In his sermon titled 'Of Creation - The 1689 SLBC 4,' Paul Carrington explores the Fourth Chapter of the Second London Baptist Confession, focusing on the doctrine of creation. He begins with personal anecdotes from interactions with individuals questioning the existence of God and the validity of evolution, then delves into philosophical and theological arguments against the Big Bang Theory and evolution, emphasizing the lack of accountability that comes without a belief in God as Creator. Carrington stresses the importance of recognizing God's role in creation, citing Romans 1 to highlight humanity's suppression of this truth. He discusses the foundational nature of the creation doctrine for Christian belief and warns against compromising biblical accounts to accommodate secular theories, which can lead to a slippery slope of disbelief. The sermon emphasizes the Trinitarian aspect of creation, showcasing how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were involved, and explains the purpose of creation as a manifestation of God's glory. Carrington further explores man's place in creation, made in God's image, with the ability to reason and possessing an immortal soul, contrasting this with the current cultural trend of equating humans with animals. He discusses the law of God written in human hearts and the unique position of Adam and Eve before the fall, highlighting the consequences of their transgression. Lastly, the sermon addresses the hope of a new creation in Christ and encourages believers to stand firm on the Word of God despite external pressures to conform to secular views.

This evening we're going to be taking a look at chapter 4 of the Second London Baptist Confession and we're going to be looking at it from the perspective of creation. And I thought it would be appropriate just to start off with a personal experience. Last Saturday night a few of us went into downtown Nashville while we were at the conference and we had the opportunity to speak to a number of different people either you know by open air preaching or by people coming by and speaking to us one-on-one and I had an individual conversation with a young man his name was Modi he's from Pakistan and I started talking to him he says oh don't don't bother talking to me he says I used to be a Muslim but now I'm an atheist and we went down the line I started asking him some questions just about his his beliefs and why he ended up becoming an Atheist and we he started it off by saying you know have you ever heard of evolution I said well forget about that for now. Let's let's Let's come back to that in a little bit, thank you.

But let's go back even further than that. Talk about where things first started. Where did things first begin? And he went into this big, long kind of diatribe of where his opinion was and all the research and all of that. And I said, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is that in the beginning there was nothing.

And that nothing exploded. And as a result of nothing exploding, We have everything that we now see before us. Is that it in a nutshell? And he says, well, kind of, yeah, that's kind of what I believe. And I said, can you actually say those same words with your own mouth and hear the logic that is so desperately lacking when you say that in the beginning was nothing.

And it exploded and as a result of that we have everything that we now see. And he wouldn't, he says I have to go, you know, and he ended up heading off. And on Thursday night I had another conversation with another young man, this time a co-worker, and his name was Mike, and we started talking and we're talking about the election and all the things that are going on currently in the country. And during the course of the conversation we started talking about, well, where does morality come from? Because we were talking about the candidates that we had before us and the choices that are out there.

And we started talking about where does morality come from? And he went down the line of saying, it has to be evolution is indeed the most logical way. And I said, well, I actually don't believe in evolution. And he looked at the other guys around the table, and he was in disbelief. How could anyone, I thought this was established fact, how could anyone not believe in evolution?

And we went down further through the conversation, and The reason why he rejects any concept of God Being the creator it came out. He says I cannot believe in a God that would send my brother to hell. I said, what do you mean? He says, well, my brother is a homosexual. And your book says that if he continues in that way, he's going to hell.

And so we went down the line, I told him it's not just your brother, that's not the only sin. But we went down and had further conversation about it But it's amazing how everybody starts with a pre-subposition of how they think and who they think God is or what they decide to receive or Accept as truth and established fact and a lot of times what you'll find is it has to do with their own Reluctance to be accountable to anyone and it's so it's one of the things that we really want to look at tonight Romans one talks about it so well, you know talks about the suppression of truth that man very well knows God but because he doesn't want to be accountable to God, he ends up creating all sorts of other myths and fables, one of which would be evolution or the Big Bang Theory or what have you. But the world is really, really adept at attacking what we're going to be talking about tonight, creation, right at its root. It goes right to it and says, no, God didn't do anything. In fact, we don't even know if God exists and maybe he doesn't altogether, but we think this is what happened.

