Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. I remind you, this is God's holy, inerrant, and infallible word. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Let's pray. Well, Lord, we thank you for such a statement, such an incredible beginning to what you have made. Clarifying so much for us, Lord, but it's supremely. That before the creation that we observe, experience, taste and touch. There was nothing but you. For you are eternal and timeless and true. Therefore, we ask that you would reveal further for us a deeper understanding of this word that we might grow in our understanding of you. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. I don't know if you've watched the show, but I used to watch it with the kids on Sunday evenings. We'd gather upstairs in our what used to be called the toy room, the playroom, and has now become the TV room. But our adult children, especially our two oldest, Matthew and Jessica, still refer to that room as the playroom, even though there's no playing going on in there anymore. It's just a television and couches. But they remember it as the playroom. So we would gather in the playroom, and we would watch David Attenborough, and he would walk us through planet Earth. And maybe you've watched that show. It's just a wonderful litany of expositions about the planet on which we live, whether it's geography or it's the oceans or it's animal life, mammal life, sea creatures, all of it. It's absolutely fascinating. Some of the information there may, in fact, impact you for the rest of your lives. My son, Matthew, no longer eats figs, even though he likes them. But we came to understand that if you eat figs, the only way for figs to become ripe is for a fig wasp to go inside and squeeze down into that little tiny hole and move around and pollinate inside of that fig. And she leaves a little bit behind, her own body herself. as well as a few egg carcasses and things like that. And it's there when you eat the fig. You pop the fig into your mouth and it's there. Well, my attitude at this point is I'm not worried about it. Whereas some of us have a different perspective. Matthew will not eat figs. But it's a fascinating show and we remember that expose about fig larvae. or wasp larvae. But he says a number of things on his show, and he comes to a lot of different conclusions. And when we watch Planet Earth and when we watch with the kids, we'd immediately look at each other after the show was over and say, how fascinating. What a world God has made. And we would inevitably lead to ultimately praise of God, each of us, as we marveled at the world that God created. Sir David Attenborough, though, a biologist, a noted biologist, never says anything at all about God. But he does mention his God. Evolution is constantly a refrain. Mankind's ability to affect the creation which God has made is always at the fore. He says, it seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement. So he looks at the world, he looks at creation, and he says, this world is the source of human excitement and joy. We, as Christians, we look at God's created order and we say, there is something above what we observe and see and taste, touch, and experience and eat. It's the God who has made such things. He says, it continues, the natural world is the greatest source of intellectual interest. He says, it is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living. You see, what he has done is he has made a God of nature. And what he does is he stops at what has been made that clearly is not eternal, that has a beginning. We can see the entropy of all that is made. We can observe that the world in which we live and the universe beyond is dying, is atrophying, is eventually reaching a stage in which it is breaking down. It had also a beginning. This is observed. It can be seen. And Sir David Attenborough says, this is where I find my ultimate meaning, in creation itself, in nature. Every breath, he says, of air that we take, every mouthful of food that we take, comes from the natural world. What he is denying is found in Christ's Prayer, as he says, when you pray, pray in this way. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed, holy is your name. Through kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. He summarizes, in our hands now lies not only the future, but that of all living creatures with whom we share the earth. In other words, the world and the created order depends entirely upon man. And so what he understands from the world is the world And the existence of all that God has created exists to give meaning to man. And man's meaning is found in his stewardship of those things, because all of those things are dependent upon man in his sovereignty and our ability to take care of and to steward what God has created. And yet he denies that God has created anything. But the Christian responds. in a very different way. I keep waiting, waiting. One day I'm hopeful that Sir David Attenborough will respond to, yes, the tiniest little ants as they walk through the jungle floor all the way up to the interplanetary movement and ultimately say, oh, the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how inscrutable are his ways. But he doesn't do this. Maybe one day he will. It's like in 1968 and some of us, I know, I won't say who, I won't look at anyone. I was born in 1968, but some of you were around in 1968. And in 1968, astronaut William Anders looked out over through the spacecraft as it rotated around the moon. And as it rotated around the moon and came into the view