Hebrews 1:1-3 — Don McClure

God Speaks Through His Son

God who at sundry times in diverse manners spake in times past, and unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being in the brightness of his glory the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Now going through the book of Hebrews together, I hope that as we do it you'll come to realize what a wonderful book it is. But the writer is unknown, presumed by most to be Paul sometime, maybe I'll look at that more later on.

It is written to a congregation essentially of Jewish believers, to the Jewish community of which the church was born in. Born in a Hebrew society, born in a Hebrew world, and the book of Hebrews is one that is tremendously written to the Hebrew mind.

You may think, well what does that have to do with me? Well it has an awfully lot to do as we'll see as we get into it. It contains some five warnings in the book of unbelief and of the terrible consequences that happen to people that don't believe.

The ramifications of our understanding of ultimately believing and the eternal aspects of faith towards God, and we'll look at that. But here this morning I'm just going to jump into it and essentially there with the issue one of the most astounding things here that to me when you do look at this, sometimes we're so used to picking up a Bible and reading things out of it.

And having something like this, God who at sundry times diverse manners spake unto us by his prophets, you know, and things, and to us we just kind of read that. And we don't realize that this is an unbelievable statement in a sense, that when you would look at the Bible, what makes it so different from all other literature, all other religious literature, philosophic literature, is the fact that it is from one end to the other, it is God speaking about himself.

God revealing himself. When it says here, God spoke to us, at sundry times, diverse manners, spoken unto us by his prophets, now hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. But here when we realize, when we pick up this book, it is something there that when you look at Christianity, when you look at the Bible, you're looking at a book, it is God speaking, God breathed.

There's no other book in the world that even suggests that it is such a book like this. When you would look at the religions of the world, of which billions of people for thousands of years, you know, in some cases, you know, have been living in, like Buddhism, somewhere around 500 BC, Buddha, who has a name originally was Siddhartha Gautama.

Buddhism and Hinduism: Human Attempts to Escape Suffering

But here is he, young boy growing up, wealthy family, finds himself there out, you know, walking around, one time being taken out by the servants into public, and as he looks around, and he sees there an old man who is crippled, he sees a diseased man, he sees somebody there, a decaying body, and he sees the ascetic, and he looks at these people, and he is so troubled by them, and never supposedly, according to him, you know, got away from him.

These sights that he had never seen growing up in such privilege, and now being taken out and exposed to things, and he looked there and he realized that there were four terrible things that happen in life, age, and disease, and death, and pain, and there, Buddha, there trying to deal with these things of age, disease, death, and pain, found himself kind of going into a very contemplative state, literally when he is 30 years old, he goes, he disavows his great wealth that he supposedly had, went out, sat out under a tree, began just to contemplate, trying to find the meaning of life, struggling through things, trying to get enlightened, trying to become, the word Buddha means awakened, wanting to be awakened, and as he just kind of contemplates, and contemplates, and contemplates over these things, he came up with some four laws, and one of the laws, and the rules of it were simply that all worldly life is unsatisfactory, it is disjointed, there is suffering in it, that there is a cause for suffering, and that is because of the attachment to desire.