And they've been able to do this so well that a lot of times even the church will compromise. But really what they're saying is that if God did not create, then I'm not accountable. Therefore let us eat, drink, and be married for tomorrow we die. We can We can live as carelessly as we want. You can carry on with the two sacraments of the liberal left, which is abortion and now sodomite or homosexual marriage.

And what's the problem? There's no Sin, there's no wrong in that. As long as you are doing whatever you think is right in your own eyes, then all is well. And so these are the lies that men are believing that we came from nothing. Life is of no purpose whatsoever, and we're going absolutely nowhere.

That's really the belief of so many today. And it's really an attempt to escape those first four words in the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It goes on from there, but in the beginning, God. Man wants to escape from that.

But Romans 1 says this, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." And it says further on a couple verses later, it talks about how man becomes futile or futile and what that means is empty or he becomes weightless or he becomes worthless he becomes futile in his thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened professing to be wise they became fools and even the church as I said earlier has compromised They've come up with ways to explain and to accommodate evolution. Right in the church, you come up with things like gap theory. You know, on the first day, God did this, But then it took a million years. And then he did the second thing and then the third thing a million years later. It's this idea of an attempt to accommodate the theory of evolution.

But really what they're doing is misrepresenting, you know, a lot of times they'll look at what Peter said, a day unto the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day, and they take that and make that theory and say hey, this sounds very, very logical, but it's a compromise. And this is something that we all want to remember, that you will sooner bring the devil to repentance at the foot of the cross and you will be able to bring God's account of creation in the Bible into harmony with man's foolish notions of evolution and the Big Bang Theory. Don't try to make these things work together because they will never work together. Man's notion that everything just is going on without any direction and God's notion that he is absolutely the author of absolutely everything we see before us. And so as a church, as a people, we want to make sure that we're relying solely on God's Word.

Otherwise it will carve out the very foundation from underneath our feet. And then you'll begin to ask yourself questions like, okay well, fine, let's say Genesis 1 isn't really literal. When does the Bible become literal? When are you going to say it became literal? Was Adam and Eve just more of a kind of a way to help us explain or understand?

And do you go into Genesis? Where does it become literal? You get into this very very slippery slope and that's why answers in Genesis they focus so hard on on reclaiming the ground that careless men in the church have done so well to compromise and they've they've come under immense immense pressure and attack and so with all of this kind of the battlefield in mind right now where this is probably one of the most assaulted doctrines in our present day. We want to make sure that we have a good understanding of that. So I'm going to read a paragraph one.

You might have a handout. I just passed out a few handouts that were, you know, might be on one of the seats there in front of you or with you there But paragraph one will start there and it starts off by saying this In the beginning the very first words of the Bible it starts with that it says in the beginning it Pleased God the Father the Son and Holy Spirit for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom and goodness to create or make the world and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days and all very good. And I think something we want to pick out here just as we look at this. Last two weeks ago, our brother Mike Davenport, he was going through of God's decree. And this is really in connection with that.

The first thing that God actually decreed was the creation, at least as far as we understand it. And then the next chapter it deals with God's providence, which is also kind of a part of God's decrees. But it starts off with those very first words of Genesis 1.1. And notice the Trinitarian focus here. It says, it pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And so it really makes sure that these authors aren't just kind of picking things out of the air, but you'll notice chapter two dealt with of God and the Holy Trinity, right? We're seeing that they're taking each chapter and building on top of the next building on top of it with the next doctrine They're not randomly selecting the doctrines and sending them in half-hazard order here But each brick is kind of being laid upon another we saw of Holy Scripture in chapter 1 again of God of the Holy Trinity in chapter two, and then of God's decree in chapter three, and now we're in creation. And they pull from from Genesis 1 1, and then Genesis 1 2, we see that the Holy Spirit was there. It says here that the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit Of God was hovering over the face of the waters Genesis 126 it goes on when it talks about man and you'll notice something. It's a plural reference it says then God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness and it goes on John 1 1 it speaks of the fact that God the Son was actually active in creation it says 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 all things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made. And so again we just see this focus of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit right there from the very beginning. And the question then is well why did he create? And the the SLBC answers that for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness. And this is really something, again, that should cause us to worship.