of the earth, and the earth was seen over the horizon of the moon, and all of the broadcasters on broadcast television that were airing this live went silent in absolute awe. Astronaut William Anders said, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It was the most appropriate thing to say. Well, we have looked at this two verse exposition, I promise we'll move on to verse three and following next week, but verses one and two, we looked at it last week, we affirmed a few things. It's a summarizing statement, these two verses of God's creative activity. And it's also a declaration that God has begun that creative activity by establishing all of the foundational creation of both space itself and the earth without form and void. He has created, spoken them into being, and they are there. And now he will begin his specific and particular creative activity in filling space and in filling the earth. And thus this he does in the space of six days and all very good. But in that first declarative statement, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He created time and space and matter and the spiritual realm and spiritual beings, the unseen, invisible things God has made in a perfectly round earth with water and minerals and metals and physicals that make our planet earth. And the spirit hovers. over the deep. There is, as we said last week, the spirit of expectation that he is about to unfold, about to do something gloriously wonderful. And we've argued last week that God is the first subject of scripture and he is, in the beginning, God. What was at the beginning? What was the world like at the beginning? God. God existed. God was. He reveals himself to Moses and Jesus affirms it in the Gospels. I am, ego, me. In being, I am is rightly interpreted. He is our creator. His essential being is the timeless one, is worthy of honor and glory and praise and so too are his imagination, his originality, his eternality. It's like Psalm 148 verse 5, we said, let them all of his creation in the highest heavens declare and praise the name of the Lord for he commanded and they were created. Some of us remember watching the Saturday morning cartoons And the Jetsons were a futuristic family and their future was supposed to be at a time prior to 2025. I think it was the year 2000. I'm not certain. But there were robot maids in the home and you lived on stilts sort of things and you flew with vehicles that simply took off. You didn't need gas and you flew. And you wore belts with interesting things on them and pants and shoe boots that looked like space boots. And you could speak to something on the wall and whatever you wanted would appear in the machine. Even then, the implication is that in that machine is the stuff that makes the stuff we want. But that is a wonderful idea, concept. It's that you could speak into something, and it makes what you want. In similar fashion, we have 3D printers. And you can create something, a picture of something, and it will begin to piece it together. But once it runs out of that material, whether it's concrete or plastic or paper or wood or whatever other thing, it's out. It can't create what you want. In other words, the world that we observe, everything is made of something. And we can't take a box of toothpicks and drop them on the floor, and they become something we have designed in our own mind. It doesn't work that way, even if we could. It's not anything like how God makes and creates. He spoke, and it was. And he is worthy of praise. The shape of the earth in the beginning was, in the Hebrew, tohu va boku choshek. It was chaotic. It was unordered, without form, and empty, and dark. And yet Elohim and the spirit of Elohim is hovering in expectation over that water, So we find meaning and purpose in our creatureliness. God has not abandoned his creation, but rather he is imminent. He is near, he is with what he has made. And we saw that Christ is present here as well. John 1.1, in the beginning, in similar wording, knowing exactly what Genesis chapter one says, John writes, in the spirit of the Lord, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And in Colossians 1.16, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things. And in him, all things hold together. And what Colossians is speaking about, as Paul is saying, that's in Christ. Christ is the one who holds all things together. All things were made through him and for him and by him. And so this week, as we look at this two verse passage, we want to ask two questions and answer them, hopefully. Who created and how was, how did, how was the creation made? Who and how of creation? Well, who created? The simple answer is in the beginning, God, or Elohim is the specific name used here. Elohim created the heavens and the earth. Who created God? I know that Richard Dawkins and various others, Stephen Hawkins, and I'm trying to think of the various names that are out there of those who have written. And they have declared how foolish it is to believe that there is anything beyond what we observe and what mankind can reasonably come to a conclusion about, and yet there are things that we simply cannot understand. And there are blinders over those men's eyes, and they have not met the God of creation, except of those who have died. And they have gone immediately to the God to whom they must ascend and give an answer. to for their eternity. God has created all things and all things that are created are made and they are fashioned by his hand and they have come into existence because he has spoke them into being. And