In other words, the degree that I find myself attached to certain desires is the degree my life is exposed to suffering, and the whole thing is if I could just remove myself from all thought, all desire, and just find ultimately nirvana, as he looked at it in a sense there, this high state of being free of all things around me, and all of the thought, and that there was a way out of the suffering, and it was ultimately to eliminate my attachment to these desires, and that he had an eightfold path on how you kind of go through these contemplative things, and finally thereafter, some four years sitting out there, the great amounts of times under a tree, contemplating, he became enlightened, and so he changed his name to Buddha, the awakened, and out of that there, with all of these things, just trying to contemplate, working to nirvana, this is something there, it's just man, just there, man speaking, man contemplating, man imagining, and yet billions of people have looked there and said, I believe that, they're willing to risk their whole identity, their life, their eternal life, their entire existence on this fella who is very troubled, even all the way through his life trying to find greater heights of awakening and enlightenment, never knew if he did it of course, but becoming this kind of a person there that is fully escaped, you know, the interesting thing to me, you look at this Buddha, and if you've ever seen these Buddhas, I mean, there's a little fat guy sitting there, you know, and the thing there, and he did not escape a lot of worldly desires to become that fat, I can tell you, but the, but when you look at this, and here's what the man ended up, but this is the thing that we realize, billions of people, this is how they live, this is what they actually think about, what they desire, you look at Hinduism, started of course approximately, they say going back 6 ,000 is what they want to attribute it to, BC, but no way that that is there, but predominantly of course it was born in and grew in India, and it is kind of the, again, the contemplated, the escaping the world around us, all of this stuff out there is wicked, it's bad, it's no good, stay away, you know, from this worldly life, worldly desire, worldly physical world of which there are definitely trues to some of these thinkings, but at the same time, when you just simply, it doesn't exist, I've got to get out of it, I'm going again to Nirvana as they, you know, believe much the same thing, only unlike Buddhism, it's, I suppose, Hinduism's a little more convenient because you get a lot of shots at kind of achieving Nirvana because you keep, with reincarnation, it adds that in, so you keep on working your way up, and that's why you want to be nice to dogs and flies and cows, you know, and stuff, because it just might be you someday, or it might be your mother or your grandma, or who knows who's on their way up or down, and they don't even know what is the higher or lower life forms anyway, but they're all, we're all coming back, and again, working our way to Nirvana, and yet you look at the billions of people, this is their religion, and it's all man-dreamed, not even supposed to say God said, God spoke, has no authority to it, no foundation or basis that the mind can grab onto this and say, that has got to be true, it just seems, then on the other hand, you go like to Islam, that again, billions of people, over since around 500 A .D., 600 A .D., you know, and Mohammed comes along, and here's somebody there that essentially invented his own religion, proclaimed himself to be the messenger and the spokesman of God, he's the ultimate one, he is the central one, in all other definition, though others may have been around, whatever they said is true insofar as it agrees with him, but if it doesn't agree, he's the great and the ultimate prophet of God, and therefore, that's it, and so now he simply speaks for God, and yet billions of people, there is, he was born in Mecca, and so there he conveniently set up Mecca, now Saudi Arabia, there is where it's all born, and where it all happened, and Mohammed spoke, you know, Buddha spoke, you know, and all of these just people inventing something to find their hopefully a way out of the world as it was, and one of them, whether we're gonna get out of the world or Islam, we will take over the world, we'll fix the whole world by its power or whatever else, and when you look at Christianity, it is absolutely unique in the sense that all of the other religions, they're man contemplating, reaching out, trying to figure out, and they're essentially inventing God, but when you pick up your Bible, you're picking up a book that God spoke, this unbelievably wonderful book there where when it just says God, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, when we pick up this Bible, we're so used to just talking about the son of man came to seek and to save those which were lost, here is the writer of Hebrews again, the God who in sundry times, diverse manners, he spake unto us, he says by his prophets, unto the fathers by his prophets, and here is, he looks there and he says in sundry times and diverse manners, he's looking there and he says over something, when you pick up this book, you're looking at a book with some 66 books written by 40 plus writers over 1500 years, no single authority for it, no single voice for it, other than the voice of God himself, that is merely just picking up and sustaining and having all of these to me, it's almost, I look at the Bible so much, almost like a bicycle tire in the sense that you've got all the 1500 years, you've got 40 spokes, you know, sort of a thing, all coming down to one truth, outside of all of them themselves, they're just one truth, one prophecy, one thing is that all ultimately finds its fulfillment in Christ, but it makes itself absolutely unique because at sundry times and diverse manners, it means essentially they're in different times, when you pick up the Old Testament, it's made up of what we call law, history, prophecy and poetry, all these wonderful statements about the coming of a Messiah, of a savior, the God who had created the world and is now going to visit it and to recreate it in his mercy and in his love and in his powers, it's laid out and prophesied over and over, in sundry times and diverse manners, sometimes he spoke there with visions or with parables and different manners or types and symbols and many different ways of which, but