When you think of what God has actually done, I mean, he spoke and worlds formed. But they didn't just form like, you know, a model and that was it, but he created everything functional. And what I mean by that, an animal able to run, or a bird able to fly, or a fish able to swim. He created them with the ability to reproduce and look at the amazing variety that we have in the world today, the trees, everything that we see, the fruit, everything just expounds on the amazing eternal power that we have in God. It's it's one of those amazing things and and man has spent millennia, right, trying to to figure out what God simply spoke into existence.

It wasn't until about 500 years ago that we discovered, oops, that the earth isn't actually flat. I mean, that's how small we are in comparison to the infinite God who formed the world in the past. And if only man had opened up the Bible and looked in Isaiah and it talks about the circle of the earth, or Job talks about how the world just, it hangs on nothing. We might have been a little bit further ahead, but 500 years ago, that was kind of the prevailing notion that the earth was flat. Or 500 years ago, we were under the impression that the sun and everything else revolved around the earth.

A man almost, I think he almost died because he actually said, well actually, earth and everything else in the solar system is revolving around the around the Sun. His name is Copernicus. And so it just shows how small we are versus how mighty and majestic God is in all of his power. And as I said earlier we look at creation what what creation reveals it's a general revelation. It doesn't mean that a person can look at creation and know the living God, but he knows that God is there.

He knows there is a God because it talks about how the invisible attributes of God are visible, that we can know something about God simply by looking around at the creation that we have Before us and he did it for his own pleasure and part of his pleasure Was to reveal himself to his creatures by creation When you look at something you can see something of who God is, whether it's a butterfly or a new baby born into the world, or you name it. Everything kind of cries holy to God and declares how great he is. And it talks about, again, in the space of six days, we talked about that, but these are six literal 24-hour periods and my thought is that all believers must reject the theory of evolution. You cannot hold these two things in tension. Somewhere if you just peel it back one more layer It'll collapse.

And guess what? The secular world isn't trying to hold the two intention. They're not. They're not giving up the ground that the church is all too willing, oftentimes, to give up. It's a sad declaration.

And you might be laughed at, you might be mocked or seen as backward in our kind of quote-unquote sophisticated day, but as long as you're standing on the solid word of God, heaven and earth will pass away before the words of God pass away, and you're on solid ground no matter what man may say. And notice how it ends, it says that all was very good. And again, you just look at creation and how beautiful it is. But guess what, we're looking at creation and we're looking at it post fall, after the fall. What might it have been like before the fall?

Right now, you know, Romans says how all the creation is groaning and yet we look at him We're blown away Could you imagine what it might have been like before? Man actually fell before the curse and so it reveals something again about God that he is good And he's he's not only good, but very good. He's infinitely good. And so that takes us through the first paragraph, just speaking of God and creation. Paragraph two, it really goes down now one notch and talks about man.

And it says this, it says in paragraph two, after God had made all other creatures he created man male and female with reasonable and immortal souls rendering them fit unto that life to God for which they were created being made after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness and true holiness, having the law of God written in their hearts and power to fulfill it and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will which was subject to change. And so what we're seeing here on this on the sixth day, it's really a distillation of the sixth day, God creates really the crown jewel of all his creation. Remember man was made in God's image and his likeness, almost like the capstone of creation. And this is so important because later on we're gonna see when you see how great God created man to be and yet how far we have fallen and how desperate and how wicked we have become as a race. It really just shows a lot to do with how deep this fall was.

A lot of times we don't quite grasp how deep that is, and as a result we don't see the power of the gospel in its proper light to save. And so after you made all these other creatures, the ones most reasonable possessing immortal souls God made in his own image, you would think would be the ones that would would cleave to him most closely, that being you and I, right? Because we've been created with all of this intelligence and ability to reason and so on. And they enjoyed fellowship with the Lord, they walked with him in the cool of the day, but obviously we know what happened in Genesis chapter 3. But the idea of Being reasonable is really just that it's the ability to think, it's the ability to reason, and where animals might possess intelligence, you know, they have a degree of intelligence, but most of that is kind of more instinct, it's coming more so from instinct, but man has that ability to look and look at the stars and wonder.

