3 facts:
1. The Time of Creation – “in the beginning”
2. The Agent & Action of Creation – “God created”
3. The Extent of Creation – “the heavens & the earth”
The Downgrade of the Supernatural
The moment you exchange the supernatural for the natural – all faiths become the same and therefore are the product of a particular culture or people or person. This in turn forces you to accept all since they are the same and not supernatural. This has always been in existence and idolatry is the clearest example of this. Idolatry therefore is not distinguishing God alone as he has revealed himself supernaturally in the Scriptures. If you can bring all faiths to the same level then there is no one true faith. Yet Jesus made it abundantly clear that he alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life and therefore all other faiths are not faiths at all – they are perversions of Satan and the sinful human heart and mind. They are not therefore true. They are rivals to God – they are idolatrous. To exalt God above all is only his due since he alone is God. All others are gods, and therefore not gods at all, since an idol in any form whatsoever is not true or real. So always magnify God as he is and never seek to reduce him to any contemporary model or thought. That would be to downgrade the supernatural and you would have created a new idol for yourself.
Living Out the Will of God
“In holiness we own God as our supreme Law-giver, and in patience we own him as our supreme Lord.”
Thomas Manton, Works, 1:120 -123
The Wonder of Creation
All of creation declares the glory of God. In the beginning it pleased the Triune God to create – it was a demonstration of his glory, his wisdom, his power, & his goodness (refer to the LBCF 4.1)
Holding onto Sin
John Bunyan lists 7 ways we hold onto our sins
1. If possible, the soul that entertains sin will hide it so that it will not be discovered.
2. The soul that cannot hide its sin will excuse it and plead that it really is not such a bad thing
3. The soul that justifies its sin will seek to cover it with a good name (i.e. change what I call sin into something good)
4. If our convictions will not let us call our sin, sin, then we might flatter God that we will put it away from us in due time – (it’s no big deal)
5. If God pursues us and seeks to see if we have put away our sin – we will give up some part of it but keep the choicest part for ourselves
6. All sin must be abandoned or the soul will have no rest – so we might let our sins go with reluctance
7. If our sins that we have pout away should meet us again – we will court them and commit them in the dark
So sin goes in a circle – it starts in death & ends in death – We must deal sin a death-blow daily, over and over again, as John Owen says. Strike the root. Dig it us and burn it – and then keep on doing that. It is a never ending task – but sin mortified will help us see sin for what it is and help us deal with it as we ought.
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