it was all God speaking, all God communicating there, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter 121, he says, for prophecy came neither by the will of men, but by holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, and here when you have all of these different characters out of different times and different places in history, all of which are given one little piece to a puzzle, to a puzzle, to a puzzle, to a puzzle, you begin to realize that there is a genius, there is a mind behind this book of which only, you know, little pieces are given here and there which prove that the puzzle is being put together by something way outside of itself, it is nobody inventing anything, it is merely the inventor himself revealing himself in a way that defies human invention, it says it could not have been done by any other way than it, and as Paul told Timothy, he says all scripture is given by inspiration of God, it is God speaking to man, that's the essential, that puts this book in a different category than any other book, it not only says God spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke, but it proves it in such a way as it's undeniable when somebody would begin to look at the prophecies that were even given, prophecies at the time that didn't even make sense to the very ones that gave them, as they only had a piece of the puzzle, when somebody say, oh, you understand it, they said, no, I don't, I got an idea, I got my own impressions of it, but I don't know how it fits, that's why 1 Peter 1 .10, Peter writes, he says, of this salvation the prophets have inquired and carefully searched who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, he says, even the ones themselves as they gave these truths, as they gave their message, what God gave them, they searched trying to figure out, how does this work, how does this fit, it's almost as if there was somebody making this project of which each person just has, here, you design this, you build this, you build this, and they're all given the specs for this, and they're all saying they know they're making something huge, but they have no idea because there's a genius behind it that says, I'm making it, and I'm gonna let all of you have a part in it, and when we put it together, you'll all sit back and realize the fact of the genius there that put it all together beyond any individual, that's why it was that the woman at the well, when there she spoke to Jesus, she said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming who is called the Christ, for when he comes, he will tell us all things, the mind there of anybody picking up this Old Testament and reading it was realizing that a Messiah is going to come that has been laid out, talked about, prophesied, all of the prophets of old, as they were putting this together, they're all waiting, when is this Messiah going to come, because when he does, he will tell us all things, and then there was something, though at the time, Noah, he prophesied, he lets us know the quarter of the world from which the Messiah was come, that was his part, Abraham tells us the nation of the Messiah, Jacob tells us the tribe that the Messiah will come from, David and Isaiah tell us the family that the Messiah will come from, Micah tells us the town that he will come from, Daniel, the time of his birth, Malachi tells us of his forerunner that will come, Jonah typifies the resurrection of the Messiah, as all of them are given these little bits and pieces that when finally Christ comes, what prophet could ever determine I'm going to be born at this time to this family, in this city, in this place, in Bethlehem, all of this, this is something that could only have been orchestrated outside the creation, something there that then when it happened, you had to stand back and say, whoever put this project together is God speaking, this separates Christianity from all other, there is no religion that ever imagined to do such a project, but this is how God has his great authority that when he then speaks, that's why even in the Old Testament, God instructed the children of Israel, if any man ever comes and supposes to speak a prophecy from me, and it does not come true, we have a very simple solution, kill him, because you kill him, you'll stone him because of the fact that he lied, and he deceived people because I'll never lie to you, everything I say to happen will happen, and it did, and all of the Old Testament, all these types, all these symbols, God speaking, sundry times and diverse manners there, all bits and pieces ultimately fulfilled in Christ, that's why Jesus told the Pharisees one time, he says, you know, you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but they are they that speak of me, I am the fulfillment of all of these things that have been said about me before I came, so when I came, it was undebatable who I am, he's greater in all ways, greater, of course, than all of the prophets, greater in the sense that they all just had bits and pieces, he is the complete picture of which they dreamed of, and they inquired of, he's greater by instrument in the sense that in the Old Testament, just sinful people talking about one who would deal with sin, ultimately when he came, but when he came, we have the son, the perfect son himself speaking, he's greater in time, here as he says, God with sundry times and diverse manners spoken unto us in times past, but he says, now hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, and here it is there where God is revealing and speaking and saying this is from me, and this is how you'll know it is me, and then the writer here of Hebrews then goes on to tell us who the Messiah is, who Jesus Christ is, who the son is, because you know, of course, many people, he's a teacher, or he's a fanatic, or he's a phony, or he's a fraud, or he's a criminal, or he's some sort of a radical revolutionary, or he's somebody there that just, you know, had a great spark within him like we all have of good and he just fanned his really intently and really harder than most and was very good, but here, the Bible, God says, I want to tell you exactly who it all that was prophesied all the way through these Old Testament, all these sundry times and diverse manners, here is who he is that came into the world, so there's no debate about it as far as the Bible is concerned, and he gives us a list here, he says, for he's last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.