You know, he can navigate by the stars, he can do all these different things. He can look at someone and weigh them out and learn from his experiences and really garner much more than say an animal might. And notice that also he created man with an immortal soul. And not eternal, not like we had a pre-existence, but immortal from the time that we've been conceived onwards, our soul is gonna spend eternity somewhere. Super important for us to grasp that.

Again, the world tells you, hey, you're here, you've got 70 years and you die and that's it. You're just like a glorified animal. That's really all you really are. But this is also denying the doctrine of annihilationism where you know, you die and that's it. If you lived a wicked evil life, well no big deal, you don't have any consciousness going forward.

This particular statement here butts right up against that. And during the conference that we just came out of, Rob Ventura, he made He preached a message on the fear of God as a motivation for evangelism. He focused a lot on the fact that man is immortal and how this very fact should be a major motivator for us to go out to plead with men for their souls, knowing that they are basically on a raft going closer and closer to the edge of Niagara every single day. Should we not have in our hearts a desire to see their welfare? We know we can't save them but the power of the gospel, trusting that God might save some through the means he's appointed which is you and I.

It's a great motivator to go out and to speak to people. He quoted the fact, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men. Does that dawn on us as men, as women sitting here today? And so one of the things, you know, as I was looking at this, one of the most important things, and I'm going to camp here for a little bit, is when you look at the world that we're living in, young people, people my age, even older, what is happening right now is man is waging a war against really his own special place before God. And I remember speaking to a group of atheists that were more intent, and some of us might remember this, they were more focused and intent on saving the sea turtles on the coast of North Carolina, and careless and totally for the abortion of babies.

They would rather see the eggs that have not yet hatched, possessing, I don't know what you would call it, the fetus of a turtle, than to actually have a baby in the womb protected. And what I mean is man is waging a war against his own identity. You remember the fiasco not too long ago of Cecil the lion. I think it was sometime last year a man shot a lion in Zimbabwe and the whole world went crazy. Or earlier this year with Harambe, that lion, or that gentle gorilla, almost tore a baby in half and people were saying, you know, don't worry, he's just being true to his nature.

He was just, you know, he was going to protect that child. Man killed him and the whole world went up in arms, the secular world. And this is the problem, that man is running away from his own identity. I was looking at different quotes and to see the absurdity of what men are saying. And this is one particular lady.

She's a talk show host, very popular woman. Her name is Ellen DeGeneres. I think she's a lesbian talk show host, super popular. And this is what she says regarding humanity. She says, I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls.

They always say, because it's such a beautiful animal, there you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her. She would probably pass out if she came into this room here with all the stuff that we have around us. But what she's saying is that, hey, my mother, she's a creature, and so is a deer, a creature. What's the difference?

Why would you have a photograph of one and an actual head on the other. Wouldn't that be a terrible disgrace to have your mother's head on a wall? So why would you have a deer head on the wall? And other people said this. This was another lady, a movie star.

I won't even say her name, but she says, all of my friends are animal people. To me, cats are people, too. Animals are people, too. I travel a lot, and when I go overseas, it's really hard on me because the animals are treated much differently, especially in developing countries. She's making this equation that animals are human beings.

It's an absolutely terrible thing. And Gandhi said the same. He says, To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. And so you could fill a page pages and pages with man saying all these things and at first You know I thought some of these things were comical I looked at these things and I'm kind of you know almost snickering like what you know There's even worse ones.

These are just some more of the tame ones. But until you realize how far man is willing to degrade himself, he is willing to do this, to bring himself down to the level of beasts in order to escape what they already know, God. Man is, he'd much rather be associated with a lower species than to actually recognize and say, yes, I am created in the image of God. This is where we're living today. And we are going into that world to proclaim who God is and an even greater war is being waged with what we're seeing On the front lines it says in this second London Baptist confession.

