Seeing the Living God

Good afternoon, brethren. Nice day. Woke up and there’s a lot of snow on the ground. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I’m in Ohio, so it just is what it is, I guess, so. It is winter, so it’s to be expected. It’s been a very mild winter, though, thus far, thankfully. Well, I want to jump in with some math. How many of you like math? Okay, not a lot of hands. Okay. Well, this might not be the sermon for you. No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. This should be very easy math. Okay.

On your sheet, I want you to write down a series of numbers. First number is zero. And then put a little bit just a little space, and then a one. Okay. Now, add those two numbers together, and next to the one, put the sum of those two numbers. This should be one, correct? So it should say zero, one, one. Now, if you were to add one and one, the last two numbers together, what does that equal? It equals two, so which you could write a number two next. After that, two plus one, just using the same sequence here. Two plus one equals what? Three. Three is the next number we can write down.

Now, it gets a little more complex. Three plus two equals what? Five. Five is the next number. You can see we’re continuing the sequence. Three plus five would be eight. Eight is the next number. Eight plus five is thirteen, so that’s the next number. Thirteen plus eight is twenty-one. Twenty-one plus thirteen is thirty-four. Thirty-four plus twenty-one is fifty-five. And fifty-five plus thirty-four is eighty-nine. We’re just going to do one or two more here. Eighty-nine plus fifty-five is one forty-four. It’s kind of a nice, interesting number. And lastly... Well, this could go on forever. We could just continue this. One forty-four plus eighty-nine is two thirty-three.

Now, what did we just... What on earth is this? We did a little math. It’s not too complex a math, but we just kept adding the last two numbers in that sequence. This is called the, maybe you’ve heard of it, the Fibonacci sequence. How many have heard of this sequence before? The Fibonacci sequence, very interesting sequence. Now, my brother is very much into the Fibonacci sequence. He’s a designer. He loves using the Fibonacci sequence when he can in designs, because the Fibonacci sequence, and what we’ll see here in a bit, I’ll get into this, it’s tied to what’s called the golden ratio. It’s a very common term in the design world.

Now, why? Why is this such an interesting sequence of numbers? Let me read to you from tylerarboretum.com. That might sound strange. Why am I quoting an arboretum, where flowers are discussed? Mr. Denee is very familiar with arboretums. And you’ll understand here in a moment and how it connects to the Fibonacci sequence. It’s well known that the Fibonacci numerals, these numbers that you see, are all through the universe. They’re all through the world. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, you see these numbers and this kind of sequence. Why?

Tylerarboretum.com says this. “Fibonacci numbering is not always displayed in nature, not always, but you will find it more than you might think.” Look at the seeds in a sunflower. This is fascinating. I would encourage you, if we have another year, and we get to go plant some sunflowers out in the community garden, go out and prove what I’m about to say is correct. Look at the seeds in a sunflower. They’re tightly packed in a spiral. And if you count them, if you count the seeds, you’ll see Fibonacci numbers going in each direction, fifty-five going clockwise. Look down at your notes. You can see fifty-five is one of the numbers that we listed, and either thirty-four or eighty-nine going counterclockwise.

So if you count the number of seeds in the big center of a sunflower, you’ll see thirty-four, fifty-five, or eighty-nine, inevitably. It’s the way that God designed it. But it doesn’t just stop there at a sunflower. Look at a pineapple, this arboretum website says, look at a pineapple, an artichoke. Water lilies are carnations. Over and over, over and over, you will find the same numbers. This is becoming curious. Even if you look at flowers which do not form spirals, you will often find the total number of petals to be Fibonacci numbers. Irises have three petals. Look down at your list, three is on there. Phlox, the flower called phlox, have five petals. Look down at your list, it’s there.

Delphiniums have eight. Okay, Mr. Denee, forgive me. Cineraria have thirteen, and black-eyed Susans have twenty-one, all Fibonacci numbers. Does that kind of blow your mind a little bit? What’s that all about? How does this happen? How does this happen? But it doesn’t just stop with flowers. I’m done with the quote from this arboretum page. You look at conch shells, certain types of different shells, the spiraling shape that they form involves the Fibonacci sequence. I don’t need to get into the details of how. You can go look it up if you’re interested online after the fact, but it does.