Christ as Heir and Preeminent Lord

Here as he looks at him, the very first thing that he says about Jesus Christ in his introduction is God says, number one, he is heir of all things, heir of it, and it's Colossians chapter 115 tells us about Jesus that he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of the preeminent one of all of creation, all that there is that is within creation, he is above it, and when we use the word firstborn, we think of order of birth, but the word firstborn, it's a word protocos, it has to do with the preeminence, it doesn't have to do with being born, it's the preeminent one, that Jesus Christ is the preeminent one in all of existence, all of creation, he is above and beyond it.

In Psalm 89, 27 says, I will make him my firstborn, or the preeminent, the highest of the kings of the earth, that when the Messiah would come, that which was prophesied about him in the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament, this is who he is.

And there's something there that of course the Bible tells us in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and here we have the fact that Jesus is God, and he has the rights and the privileges of all of his nature as deity.

Christ as Creator of All Things

Something there that when man fell, of course the creation was ripped out of God's hands because God had put it in man's essentially, and the world of course has gone its way into all of its sin, but by the time you get to Revelation chapter 5, you find dear John, as he's even looking at creation, and he's looking and he sees this picture of heaven and he sees there an angel there in heaven, and that there's a title deed literally of the earth, and it is wrapped in seven seals, it's rolled up, and everything with these seals and it's held, and here's the redemption, the hope, the future of everything, who owns creation, as John looks, who owns all of existence, who has the right to it?

And there as they look there and they cried out, an angel said, who is worthy to open the book and break the seals and to look thereon? Who is the heir was the great eternal question in heaven that is happening in the book of Revelation.

And then John, it says, he wept profusely for no man was found worthy to open the book and to look thereon, and he finds himself just weeping and he's travailing, what do you mean, who owns it? We don't know, and they're struggling, and then there's a tap on the shoulder and one of the four and twenty elders come to him and he says, weep not John, for the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root and the offspring of David hath been found worthy to open the book and to look thereon.

And he says, and I looked and I beheld, and lo in the midst of the throne was a lamb who had been slain. And then from then on there's seven trumpets that blow from chapter five to chapter eleven in Revelation that we'll see on Wednesday nights, and there's the seven seals are broken, and then by the time you get to Revelation chapter eleven, the seventh angel is sounded, the seventh trumpet is blown, the seventh seal is broken, and then when the whole title deed of the earth is finally revealed and is known, then the next thing you know is all of heaven begins to shout and they begin to worship and they begin to praise for Revelation eleven fifteen says that he has, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, that ultimately there the book of Revelation seals and proves the fact that he who created it is heir of it, he owns it all, everything that was spoken into existence, it's his, it belongs to him, all life, all creation, everything in it, he is heir here when the Bible wants to introduce us to Jesus Christ he says I want you number one to know you are looking at the one who is heir to all things, he is the one to whom you have to do, he just isn't a nice guy, somebody there who was a criminal or a teacher or a philosopher or did some really nice stuff and preach some great sermons, you know and really help people really move along through life and spark the, you know, fan the spark in them and do a little better, you know you are looking at the one who owns all, heir of all things, he then goes on and he tells us as well in verse two he says by whom also he created the worlds, he not only he looks there and he says that he is heir of all things very simply because of the fact he is also the creator of all things, he will have it all at the end back in his possession because of the fact it was from his hand that it was all created in the first place, in Genesis 1 when it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth that the word in Hebrew there for God is Elohim, there is El which is God in the singular, Ella which is God in Hebrew in the dual and there is Elohim, God in the plural and here in the beginning God said let us create man after our own image and when God Elohim there the mind of the father and the son and the spirit is together they were looking there in full agreement we are going to create but here is they decided let's create and it is not discerned for us clearly in Genesis who did the creating in the membership, you know among the three but there John tells us in his gospel in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, the same was in the beginning with God and by him were all things made and without him was not anything made that was made, Jesus Christ was the creative force in the deity, you know in the trinity that created all things, he is heir of it very simply because of the fact that he created all things and here when he created it says by whom also he created the worlds, that word worlds we were most familiar with worlds in the physical sense, cosmos, it is not just simply saying Jesus created the cosmos, the physical world, the word there in the Greek is Ionios and Ionios means ages of ages, it is not just simply the physical world although it involves the cosmos but it is all of time within creation when God said let there be and God created there, here the timeless eternal ever-present unchanging God himself who actually is outside of time, he now created time, space, force and matter that is what Ionios is, when God created the worlds he created time, Bible tells us we need all of these things, we can't exist without time, space, force and matter, can't do it, in our time is merely regulated by creation as we know it only working here in our own little galaxy, only on this planet, time is a 24-hour day determined by what?

The earth's spinning, you know we have 24 hours here, why? Because of the fact that each time it spins around and that's a day and it doesn't work in other, in any other place, time is different, functions different but here in a sense there when for our world we have to have time, space, force and matter but here when God created it all, it's amazing, one day the Bible says time should be no more, you know we think, you know I mean, we can't, what do you mean time should be no more?

