But we see this is not the case with the world; for it is daily undergoing alterations.III. The disposition and apt placing of all things. But now, suppose that while you are thus engaged, with the watch in your hand, a living person suddenly appears before you, and announces himself, and says, It was I who made this watch — it was I who put it there. The prevailing current worldview, that matter always existed and that the current universe, including man, happened by sheer chance over billions of years, is based on blind faith, because there is no evidence to support it. It is true, there are some relics of reason left for human uses, and to leave us without excuse (John 1:9). Paley makes admirable use of an imaginary case respecting a watch. 3. Most scholars take the second instance (Heb. YOU are all of you familiar with this idea, that, in contemplating the works of creation, you should ascend from nature to nature's God. If you doubt the truth of God’s Word, including His promises for the future, you cannot trust Him and thus will be distant from Him. The goodness of the creature consists in its fitness for the use for which it was made. The KJV and NKJV translate these words as “substance” and “evidence.” The NASB and NIV understand the words as subjective, whereas the KJV and NKJV take them as objective. But it may be said, ARE WE, THEN, NOT TO USE OUR REASON ON THIS SUBJECT AT ALL? Does He speak to you concerning other matters, intimately touching your present and future weal? "I shall soon have a very exalted opinion of him." Faith sees more than reason does, as a man looking at the stars through a good telescope sees more than another who looks with his unaided sight. "I shall soon have a very exalted opinion of him." It is meant to be a book of duty, not a system of natural philosophy. S. Candlish, D. D.Our object is to inquire what is implied in our really believing the fact of the creation. "No, but I already know him very well, because I can form a just estimate of him from his works." So that the Scriptural method on this subject is exactly the reverse of what is called the natural. Faith enables a person to grasp as certainties what those without faith will always doubt. Thine this universal frame. Still, even in this method of discovering God, if your faith is to be of an influential kind at all, you must proceed, when you have made the discovery, just to reverse the process by which you made it; and having arrived at the conception of a Creator, you must now go back again to the creation, taking Him along with you, as one with whom you have personally become acquainted, and hearing what He has to say concerning His own works. Order is pleasing to Him in the state and civil administrations in the Church, and in the course of your private conversations.3. There is no case so desperate, but faith may get sure footing with respect to it in the power and Word of God. FAITH ABOVE REASON. That God is the Creator of the visible universe. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him” (11:6). We have not in the Bible an examination and enumeration of the wonders to be observed among the works of nature, and an argument founded upon these that there must be a God, and that He must be of a certain character and must have had certain views in making what He has made. He who believes in God as the framer of the universe believes in what he has not seen. Does He speak to you concerning other matters, intimately touching your present and future weal? observed the other. The mutual ministry and help of the creatures one to another.6. The wise government and conservation of all things according to the rules and laws of creation. All these confusions and disorders of nature are the effects of sin. It serves to stir you up to act faith. The wonderful consent of all the parts, and the proportion they bear one to another.5. Instead of questioning the watch concerning its maker, you now question the maker concerning his watch. I did what I did because I believed it to be biblical and thus pleasing to God, but it resulted in a number of people trying to get me fired. The foreigner answered with cool indifference, that he knew nothing about God, for he had never seen Him. Does He tell you of your condition in respect of Him, and of His purposes in respect of you? Boston, D. D.I. He was not present at the time of the creation. "Indeed!" "I shall soon have a very exalted opinion of him." "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold, Who hath created these things." Some of the things that God says are not easy to accept. Manton, D. D.)Faith realising the invisible CreatorIn that beautiful part of Germany which borders on the Rhine there is a noble castle which lifts its old grey towers above the ancient forest, where dwelt a nobleman who had a good and devoted son, his comfort and his pride. Whatever excellency and beauty is in the creatures is all from Him, and sure it must be most excellent in the fountain.2. God Himself appears and tells us authoritatively what He has done, and why He did it. The world could not make itself; for this would imply a contradiction, namely, that the world was before it was: for the cause must always be before its effect.2. 40:21; 42:5; 45:12, … First of all, it is essential to the right posture of the creature towards the Creator. FAITH CONSONANT WITH REASON. "Can you fancy I am blind?" As the architect must have lived before the edifice which he designed was built, so he who designed and "built all things" existed before any of his creations. The perfection and order of the world is compared to the body of a man (1 Corinthians 12:12). 6. In this sense, the phrase is parallel to “our confession” (ctive sense in 11:1: “faith is the reality of the goods hoped for.” “Faith is the reality of what is hoped for in exactly the sense in which Jesus is called the [exact representation] of the reality of the transcendent God in 1:3” (ibid.). You can only understand that by faith, because no one was there to observe it. Order is pleasing to Him in the state and civil administrations in the Church, and in the course of your private conversations.3. The world is not a work of chance, but of counsel and rare contrivance. But we see this is not the case with the world; for it is daily undergoing alterations.III. Thus all beasts, cattle, and creeping things, and the body of man, were at first made of the earth and the dust of the ground; and the body of the first woman was made of a rib taken out of the man.II. HEBREWS 11:21 “JACOB WORSHIPPING UPON HIS STAFF” A) Jacob was a man … His mind then was his only bible, and his heart his only law; but he tasted of the tree of knowledge and hereby he and we got nothing but ignorance. There is much in what faith reveals that reason demands and requires. 3. The foreigner answered with cool indifference, that he knew nothing about God, for he had never seen Him. The world is not a work of chance, but of counsel and rare contrivance. in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches." Surely reverence and adoration should be prompted, together with humility and trust. 2. Does He press the overtures of His gospel? Confederations of nature.1 which God 's Word is to create.1 Christ ’ s true give hope. And works ; and here ) whereas the second man is looking through a.! He pointed out that believers are n't exempt from trouble ETERNAL God spoke it into,! 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