Pine cones, you see the Fibonacci sequence. Sunflower seeds, as we talked about. Nests, the way that birds build nests, some of them, involves the Fibonacci sequence and the way that it spirals. Leaves on flower stems, the way that the leaves grow up the flower stems, how many leaves and where they grow, involves the Fibonacci sequence. And even galaxies, the Milky Way galaxy involves the Fibonacci sequence. The way that it starts small and spirals, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, just like you see these numbers starting small and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Now, the ratio, let’s just say if you look at the ratios between each of the numbers, if you know what a ratio is, you’re taking one number and dividing it by the other number. The ratios between each number, if you look at one divided by one, for example, the ratio is one. If you look at two divided by one, the ratio is two. If you look at three divided by two, the ratio is one point five. Five divided by three, just going down the sequence, it’s one point six seven. And if you keep going down, if you keep dividing these numbers as they get bigger and bigger, one by another, they get closer to this ratio called one point six one eight.

Now, this is where it gets a little more complicated, but it’s no more complicated than what I just said. Think about this ratio called one point six one eight. As these numbers continue to get bigger and bigger in the Fibonacci sequence, they get closer to this ratio called the golden ratio, one point six one eight. And it’s an irrational number, so it continues on forever. Now, this golden ratio has been known since the twelve hundreds, the early twelve hundreds, but more informally understood since even the two hundreds or three hundreds AD. So, it’s only been known for the last third of mankind’s existence in truest form.

But if you were to draw this ratio, one to one point six one eight, I’ll just hold up this piece of paper. This piece of paper is a legal-sized paper. If you were to say that if you were to assign this the ratio of one, this is about almost a little bit longer, but pretty close. This gets you an idea. This is about one point six one eight times as long as this. So this rectangle that you see here is pretty close to what you would consider the golden ratio, the rectangle, one by one point six one eight. Okay?

Now, let’s turn over to Genesis Chapter nine. What does this golden ratio, or you could say the Fibonacci sequence, have to do with this sermon? Turn over to Genesis Chapter nine and verse six. Genesis nine and verse six. So, we read beginning of verse nine or Chapter nine. It says, “God bless Noah and his sons, and said them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and the fear of you, and the dread of you should be upon every beast on the earth and upon every foul in the air, and upon all that moves upon the earth and upon the fishes and the sea in your hand, are they delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you, even as the green herb. Have I given you all things?”

So the flood is over. God is saying, replenish the earth, and we come down verse five. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will require it. And at the hand of man and at the hand of every man’s brother will require the life of man. Who so sheds man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made a man.” That’s what we’re going to focus on. Right after the flood occurred, God said to Noah, don’t be murdering everybody. We don’t want a lot of murder going on because God says that he made man in his image.

Now, what does that have to do with the Fibonacci sequence or the golden ratios, I could say? Artists and architects and musicians and authors, all kinds of people who are in creative fields, repeat certain themes throughout their works. If I were to tell you, if you were to go up into an art museum and you see a picture, a painting that Monet produced, you could pretty well distinguish it. If you know anything about art, you could pretty well distinguish it from other artists. You could say, well, Monet has this particular style about him. He’s impressionist type painter and he has that theme of impressionism all throughout his paintings. It’s like a fingerprint, a Monet fingerprint. You know that it’s his painting.

The same is true with music. You think about Mozart’s music, it’s very distinguishable, particular type of baroque music. You can’t confuse a song, a piece that Mozart wrote with a piece that the Beatles wrote. So Beatles also have their own style. You know a Beatles song when you hear it because they have that flavor all throughout their music. You just know certain artists by the style that they imprint onto their pieces of creative works. The same is true with architecture or authors of books. If you read certain books, there’s themes throughout their books, and you can tell it’s the author’s writing.

Now remember in Genesis nine, six, it says, God said that we’re made in his image. God leaves fingerprints throughout his creation as well, just like every other kind of artist. So think of this from this perspective. Is it any wonder then that this thing called the golden ratio is found dozens of times, not just throughout society, not just throughout the natural world which is amazing in and of itself? What are the odds of that happening? The odds of that happening are slim to none. They’re just none really without a creator who instilled those fingerprints throughout the creation, but get this, God says that he made man in his image.