we have come into existence because he has spoke us into being because he himself has contemplated thought of mankind and has created us after his will. And so we would say that there is a distinction between God who is created and we who are created. It's what's referred to historically as the creator-creature distinction. There is a distinction. And it leads us to come to some important conclusions. Because God is creator and I am not creator, therefore God is God and I am not God. We need to know that. There are plenty amongst the human race who are under some delusion that they are God and that they have lost a sense of that creator-creature distinction. He is above his creation. He is distinct from that what he has created. He is not subject to all that corrupts the creation. now that the creation is corrupted by the sin of mankind. He is untouched by that corruption. Because all things are made by him, creation is not divine. Somehow the idea that he is created in such a way that he is in all that he has created. No, that's not the case. He is created. They have come into being. He has created mankind in his image. All that can be granted to mankind in communicative attributes has been given to us. We are created in the image of God. But all things are made by him. Therefore, what he makes is not, though it might share his characteristics or display his graces, nonetheless, it is not himself. It is distinct from who he is. He is creator. and his creation is creation. It also not only denies pantheism, the idea that God is in his creation, existing and dwelling in all created things, it also denies that panentheism, the idea that all of creation is in him, which is another confusing modern spiritualist idea. that denies the reality of what God has created. God has created all things. All things are real. He has created them to be real. They are not seemingly real. They are real. You consume a real peach when you bite into a soft, tender, juicy peach. You really drag that real body up from your bed each morning. It is real. It is true. It is distinct. It is created. modern spiritual and romantic tendencies, the sympathies tend to lean in this direction toward the idea that God is confused amongst all that he has made and that in some way mankind is deified. But we have lost and we need to reaffirm that God's creation is distinct from his creatures. We also come to understand that because God has created the world that God is self-sustaining. Creation is not. He sustains himself. In fact, we refer to the aseity of God. God himself exists by his own power. We do not have that ability. One day we will die. There is a day appointed and a man wants to die and after that the judgment. We cannot move off that day. The Bible asks, who can add a single day? Creation is not self-sustaining, whereas God is self-sustaining. God is independent. Creation is completely dependent upon God. All things exist for Him, by Him, and through Him, is what we were told in Colossians 1. Further, God spoke in the space of six days, creating all things, bringing all things into existence. And they were made. It says this in Exodus chapter 20, verse 11. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Nehemiah prays and says, you are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth and all that is in it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve all of them and the host of heaven worships you. To him alone belongs the glory for his creation. The first cause of all things is God, the God who was there at the beginning, who created the very beginning itself. Francis Schaeffer has said, Christianity as a system does not begin with Christ as Savior. It begins with the infinite personal God who created the world at the very beginning. creating the framework and then, in time, sending forth his son. The Council of Nicaea, when it met, was determining the very character of or the nature of Christ and it confirmed this, I believe in one God, the Father of Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. There are things that are created and made that we do not see. spiritual forces in the heavenly places, spiritual beings unseen. God has made them all in his creation. He is revealed as as present. God is present before anything was made before he. Space was even there. And it's hard to think of God dwelling apart from space, apart from any created thing. But God is not bound by space nor time. He is independent. He exists by his own divine power. He has always been. He will always be. He has no origination. He is revealed there as present, but also imminent. He is the spirit of Elohim is dwelling over the chaotic water in expectation about to begin this creative work Populating, forming, ordering. But he was omnipotent as well. Think about it. How did God create? Secondly, how did God create? He created what we typically call ex nihilo, out of nothing. He created out of nothing. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It's a matter-of-fact statement of profound implication. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. The Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. And then God said, let there be light. And there was light. God created from nothing. He simply spoke. Think of the power of that word. dwell deeply on this statement throughout the week. