Sermon Central
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God Is In Control Of The Universe Series
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Sep 10, 2014 (message contributor)
Summary: God is in control of the universe and all of nature ... or is He??? When you look at the works of God from creation through history and on into destruction and re-creation it is easy to see the fingerprints of God all over the place!
God is in control - or is He really?
Over the this Sunday and the next two we’ll be examining this question in detail.
Today - God is in control of the earth, planets, stars, etc.
Next Sunday - God is in control of the nations
Two weeks from today - God is in control of you and me
So, is God in control of all things terrestrial and celestial???
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Now, that’s a pretty grandiose statement!
The Lord goes on to explain and reinforce this more specifically in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”
And just so we don’t have any confusion about who “the Word” or “He” is referring to John writes in John 1:14
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Now, if we integrate What is says in verse 14 with what it says in verses 1-3 it goes like this…
“In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. Jesus was with God in the beginning. Through Jesus all things were made; without Jesus nothing was made that has been made.”
God, Jesus, is the Creator - God started it all! So, is God still in control of all things?
God is sustaining it all!
Hebrews 1:3 (HCSB)
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word.”
Hebrews 1:3 (AMP)
“He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God’s] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power.”
So, God is sustaining everything but what if He wants to change something?
God modifies it when He wishes to do so. In order to see what He changes we need to take a look at the original form of what He changed.
“And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.
“God called the vault; sky.’ And there was evening, and there was morning - the second day.
“And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters He called ‘seas.’ And God saw that it was good.”
Some Bible scholars believe that there was a layer of water above the earth, surrounding all of the earth. Not clouds, water! This water acted as a super-filter of the sun’s rays resulting in long life spans.
Could the “water above the earth” been talking about clouds?
All of these are never mentioned in the Bible as occurring up until the flood:
Rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, clouds, lightning.
Only rain is mentioned except for a reference to the fact that rain had not yet fallen on the earth.
God gives Noah a “7 day warning” in Genesis 7:4
“Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month - on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.”
Life spans before the Flood
Adam lived a total of 930 years
Seth lived a total of 912 years
Enosh lived a total of 905 years
Kenan lived a total of 910 years
Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years
Jared lived a total of 962 years
Methuselah lived a total of 969 years
Lamech lived a total of 777 years (died in his youth …)
Life spans after the Flood
Shem lived 500 years
Arphaxad lived 403 years
Shelah lived 403 years
Eber lived 430 years
Peleg lived 209
Reu lived 207
Serug lived 200 years
Nahor lived 119 years
Just 315 years after the flood the average lifespan has shrunk considerably.
And, none of these words are found in the Bible prior to the flood: sickness, disease, drought, famine, pestilence, locust, not even hunger or thirst!