The Fibonacci sequence is found dozens of times just on our physical bodies. The ratios between the size of our eyes, the width of our eyes, and other elements of our face. The Fibonacci ratio or the golden ratio is found probably four or five times just on our face between the height of our chin to our nose, our nose up here. Look at your hands. Everyone look down at your hands. Look at the first digit on your finger. If you assign that, the ratio between the first digit and the second digit is about the golden ratio. The ratio between the second digit and the third digit is about the golden ratio. The ratio between the finger and, excuse me, this digit and from there to your wrist, same thing.

You go from your hand, down to your elbow, same thing, over and over and over and over and over again. From your belly button down to the floor, to the belly button up to the top of your head, that’s the golden ratio. From your knee to the floor, and your knee to the belly button, that’s the golden ratio.

Now, it’s not perfect, okay? Understand that. That we all have different... We’re not all exactly the same, but it’s the fact that God has instilled this curious, unique ratio, not only throughout the universe, throughout flowers and pinecones and on birds’ nests and in the actual Milky Way galaxy itself, but He did it over and over again on our physical bodies. You know why? Because we’re made in the image of God. God looks like us. God saw that he looked like this and used that ratio all throughout his creation as a fingerprint. Proof that he exists for those who are looking.

Now, scientists will just say... Oh, they’ll explain it away by saying, “Well, it’s just not perfect. These ratios aren’t perfect here and there,” and they’ll explain it all away. But you can’t. You can’t deny the fact that God has given us something so simple and repeated over and over and over again throughout the world, and including on our own bodies. So understanding this... Oh, I forgot to say, too, DNA also.

Remember the numbers twenty-one and thirty-four up in the Fibonacci sequence that we wrote down to begin? Our own DNA structure is thirty-four by twenty-one angstroms. I don’t know what that is, but I know that it is the golden ratio. I just know that I can look up online and read that my DNA involves the golden ratio. That’s unbelievable, brethren. It’s from our DNA. It’s built into us, in all DNAs. A lot of DNAs have that same ratio. We’re made in God’s image, and this ratio is important to him.

Now, this is just an exercise that I did recently, and I thought, “This is really, really interesting, what I’m finding.” Understanding this one fingerprint of God, if I could put it that way, throughout creation did something to me. It changed me. Now, of course, I’ve proven that God exist before. I wouldn’t be baptized without having done that. It’s part of the baptismal process, is proving God exists. But of course, I’ve done that. But this exercise, in a certain way, made God real to me in a way that was new and exciting.

I’d never seen this before. I’d never considered it before. And I’ll never look at a flower or a plant or the galaxy or my own DNA, I’ll never look at any of those things the same way because I’ll now see them as fingerprints of God. I’ll see them as proof and evidence that God exists. That there is a Great Creator out there more than just simple beauty. Flowers are beautiful. They’ve always been beautiful to me, but I will not see them the same way now that I understand they have three or five or thirteen or twenty-one. What? What are the odds of that? Why not sixteen petals? Why?

The answer is, because God wanted it that way and he wanted us to see it. It’s important to him for us to see that. And now I see it as a way that God is trying to communicate to me, showing me that He’s alive, that he exists. Proving God exists, it can be an academic experience, or it can be a real experience. It can make God alive in your mind beyond just academically saying, I know and I can prove that God exists. Proving God exists is for the purpose of making him real. Making him live in our lives. So, I’ll pose the question to you now, the same question I posed to myself. Is God alive in your life? Is he alive in your life? Is he living? Is he real?

Proving God exists academically is great. It’s wonderful. We can’t be baptized without doing this first, as I said before. But proving God exists academically and seeing his existence, seeing with your own eyes that he exists and is alive are two different things.

Turn over to Hebrews Chapter eleven. Hebrews Chapter eleven. We’ll read in verse twenty-four. “By faith...” this is the faith chapter, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.”

Moses was able to look through the physical life that he was living, the physical existence that he was living, and see the invisible God. The invisible God was real to Moses. He was very alive, very much alive in Moses’s mind. But how can we prove that God is actively working in our lives if we can’t see him? How can we prove that? How do we prove that the wind exists? It’s a similar question. The wind is invisible, but how do we prove that it exists? Well, the way that we know the wind is there is we can feel it on our skin, we can see it rustling the leaves when we walk by.