Well time is a part of creation, God when he takes us to be with him we can't, well what will I do, you know, how do you do anything without time? We don't know yet, all we know it must be great because it's God and it's all of his nature and his being but here, the Bible tells us that when I am looking at Jesus Christ, I'm looking at the heir of all things, I am looking at the creator of all of life, all the world, when you stop to think of it, whether you just want to look at your own being, you look at your body, you look at God creating and forming, you know, you and putting this little teeny heart that started beating in you as a little teeny child, some beats maybe 70, 72 times a minute, when you sit down and you do a little figuring, yesterday I got bored so I did some thinking but when you look at this thing that beats 72 times a minute and you take that, you know, by the hour, you know, times 60 and then you multiply it times 24 and then you multiply it times 365 and then you multiply that times, let's say the average age span, it used to be a three score in 1070, you know, during that time, that little thing that starts beating will beat over 2 ,600 ,000 times before it's done and during that length of time that as it beats and as it pumps this blood through your body, it will fill enough tank cars from the birth until death, it'll take you from Boston to New York of just a pump at a time of blood going through life, going through, going through, going through.

Now some of you, you're over 70 and so you already passed up New York and you're filling boxcars and other places and things but when you stop to think here on what, I mean, God's capacity of this unbelievable thing we call life, a little tiny cubic inch or quarter, half cubic inch of gray matter stores a lifetime of memories, smells, thoughts, words, behavior, scenes, a whole existence of in a sense of so much of where you've been and what you've done and what happened, how to think and how to function in a capacity there when God created in you and he reached down into the dust of the earth and he says, let's make man in our likeness, in our image and then here they're just putting a touch of something whether internally there as he created you and I or then when you want to look outside the sense of ourself and you look up, you see this sun, you know, out there, you know, something there this is so the 300 is some 385 ,000 miles in diameter, 93 million miles away, something so huge that where you could put a 1 ,200 ,000 earths within it and then you still got an extra room for some 4 ,300 ,000 moons that just inside of it, something there with our moon here, there's some 211, 212 ,463 miles in the average away from us.

If you were to walk to it, the average pace would take you 30 years just to get the moon. If you could travel the speed of light, 186 ,000 miles a second, you'd get there in a little less than one and a half seconds from earth to moon traveling.

When you look, you want to look at the expanse of what it is that God has created. If you want to go to the sun, it'll take you eight minutes and 20 seconds at the rate of 186 ,000 miles per second. You want to go to Mercury, it'll take you about four and a half minutes because it's 50 million miles away.

You want to go to Venus, it'll take you two minutes 18 seconds because it's, I'm a little travel agent this morning, some 26 million miles away. Mars, it'll take you four minutes 21 seconds because it's 34 million miles away.

Jupiter will take you 35 minutes because it's 367 million miles away. Saturn, one hour and 11 minutes, it's 790 million. Or if you want to go, say, to Neptune, that's four hours and 48 minutes because it's approximately 3 billion miles away.

And now you're still though, in that again, traveling there, you know, for almost five hours at the rate of 186 ,000 miles a second. You are traveling and it takes you about five hours and you're still within our tiny, little teeny solar system.

The nearest star outside of our solar system is some 10 times the boundaries of our entire solar system itself. 20 billion miles or 30 light years away to get to the nearest star outside. You want to, you're looking at something there again, 30 years traveling at 186 ,000 miles a second.

The North Star, some 400 billion miles away would take you 25 days. You want to get there. Or another one, Begalia, some 880 quadrillion miles away from us, a star that is in some, that itself is some 200 million miles in diameter, greater than the entire, you know, the Earth's axis around the sun.

I mean, you look here, the sun, some 93 million miles away, this huge thing out there. Here we are, 93 million miles away traveling around. Here is this one star out there that is in, that you could put the sun and us traveling around it inside of it.

And here is if some people just want to say, and all this just happened, you know, sort of a thing when you think of it. But Revelation 120, Romans 120 says, for the invisible things from him, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse.

Here the Bible tells us there when somebody just looks at creation, it makes this unbelievable statement, God is and God speaks. God communicates. God is communicating and speaking all the time. That's why the psalmist David in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

Day unto day utter a speech, night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor tongue where their voice is not heard. And in them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun. Here God looks at all creation, he says, where there's this little tabernacle, the sun's in it, but all of creation outside, David says, it's God speaking, telling the world he is.

