the Roman Catholic church which everybody had been worshipping and when he dusted it, it accidentally fell over, cracked open and he could see, that this Mary he'd been worshipping or whatever it was, was hollow and just made out of concrete, you know, cast pottery or something and he thought, have I been worshipping that?

[26:25] Those gods are not real gods. The maker is radically different from the made. There's a huge distinction between the maker of everything and the things that are made.

[26:37] And the idols are made things. made up either literally with clay or wood or made up in people's heads and they fail.

[26:53] The song that we sang right at the beginning about the idols, not to them, not to us be glory and not to the idols because they can't see or touch.

[27:05] You know, you paint eyes on them but they can't see. you give them hands but they can't touch anything. You form their feet but they can't go anywhere. They're a big lie.

[27:17] So the idols are like that. And in the New Testament we're told to beware of idols strangely enough. There's bad idols like power and the greed for money.

[27:32] We can worship that. There's good idols. say good. I mean, you can make an idol out of children. They're so cute. Devote one's whole life to them in the wrong sense.

[27:45] You can make an idol out of being independent. Make an idol out of having a tidy kitchen. There's all sorts of things that come in to take the place of God that are made and we should be worshipping the maker.

[28:03] And the maker, this maker, as Hezekiah says so clearly, verse 16, is one who can hear. He prays, give ear, O Lord, and hear.

[28:15] In verse 16 he says, open your eyes and see. And he says, listen to the words that Sennacherib was sent to insult the living God.

[28:27] See, that's the difference, isn't it? The idols are just clay and wood and stone, but the real God is a living God. He responds, he sees, he acts, he holds, and everything else.

[28:43] Unlike the pottery. We are not always aware of God's response and reaction.

[28:54] That does not mean he does not have a response and a reaction. situation. My dad told me a while ago on the Isle of White, there is a road that goes through to Sandown.

[29:09] It's got twists and turns in it and people drive along there quite fast. And there's a monument up on one side of the road and a path on the other side. And a school teacher was taking a group of children from the path to the monument and they were crossing the road.

[29:26] And the school teacher stood in the middle of the road, said to the children, come round, off you go, off you go, off you go, like that, on the went. Not knowing that behind him there was a car coming round the corner and coming to a very sudden halt because it was not a good place to cross the road.

[29:44] The school teacher had no idea this was happening, crossed them over and went gately on his way. He had no idea of the danger he'd put the kids in.

[29:55] He had no idea of the response of that motorist. And sometimes it's like that with God. We can carry on gaily on our way. God must think I'm great, God must think everything's fine.

[30:09] Not realising that if we are worshipping the wrong God, God is intensely displeased and says, why aren't you worshipping me?

[30:21] Why did I get the angel of the Lord? Verse 35.

[30:34] Yeah, that night it says in verse 35, God did act and the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp.

[30:46] Something happened. God did it. And the other thing I should say about this God who made everything is that he links himself with people in a particular way.

[31:01] I'm going to go back to that prayer again and point out that Hezekiah isn't just saying you're powerful and he isn't just saying you're big and he isn't just saying you're king.

[31:14] He's saying we have a link to each other. You have a link to me. The first way is that he's called himself the Lord. Now the Lord does not simply mean the master.

[31:29] It is a translation of a name of God. I am to put it simply. And I am is the God of Israel.

[31:44] And Hezekiah goes to the temple and the temple is the building which is the home of I am. It is the place where the God of Israel is to be found.

[31:55] And He addresses the Lord, the God of Israel, verse 15. And this God is enthroned between the cherubim. And you're going to say what a cherubim? And cherubim, as far as we know, they were big.

[32:10] There were statues of cherubim in the temple. They're creatures that guard the God of Israel. So He's not just referring to God in His philosophical abstraction, but the God who is linked to us.

[32:29] He's the King of Israel. This is the God of Israel. He's in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the place where the temple of God is, where the Lord makes Himself known.

[32:41] He's not on the side of the Assyrians. They have a different God. The God who made heaven and earth is the God of the Israelites, the Lord our God, he says.

[32:53] And I want to point out the possibility of this God not simply being God abstractly, philosophically, but in personal commitment to people like us that we could say our God.

[33:18] This is my God. This is the God I pray to. This is the God who helps me. This is the God who loves me. This is the God I'm thankful to. Let's follow another thread.

[33:31] I might have to do this one more quickly because I've got another one to come afterwards. Let's go to Psalm 121. and I'm still following this thread of God being the maker of heaven and earth.

[33:43] I'm trying to give you a little flavour of how this is connected up in the rest of the Bible. Psalm 121. So Psalms in the middle of the Bible.

[33:58] Everybody give us a page number. 437. So you could try that if you've got a Bible from the back. Or 621 if you've got a different Bible from the back.

[34:13] So look in the 400s. We'll look at Psalms. P-S-A-L-M. Psalms. They're songs that the Israelites sang.

[34:27] Psalm 121 says this. I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

[34:45] Do you see? He's picking up on the fact that the Lord is the maker of heaven and earth. And I'd like to draw this out for a few minutes if I may. Where do I loof for help to come from?

[35:02] help? I think something's gone wrong there, hasn't it? So what I meant to say was where should I look for help to come from?

[35:13] We all need help, don't we? Perhaps you're a very rare individual, you never need help. I need help, I think most of us need help, where do we look for it? I lift up my eyes to the hills, says the psalmist, where does my help come from?

[35:27] Is the hills the place where I get help? Or perhaps the countries beyond the hills, or from something that's in the hills, maybe the sheep, maybe sheep can help me.

[35:41] I find that a little unlikely, but where do I look for help? And he says, well actually the answer is my help comes from the Lord.