He created man male and female That's that's man's identity. It's rooted right in creation. Just like the Sabbath in Genesis chapter 2 is rooted When you go to Exodus 20 he roots it back to Genesis 2 man's identity is rooted right here in Genesis chapter 1 There's only two categories and each one with their own physical and emotional characteristics equal in value but different in roles and so since God doesn't change it would hold that those who bear his image don't change either right but chapter 25 it will deal with marriage in more detail but for now what we need to realize is again the warfare that's being waged to kind of declare and throw off What God has said right here in Genesis 1 that we've evolved or that the Big Bang or It doesn't matter who you marry or whatever all these things. It's an attempt To undermine God and to fight and war against them. And so it says here he made them fit unto that life for which Sorry, He made them fit unto that life to God for which they were created.

They lacked nothing whatsoever because God is good and made everything, including them, very good. That's how the last paragraph ended. But Ecclesiastes 729, it really encapsulates this really well. He says there, the preacher says, truly, this is one thing I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. God created man upright.

He created him in his own image, but not only in his own image, but with the power to keep his commandments in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. And so what they had was the law of God written right there in their hearts, and not only that, but the power to keep that law and Yet under the possibility of transgressing being left to the liberty of their own will Which was subject to change and that idea of having the law of God written in their hearts We saw that this morning when our brother preached there from Genesis 39. And what you see is before Exodus 20, how did Joseph know that it was wrong to commit adultery? Well, because God placed it in the hearts of all men. How did Cain's countenance fall in Genesis 4?

Because sin is crouching at the door. God had put it in his heart. He knew what he was doing was wicked. God didn't have it in tablets of stone, but He put the law in the hearts of every man, and he's done so. So if you go to Papua New Guinea and a man has never heard the gospel, he still has the law written somewhere.

It's in his heart. However suppressed it is, however covered over it is, it is there written in his heart. And so the difference between Joseph and Potiphar was that Joseph loved, Potiphar's wife was that Joseph loved and feared God. She didn't so it was no big deal for her to transgress. But one of the evangelist's best friends when you're talking to people out in the streets is that you know they have a conscience.

That's your best friend. You can appeal to that conscience and speak to them because there is some light. They're still dead in their trespasses and sins. They haven't come to know God. They haven't come to Christ.

But God has put it in their hearts and so they they've got this guilt why do people suffer guilt because they know that they are transgressing why do they have a slavish fear why did who was it that shook when Paul talked about the judgment to come? Because there's a fear that that indeed is a reality that all men know they will stand before God no matter how they deny it. And so we can't talk of righteousness and holiness without reference to the standard for these things which is the law and that's what SLBC talks about. And so he's put this in our hearts. This is innate, and so all of us know when we're doing wrong, when we're sinning.

However, Adam and Eve, what they had differently was the power to fulfill that law. Whereas you and I, before we come to Christ, we have no ability. The law is a testament against us. God says this, but I can't keep this. There's nothing I can do to obey the commands of God.

After the fall, they lost that ability as did all of their their posterity. And so the paragraph ends with this, it says this, we see that they were left quote under the possibility of transgressing being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change. And so, being left under this possibility, he had empowered them to fulfill his commands without any bondage to sin. Right? That's very clear.

Chapter 9 is helpful here because it deals with of free will and this is what it says, man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God but yet was mutable so that he might fall from it. That's a unique position that our first parents, Adam and Eve, had. And Sarnock, Stephen Sarnock, one of the Puritans, he helps kind of clarify this idea of who's the author of sin, is God the author? Who came up with this concept of sin since you know God created man good and very good. When he says this, speaking of God, he does not properly will sin but he wills not to hinder it.

To will sin as sin would be an unanswerable blemish on God but to will to permit it in order for good is the glory of his wisdom. Sin would never have peeped up its head unless there had been some decree of God Concerning it and there would have been no decree concerning it had not God intended to bring Good and glory out of it. So God Permitted or did not hinder Adam and Eve from sinning and what has he done? He's gotten more glory through his son, Jesus Christ, as a result of that sin than if he had left it. And that's all in his good wisdom and in his plan.