Christ as Sustainer and Revealer

As God sustains and cares and watches over us so unbelievably. And the wonderful thing here, I mean, here in the Bible, when you're looking at Jesus Christ, the Bible says he is heir of all of this simply because he is the creator of it all.

He is one when you look at the expanse, you know, of all of this, and you're looking at Jesus Christ, you're looking at the one who simply created it. And then it goes on, the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, that not only is Jesus heir of all things and creator of all things, he is also the revealer of all things.

The brightness of the glory of God, the express image of his person. When Jesus came and he says, I am the light of the world. When he said he who has seen the father has seen me, I and the father, we are one.

You're seeing the physical, visible image of the invisible God. You're looking at the very, you know, Christ was all of the fullness of the Godhead bodily, Colossians 2, 9 and 10 tell us. When somebody's looking at Jesus Christ, you're looking at the revealer.

You're looking at the heir of all things, the creator of all things, the revealer of all life. Somebody there, there's all wrapped up in him. And no wonder he said, I am the way and the truth and the life and no man comes to the father, but by me, we're one.

I created in the beginning. I am going to have it all back when time shall be no more and in the midst of it, I am here to reveal to you who God is. You know, of his love and of his power. He's also goes on.

He says not only the rightness of his glory and the express image of his person, but then it goes on there and it tells us in upholding all things by the word of his power. Here is heir of all things.

He is creator of all things. He's the revealer of all things because he is always the sustainer of all things. He is the one who this very moment holds you and I in this world together. He upholds all things by his own power.

You know, scientists for years are trying to figure out the atom. Why is it you get these little nucleus and neutrons and protons and that, I mean, these things flying around each other at unbelievable speeds and how every single atom has its own gravitational pull.

Every single one of them, everything flying, unbelievable breakneck speeds. And yet they all stay right next within their own self. And they could never figure it out. They can't figure it out. They have this wonderful terminology for it.

It's called atomic glue. I mean, they're trying to find why doesn't the universe explode? Why doesn't it just simply released? Why is it? What is it that holds everything together? Every atom, everything that as far as science is concerned, it ought to just vaporize it the way that when they look and study an atom.

And yet the very basis of all of existence, all the world around us, and they're wondering what is it? Well, I'll tell you what it is. The Bible makes it very, very simple. God said he holds all things together by the word of his power.

He said, let it be. And God created and he puts it together. And when you look at this, where God is holding it all, you know, not just simply the littlest atom of the universe. When you look at our own sun and the moon and stars around it, and you watch on how God is, he holds it all together.

You look at the sun that burns at some 12 ,000, pardon me, degrees Fahrenheit. If it was, if the earth was just a little bit closer to it, it would, as it revolved, it would freeze, burn, freeze, burn, freeze, burn, you know, as it would just go.

But it's at the perfect distance to where it allows life to exist upon it. We have on the earth's axis at this 23 degrees that it sits upon, it allows four seasons to happen within our own planet. With the moon that goes around, it allows the waters to flow in the sense of the tides coming in and out and what life is being somehow refreshed and sustained in the water there around us.

And the way that the vapors are picked up, you know, out of the seas, out of the oceans, brought over, dropped into the rest of the world of water and replenish it and refresh it constantly there. When you look there and you realize we have this atmosphere around this world unknown to the rest of the world that when you look at all the planets that we've ever been able to study, they're all pelted with meteorites.

They've been, they're just, you know, like these, well, you look at a picture of our moon. And yet here we have an atmosphere that basically all the meteorites that would have done long ago to us would have happened to the rest of the universe.

But yet there is a atmosphere around this that burns up basically all the meteorites coming into it constantly. And you'd look at these awesome things where occasionally in history when a meteorite has come and hit this earth and realize they're what it is capable of doing.

And yet God has put something around us to watch us and to protect us. No wonder as Jude tells us, now unto him that is able to keep you from falling. Here it is something there that God, he sustains, he holds things and he holds you together.

And it tells us later on in this chapter that one day God will fold up creation as a vesture. He has it all. He's created it all. He holds it all together. And one day he'll be, okay, I'm done. And poof, vaporize.

And it's, and science will do its logical thing that they can't figure out why it hasn't done. But right now the reason it all holds together is he does it by the word of his power. He is heir of all things.