[35:52] the maker of heaven and earth. It's quite a weighty thought, isn't it? The Lord, that's the God of Israel, is the maker of heaven and earth.

[36:09] If this is the person who helps me, there is a lot of help available. Is that right? There's a sort of superior ability to help.

[36:25] I could try ringing the helpline and they'll say, I'm sorry sir, you're out of guarantee. Or I try ringing the other helpline, they say, we have to put you on to personnel and resources.

[36:38] No help there. But my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He's the right God, isn't he?

[36:48] Because we don't have a God of rivers and a God of end of term exams. Which one God am I? But he covers everything. He is not outranked.

[37:04] He is not outplanned. He is not outwitted. He is not overpowered. Because he is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is the maker of heaven and earth. And let's just follow through how the psalmist spins this out.

[37:21] He will not let your foot slip. So there's a commitment from God. So God isn't just sitting back saying, well, see how you get on, come back to me tomorrow.

[37:32] He says, oh, he's foot slipping. Nope, won't let that happen. See, there's a sort of commitment from God, a sort of initiative from God. Foot slipping, nope, nope, nope, nope, that won't happen. He will not let your foot slip.

[37:44] He's a committed God. He's not capricious. Now then, I thought about that word if I better explain it. Capricious means that you can't rely on him.

[37:56] Capricious is somebody who has a bright idea one moment and then changes their mind the next and then changes their mind the next. So a decision is the thing that you do immediately before you change your mind.

[38:08] He's not a capricious God. He is a committed God. And it says, I won't lose concentration. He who watches over you will not slumber.

[38:22] He who watches over you will neither slumber nor sleep. Sorry, I forgot what I was going to say then. No, I didn't.

[38:32] I was just playing tricks with you. God does not lose concentration. Yeah? God does not lose concentration.

[38:45] He watches over you, will not slumber, and will not sleep. That's rather good, isn't it? Yeah, we have off moments or off months or sometimes off years, but God never has an off moment.

[39:00] He's on the ball all the time. And we have an all-purpose God. He watches over you. It says, he's your shade at your right hand.

[39:11] The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. He will watch over your coming and your going. So, that sort of covers all the eventualities.

[39:23] Sun and moon, night and day, coming and going. Remember Alec Mateer saying, no, dear friends, what other sort of journey do you ever go on?

[39:35] You're either coming or going, aren't you? There's no other sort of journey. God watches over your coming and your going. He's all purpose. He's all capable. There's some people who can't function without a mobile phone signal and Wi-Fi.

[39:49] I'm just absolutely stumped. What can I do? I can't put anything on Facebook. What should I do for the rest of the day? But God is not troubled by things like that. Day or night, coming or going, got it all covered.

[40:04] And he's a good God. He will keep you from harm. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? He knows what harm is and he will keep you from it.

[40:16] An ignorant person might see a hazardous situation, not realize it was hazardous or not care or be indifferent, but the God who made heaven and earth says, I will keep you from harm.

[40:31] He knows what is good and what is harmful. He is the seeing God who watches over you. He is the eternal God who watches over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

[40:47] So, do you get the thought of this? Where do I look for my help? help? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

[40:58] That's his bigness and how that all spins out into my life in his commitment. In fact, he doesn't lose concentration. In fact, there's nothing where it's the wrong department for God. He knows all about everything.

[41:11] He keeps us from harm. He knows what's good for us. He sees and he's eternal. So, let me pick up one more thread.

[41:23] Here, and it's in Matthew chapter 11, and then we're finished. So, I just wanted to bring the thread forward into the New Testament a little tiny bit.

[41:34] And in Matthew 11, Jesus references the God who is the Lord of heaven and earth. I take that to be a reference to the fact that he's the maker of heaven and earth.

[41:47] This is in Matthew's gospel, chapter 11, and somebody might give us a page number. Say it again. 6, 8, 9.

[42:01] Okay. So, this now we've come through from the history of Israel to Jesus of Nazareth, the man sent by God.

[42:16] God. And we're listening to him pray. And in Matthew 11, verse 25, Jesus prays, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.

[42:40] God yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

[43:01] come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

[43:17] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. And without straining your patience by spreading out every single thing in that text, I'll say this, Jesus too is a worshipper of the maker of heaven and earth.

[43:34] He praises the Lord of heaven and earth. I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. And the Lord of heaven and earth, we are told, hides himself from the clever and the proud.

[43:55] Interesting, isn't it? Sorry? Perhaps until they're exhausted. Well, maybe so, until they learn to become like little children, because it says he reveals himself to little children.

[44:10] The way to this God, who is so high and great, is not by making ourselves big and important, but by realizing our lowliness, our dependence on him.

[44:24] He reveals himself to the lowly. Isn't that brilliant? this great God, hides himself from the wise and learned, reveals himself to little children.

[44:38] And we learn that the Father gives all things to the Son, and no one knows the Father except the Son. So great is he that only his Son knows him, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

[44:56] and this puts Jesus as it were in pole position, doesn't it? If we are to know the maker of heaven and earth, the way to know him is through this man who walked in Palestine all those years ago, this man who died on a cross, this man who said all these wonderful things.

[45:17] He's the one who reveals the Father to those who come as little children. would you like to be able to pray like Hezekiah did?

[45:35] Lord, you're my God. Lord of heaven and earth, maker of heaven and earth, help me. Or to pray like the psalmist did, where does my help come from?

[45:47] Not from the hills, but from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. The way to be in the place where you can pray that prayer is to become as a little child, to come to Jesus and He will put your hand in the hand of the great Father who made everything.

[46:09]  Let's sing together. Let's sing together.