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. How did he create? Verse 3, let there be and there was. How can God do this? I can speak some interesting made up new word and apply in my mind a symbol to what that looks like and have this extraordinary creature. And of course, my thoughts, although I think they might be independent, nonetheless, they are not. The only criteria that I can use to create something that is new and unseen is to create something like what I have observed or experienced. That's all I can do. I can't go beyond what I experience or have seen, taken in through my eyes or heard through my ears or tasted in my mouth. I cannot imagine a taste that I have never experienced. I can never see a creature that I have never seen. But God, in his own mind, existing before all things were made, brought space and the universe into creation. And then he created the earth. And he began to order that creation. We'll look at that next week as he begins to do this, but he simply spoke it into being. He created things unseen and the substance of those things. And don't make no mistake, you created a mature earth. He created an earth that was made of its core and the mantle and the crust. He created an earth and a world that was not self-sustaining, but a world that was made, created, designed. Well, you might question, well, Maybe God formed the world and space itself out of things which already existed. Maybe he took material and he crafted and fashioned like a 3D printer on a divine scale. But Romans 4.17 says, he calls into existence the things which do not exist. What an extraordinary omnipotent power. He calls into existence things which do not exist. All that we can do is ask someone who is perhaps an assistant who helps us, come, bring me this thing that exists, put it on my desk, make it available to me, put it there. We cannot say, bring into existence something which does not exist. All we can say is, manufacture something after my design out of existent stuff. Manufacture it out of known materials. We cannot say simply while sitting in our place of work, and it appears in front of us, we cannot do that. God alone can do it. He creates by his word and it comes into being. Darwin's theory of evolution is only that, it's a theory. And the theory is unobserved, But it asserts that at some point in the past, a simple process began of growth and of amino acids and of life spinning and moving and all of a sudden, something coming into existence that was not there before. At some point, a spark of life begins from non-life. It's speculative. I looked up the definition of theory. It's a speculation, a plausible or scientifically accepted general principle, or a body of principles offered to explain phenomena. Further, theory is defined as belief. In other words, a faith commitment. A commitment to something unobserved but believed, nonetheless. A hypothesis assumed for the sake of investigation. You know, it takes greater faith to be an evolutionist than it does to be a creationist. To be a creationist, you look at the Bible, you hear the word that God speaks, and you say, this is God's self-revelation of the origin of all things. But with the evolutionary theory, you are accepting the observational skills of fallible men who did not observe the creation or the beginning of all things, who are looking at and bound by the finitude of human understanding. And they are offering a hypothesis, a theory, a speculative scientific inquiry. And they are saying, look, look at this. This is how I propose that things began. Believe it. Stake your eternity upon it. But these two verses of Genesis 1 are divine revelation. It's a firsthand account of who God is and who is there, the only eternal being and from whose mouth comes the commands that the creation would come to exist. God spoke and it came into being. There's no suggestion here in these two verses of a process or of a theistic oversight or a supervision of an ongoing and lengthy process. In other words, the idea that God created, but he created through the means of evolution and through billions and billions of years, he brought into existence the things which were not. That is not a biblical account. I would rather you believed evolution wholeheartedly. than to somehow believe that God used evolution itself to create what he has made. Because if God is God, can he not supernaturally speak and it comes into being instantaneously? Why is he dependent upon processes? God created a mature world and a mature universe that had the process of ongoing time and the appearance of age. Did God create a chicken or did he create an egg? I believe he created both. And so if there's a chicken on the earth that God created, there was the appearance of age. In other words, there is a mature being on the earth that was made. In other words, that chicken that was first created, although it wasn't even a day old, had the appearance of being multiple days, months, and years old. If it bears an egg, it's at least a year old. It takes six to nine months before chickens can begin to bear eggs. So if God created an egg-bearing chicken, then God created a mature chicken. And he did that with trees, too, didn't he? You're telling me that the earth, when God said, let there be plant life, let there be an expanse, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit. If there are fruit-bearing trees on the earth, it takes about 10 years for a fruit-bearing tree to mature enough to begin to bear fruit. Some fruits, it takes decades before they can bear fruit. So God created a world with the appearance of age, mature trees, mature chickens, mature human beings. He didn't cause Adam and Eve to be born as infant children, no, or zygotes. Adam was a grown man. Eve was a grown woman. They were young. And on the day that