When there’s a lot of wind and a hurricane comes by, you can see the destruction, you can see trees blown down, houses blown over, roofs come apart. That’s how we know the wind exists, not because we can physically see it, but because we feel and see its effects. That’s how we prove that gravity is in existence. Gravity, it’s invisible, but we all know it exists because we’re all a part of gravity right now. We’re all sitting on the floor, we’re not floating up on the ceiling. We know gravity exists, but it’s invisible. The reason we know it exists is because we see the effects of gravity and the effects of wind.

The same is true with God. We can prove God exists, and we can not only prove it, but know he exists and see his existence, not because we physically see him around, because he’s invisible, but rather because we see the effects that God has in our lives. That’s how we prove God’s existence, the invisible God. That’s how we see God’s existence. He becomes alive to us and not just some invisible being that we can come to, sitting on a throne, when we come before him in prayer. He’s so much more than that. He’s actively working in our lives, but how do we know where to look?

The effects and evidence of wind and gravity are all around us and seen everywhere, but just because they’re present doesn’t mean that we’re aware of them. How many of us have gone on a walk and not once thought about the wind that’s blowing? All the time, if I go on a walk, I’m not going to think about the wind. I’ll think about the wind if there’s a gale-force wind almost blowing me over. Then I’ll think about the wind, but most of the time when we go on walks, we don’t think about the wind. But if we were to stop on our walk and actively think about the wind, we’d see its evidence everywhere.

We’d see the wind blowing in the trees. We’d see the clouds coming by. All of it would be evidence and proof that the wind exists, but we have to think about it. The same is true with God. There’s evidence that God exists in our lives everywhere. The question is, are we aware of it? It’s not that it exists. Of course, it exists. How many of us knew about the Fibonacci sequence before coming in here and have thought, wow, that’s a powerful proof that God exists? I know I didn’t until I studied it just a few days ago. My mind was blown, and it created the genesis of this sermon. So, what that will do to me now is change the way that I live my life. I’ll see flowers differently. I’ll not only see them for being beautiful, I’ll see them as being created by God, designed by God with this fingerprint that he’s given us.

Turn over to First Thessalonians Chapter one. First Thessalonians one. We’ll read verse seven. It says this. First Thessalonians one and verse seven. “So that you were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols…” He was talking to Gentiles, people in Greece, Thessalonians… or Thessalonica, excuse me, how they turned from idols, “…to serve the living and true God.”

All other gods are dead, the Bible makes that plain, but the God that we serve is actually alive, and that’s the distinction. We know that he’s alive academically, but do we see that he’s alive? Do we see that he’s alive like Moses saw that he was alive and active in his life? Evidence is everywhere. But again, are we aware of that evidence? Are we looking for it?

The points we’ll cover are not just for those who have been baptized. You can think about Ecclesiastes twelve and verse one, it says that, “Remember your Creator from the days of your youth…”

You don’t have to be a baptized person. Frankly, everybody who’s baptized in the church prove God’s existence before they were baptized in order to be baptized. So this is clearly a message that involves everybody, including those who are not baptized. You can prove this. You can prove God’s existence in your life, and we should. And we can look for that evidence every day of our lives, no matter how old we are.

So, we’re going to go over a few points. Areas that we can see evidence, proof, that we can look through our lives and see the effects that God has, that he is alive. Because we’re not looking for the physical God. We can’t look out there and see God sitting in the audience. He’s invisible. It doesn’t work that way. Like the wind, we have to look for the effects. We have to look for the evidence that God is working with us through other means. And we’re going to go through a series of these points, and hopefully, it will be as life-changing to you as it was to me.

The first area that we can look for God and see God actively working with us is an easy one, in the days of prosperity. In prosperity, God has given us… He gives us answered prayers, He’ll give us deliverances, He’ll give us protections, all kinds of things. These are days of prosperity. Turn over to Ecclesiastes Chapter seven. Ecclesiastes Chapter seven. Verse fourteen, a very familiar verse. It says this, we’ll just read the first part, “In the day of prosperity be joyful.” In the day of prosperity be joyful. When God blesses us in our lives, it’s often intimate and personal to us.

