INTRO: Our subject is faith. Our text is, “The Just Shall Live By Faith.” I am sorry, but you will have to think hard this morning. In the next message we will finally look at what faith is. We have only been laying the groundwork for an understanding of what faith is. Our major point we are looking at is, “The Purpose Of Creation.” We have looked at how creation began. And we have seen that it began with the creation of angels. And it is probable that the very first angel created was Lucifer, as he is called the son of the morning (Is. 14:12). And we saw that angels are spiritual and personal beings, and they are free moral agents. They can choose beyond instinct. Animals and all the rest of creation besides man cannot do that. We looked at the reason why God created angels. God created angels to worship Him. They would learn who God is and praise and extol and exalt Him. They would recognize the goodness and perfection of the character of God and glorify Him.
Then in the second message we asked, was it not supremely selfish of God to create everything for His own glory? And we found that not only was it not selfish, but it gave opportunity for personal beings to exist and experience an absolute, complete, fulfilling existence by the mutual interaction between God and these beings.
And then we saw that sin entered the universe. We said that this is the saddest day of all creation. But yet, in a way, it seems to me, the fact that sin entered among free moral agents, that in the end, when all is said and done, God will have been able to use it to bring even greater glory to Himself, and all the good angels and all saved people will benefit from all that has taken place |