they were created, they were one day old, not even. But the appearance of a depths of decades, perhaps, of age. So, God created a complex, a geographically complex earth. He created an earth and a world and creatures that inhabit it and he did so in such a way that it is complex and aged and aged further with a worldwide flood that we will observe at a later point in Genesis in our studies. God didn't need any ingredients. I know that we tend to want, there are Christian movements that tend to want to be taken more seriously by the world and its adherence to evolutionary theory. And so they would begin to capitulate on various points, small incremental points. We cannot, we must affirm that God created, but we'll yield to the processes of evolution. Why do that? There's no need. If God created, couldn't he potentially create all things in the space of six days and all very good? Why capitulate? Why make a concession? There are often moments at Presbyterian. Yesterday, I went to the Southern New England Presbytery with our elder representative, Josh Ross. And it's good to sit with him, good to be with him, to take and to contemplate the things that Presbytery considers. Think about those things. Talk about the Lord on the way to and the way back. It's such a blessing to be with him and to go to the Presbytery meeting. But often, most of the men who come before us for examination, most would take the view that God created the world and all things in the space of six non-literal days. And the idea that God created not in the space of 24-hour days like we know, but rather days that were lengthy ages of time. In other words, so that God created the world over a vast number of years, thus giving entrance to the evolutionary idea that the world was slowly made, or the world slowly came into existence, and life slowly came into being. Why do that? I question the necessity to come to that conclusion. I know that many refer back to Meredith Klein and the old Westminsterian seminary professor who came up with this view that Genesis 1 and 2 are largely poetic. that they do not describe the actual work of creation, but rather the work of creation as understood in a poetic sense. In other words, God offering the idea that he created the earth, but that he did so ultimately through the process of evolutionary, or maybe even not evolutionary processes, but over the space of vast years of time. It's a concession to the world. It's a concession to the God of science. It's giving up something. It's an embarrassment to the God that we believe in. I will not retract that comment. It is an embarrassment to those who say that they believe and obey the word of God. There are numerous things, notes within the text, Genesis 1 and 2, that deny that this is in any way poetic language. we alluded to some of those things last week, never mind the fact that it reads like narrative. In other words, as you read the Bible, you and I, we can observe narrative. We can see this is a narrative unfolding of God's creation of all things. This is not some sing-songy romantic literature that We are not to take literally. In fact, it is affirmed in multiple other places when God says in Exodus 20, these are the commandments. And in the same way that you saw and you've, you believe the account that I created in six days, you shall work six days. God's saying you have to work for eons and eons and ages upon ages. No, he's saying work six days. Like I worked six days. and then rest one day like I rested one day. He didn't need any ingredients. He didn't need time. He didn't need energy. God's creative activity began before those things were even necessary and he supernaturally spoke with authority and what he created in his own mind and imagination, what he determined to bring into existence, came into being. And that same word sustains the universe by the word of his power. For he spoke and it came to be, he commanded and it stood firm, Psalm 33, 9. Psalm 33, 6, the Lord spoke and the heavens were created. He breathed the word and all the stars were born. Psalm 148, 5, let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command and they came into being. Hebrews 11.3, by faith we understand that the universe is created by the word of God so that what is seen is not made out of the things that are visible. And so thirdly, the last thing we come to is the illogical nature of unbelief. It doesn't make sense to not believe. It just doesn't make sense. It's illogical. My good friend John Walt loves to refer at times to the wisdom of Spock. And Spock would often look into the camera, look at the captain and say, it's illogical. And maybe he would say the same to us today. If it were really a planet traveling being like he supposedly was portrayed in that show, he would surely tell us It is illogical not to believe in God. Hebrews 11.3, I just quoted a moment ago, what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. The universe was created by the word of God. Why do people resist the biblical account of creation? That's the question. Why do people resist the biblical account of creation and refuse to believe that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why? Why is that such an offensive statement? Man resists anything that denies his, our own sovereignty, our autonomy, our self-determination, our freedom to do as we please. And it strikes on its face the idea that I am worthy I am worthy, I am worthwhile, I am able to do all that I have designed to do according to all that pleases me. And the Bible says, no, you are a created being. God has