But what the bottom line is, is that God is not the author of sin. And it ends with this, that out of an evil, this is actually another quote, but it says that out of an evil of a greater good would come a good that could not have come or could not have been as great if there had not been evil. And so we end with this last paragraph. It says this, besides the law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which whilst they kept, they were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over his creatures. And So what we've seen so far is God has written his law in man's hearts, that's internally.

And now what we're seeing is they also received a command not to do something, right? There's this command that was external to them, not written in their hearts, which he said, of every tree you may eat except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And this was particular and specific, a breach of which would bring death. But one of the things that, you know, as I was reading this through and thinking about it was, remember the first tree that was mentioned, that was planted in the garden, which is the tree of life? That was there and there was no forbidding of man eating from that that tree at all in fact they were banished from the garden later on when they sinned because of their sin, lest they eat of that fruit and live forever.

That's what the reason God says, he banished them. And this tree was there all the time, and I just wanna talk about that in a minute, but this next piece just says, which whilst they kept, they were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over the creatures so what is the ideal state for all of Adam's race it's communion with God and what is the root of all true happiness it's communion with God and the question is do you have communion with this God? I just want to leave you with with two thoughts speaking of that tree of life. You know, we look around, I said at the beginning, just how far, you know, man has fallen. He's willing to say, I'm no better than a glorified ape.

I evolved from a single cell organism. My life has no purpose and I'm going absolutely nowhere. That's how far Man is willing to go so that he can escape God. And yet, what's happened is this, is that God planted another tree, the tree of life 2, 000 years ago, with the sending of his son, Jesus Christ. And this is the tree that he said of himself that if you eat of me and if you drink of me He says you will indeed live forever And though man has plunged himself and hurtled himself, you know against the rock of God's righteousness and goodness Where where sin abounds?

Grace does much more abound. This is the amazing thing about God, that we can actually, God has planted another tree, so to speak, in his son, Jesus Christ, and we can behold the goodness of God that though we're we're guilty by nature before him He is sent the cure for our sin dead and soul some Someone to pay for us and so this is this is the amazing thing that one of the one of the scriptures Romans 3 it talks about how God might be just. Romans 3 I think it's 26 that in one man in Jesus Christ God might be just right because he must punish sin but also the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus And there's coming another creation so far surpassing even the first creation. That's what Isaiah 65 says. It says, for behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered or come into mind.

And that is where we're looking for us as believers that God is going to a new heaven and a new earth will be planted and There will be righteousness where he himself will be with us and not for a temporary time But forever That's the true reward is fellowship with God in person. But the next thing is just closing here. If you think of the first Genesis, and that's what we've been talking about, you know, Genesis chapter 1, where God said, Let there be light, and there was light, and it was, you know, darkness was over the face of the deep, it was without form and void, the earth was. And the first creation, that creation, is really a type of a second creation. And you think of your own life, you were not only without form and void, You weren't only just like the earth before God said, let there be light.

You were actively pursuing a course against them. You were actively an enemy of God. And I've heard Paul Washer say this, if there's anything you know, there's nothing like, it was harder for God to do this or that But it was a greater or it is a greater miracle to take that which is not only deformed but malignant and evil and Make it into something good then it is to just take something empty and without life and that's what he's done and so it says this in 2nd Corinthians 4 for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who is shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So never give up the ground that the Creator is indeed the Creator. Give Him the glory.

When you look at creation, obviously we're not to worship creation, but what we are is to worship the God of creation, to marvel at the mind of a God who is able to do such things and to revel in who he is. So this is chapter four of creation. It's a battleground, as I said right at the beginning and let us make sure that we truly understand the glory that is is owing to God as a result of all that he's done so let's close in prayer father we do thank you thank you so much father for revealing yourself to us in this amazing work that you've done not only in that first creation where darkness was on the face of the deep and you said those words let there be light but Lord now what you've done to shine in our hearts in the face of your son Jesus Christ Lord to bring us to life. We do praise you, we honor you Lord, we do so thank you and pray that we would be people that stand on the truth of your word no matter how strong the winds blow Lord that we would be confident knowing that your word endures forever Lord.

Thank you for these things in the name of your son amen.