The glory of God's creation is the first place we encounter
His greatness. To deny that He is
Creator and was purposeful in that activity is to miss something about Him that
is important. Creation reveals God's
orderliness, His concern for life, His awe-inspiring quality of greatness, His desire
for functionality, beauty, diversity, and creativeness. If we instead believe in materialist
explanations for all these things we have lost a sense of wonder in our faith
and we have less reason to "fear" God which we are told over and again
is the beginning of wisdom. If He is the
uncaused causer then we come with reverent fear to the living God but if He is
simply the old man in the sky we will lose that important aspect of our
faith. That the God who spoke and
brought all things into being became like us, took on flesh and dwelt among us,
is more remarkable than we can imagine.
There are two things necessary in this life, repentance from
the ways of the world and the production of fruit. We are meant to be new creations, to see
things God's way and live according to His Word. In our worship I bid the people to confess
their sins based on their repentance and their intention to lead a new life,
" following the commandments of God, and
walking from henceforth in His holy ways." It is a serious call, it requires a change of
heart and attitude, accepting that we have failed to live according to those commands
and setting our hearts on following them.
Jesus here couples that with fruit bearing. He will come looking for fruit in His people
and in His church. If that is the
standard there should be cause for fear and cries of mercy and forbearance.
Judgment is poured out on the earth and the heavenly host
celebrates this as righteousness. We should
feel some heartbreak over this yet heaven worships. We have lost perspective on how serious a
matter sin truly is to God. We have a
sense that sin is a trivial matter and that we can dispute over it based on
cultural change but God has spoken and we have heard that Word and we have responsibility
for it. The nation most harshly judged
in Scripture is the nation that had the Word, to whom God had spoken. There is great responsibility for being
chosen by God to receive Him and His revelation. We should be seeking to warn others about the
judgment to come and the grace of God in giving His Son that we may be passed
over in that time. That is fruit.
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