created you for his good pleasure. And your worth and value are not so small and insignificant as what you can dream up. Your worth and your value and your purpose are according to what God has dreamt up. And his mind is infinitely greater than your own. Therefore, your value, your purpose, is infinitely greater than anything you could ask, imagine, or think. Belief that God is your creator, that you are his creation, it challenges every humanistic thought. And there are so many that are present within us. We don't exist for ourselves or by our own power. We're not independent, but rather we are utterly dependent upon God. We're fallen from the condition in which humanity first came into being. And we're marred and broken by sin. And we've fallen short of the glory of God in which he created us. We are subject to him. G. Campbell Morgan, a wonderful preacher, said, the consummation of every human life must therefore inevitably be related to the originating cause. No man can escape God here or hereafter. God is the originating cause. Man is his stuff. That's humbling. Man is his stuff, his design, his workmanship, These are the things from which I cannot escape. As Sting sang, every breath you take, every move you make. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 12 says, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he can't understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. And so, Christian, if you can affirm this morning that, in fact, this is the word of God's truth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. No one convinced you of that because the world is opposed to it. You've come to understand it because God has enabled you to spiritually praise the word of God. You have come to understand it because you have the mind of Christ. If you've rejected the idea of God's creation and you think that there are multiple reasons, reasonable reasons, logical reasons for denying that God has created the world, you have been blinded by the spirit of the power of this age. But that need not be the case this day. If you do have faith that God created the heavens and the earth, then you can trust God and his word as it speaks to the future, your future, the future for his church, the coming of Christ, the coming of the kingdom of God, the city with unshakable foundations which has been promised, a future that is secured and kept in heaven for you. The same God who created all things, created in the womb of the Virgin Mary by that same hovering spirit of Elohim, is the God who created you and created all things and brought them into being. And he has created in the womb of that Virgin Mary life. The second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, became man so that our sins might be relieved and we might be saved. such that in the end all that we can as God's redeemed people sing Stuart H. Kline's great song of 1945 or 1949. Oh Lord my God, when I consider, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds your hands have made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed, then sings my soul. My Savior, God, to Thee, how great Thou art. This passage, Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Its intent is to lead you and me to place our hands over our mouths and say, how great is our God. How great you are. How great Thou art. How great thou art. To look within ourselves and not look for self-originating power or self-sovereignty. or to look for eminence and power, and or to fill all the decadent desires of our soul, but rather to fall on our face before God, to take in all that he has made, to look upon his creation, and even to look at the complexity of the human body, and to feel the sense of our own soul and our physical material existence, and to say, my God, how great thou art. How great thou art. And for our souls to sing, How great thou art, how great thou art. Let's pray. Oh Lord God, we look at what you have made and we proclaim and we sing, oh how great you are. For thou art, you are a great God and all things have come into being that are and that exist apart from yourself. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, in three persons. Oh, Lord, we we desire to have an explanation for how you have existed before all things were made. And yet we are not privy to it, nor can we take it in. Our minds are finite. We only know what the spirit, what the word says and what the spirit of God has led us to the conviction of that in the beginning, God existed and began to create. Not creating a system in which over the space of eons things would be made, but he created all things. He spoke them into being. And then he began to order and create creatures and denizens and bushes and vegetation and the heavenly bodies and the interplanetary bodies themselves. O God, you have made all things, and we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And we confess and we proclaim your greatness, for you are great and you are worthy to be praised. And all that you have made is a reflection of the extraordinary character of our God. Especially we see this, Lord, that in all the things that you have made, You have provided perfectly for mankind's nurture. All that we are in need of, you have made. Surely, Lord, you care infinitely for what you have made. And you have provided infinitely for us, for our soul's sake, and the good of our eternal existence, in giving to us the Lord Jesus Christ. our savior your son how great you are oh god in jesus name amen let's stand together and sing like a river glorious hymn number 485 Like a river, Gloria