You know, I think about… I was just telling my wife recently after moving into our house a little over a year ago now, I said, you know, one thing that would be great, one really great thing that we could do, it’s just like the final touch to our house, the things that we wanted to… “If we had a list of things that we need to get for the house or one of the last things that would be really great to have is to have a couple little bar stools here at the table, at the countertop.”

And I said, “But we’ve got this tight, narrow walkway between the countertop and the couch, so the bar stools can’t be too big.” So, I said, “So that they don’t look intrusive and too bulky, or take up too much space in this walkway. It’d be nice if we found ones that were like wrought iron or something.” And she said, “Oh, yes, that’s a great idea.” So, we just kind of said it. We weren’t planning on getting anything.

And the next Sunday, we weren’t looking for anything… Well, I was actually looking for maybe a jacket at Goodwill to see if I could find another winter coat. And my wife calls me over to the other side of Goodwill, and says, “Hey, check these out.” For pennies compared to what you would pay if you were to buy them on Facebook marketplace, or to buy them, you know, new or anything, we found wrought… three perfect wrought iron bar stools that would fit perfectly for that area. God just blessed us out of, like, nowhere. How could we have expected to see these things? And for pennies. For almost nothing we got these chairs for.

God saw that. It wasn’t like it was a real big… I wasn’t delivered from a massive car crash, and my life was saved, and a car passed through another. No, it wasn’t anything like that. Those kinds of things, of course, happen, and we can be very thankful for them, but this was a smaller blessing, but it was a blessing nonetheless. I looked at it and said, my wife and I were like, “God blessed us in this area.” It’s an amazing thing. We weren’t even looking for it. We were content to just continue and not have any bar stools. We’ve been going this long without them, it’s not like we needed them, but it was just a really… it was like God is saying, “Hey, I’m with you. We’re with you,” and he gave us that little blessing in our lives.

We have another blessing coming, another baby. It’ll be a daughter, we found out. So we’re very excited about that if you didn’t know. So we’re excited about blessings in various regards, but these are the kinds of things that often happen to us personally when we see answered prayer, or when we see God give us something that we maybe didn’t expect, out of the blue. These are little ways that we can say, you know what? I’m not just going to see it as a nice thing. Oh, what a cowinky-dink that I happened to cross these bar stools that we had just talked about a few days ago, for so cheap. Rather than it just being a big coincidence, do we see it as a blessing? Do we see it as actually God’s hand in our lives actively working?

And notice here in Chapter seven and verse… excuse me, Chapter seven and verse fourteen. It says, “In the days of prosperity be joyful.” Be joyful. Now, how do we be joyful? In order to fulfill that command to be joyful, we have to first recognize that God gave us the blessing in the first place. We have to know that they’re days of prosperity. And part of knowing they’re days of prosperity is that we consciously and with awareness, recognize that God is the one who’s blessing us.

So think about these kinds of… these is an obvious point. This is not a hard point to understand. When we think about seeing God working in our lives, oftentimes the first thing we think about is when God blesses us. “Wow. Yes, I was blessed. That was God actively working.” “Wow. I prayed about this, that, or the other thing, and God answered my prayer.”

Turn over to Psalm one-forty-three. Psalm one-forty-three and verse one. A Prayer of David, “Psalm of David. Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications. In your faithfulness, answer me, and in your righteousness.” Mr. Schleifer just gave a sermon recently on answered prayer.

Now, David knew that in order to receive answered prayer, you have to ask in prayer first. Shock of shocks. You have to actually pray in order to receive answered prayer. So if we want to actively see God give us answered prayer and actively work in our lives, brethren, the first step is really to go and pray, to begin with. You have to know what to ask for. If you want answered prayer, if you want more evidence that God is working with you and actively alive in your life, pray and God will answer your prayers.

Sometimes he’ll choose not to. Sometimes he’ll delay. Sometimes he’ll hold off for greater purposes. But when you see answered prayer in your life, it’s in your face evidence that God exists screaming at you that he is alive. So that’s the first point. Very simple. Days of prosperity are easy ways for us to regularly look for God’s involvement in our lives and see that he’s alive. But what about the second half of that verse, Ecclesiastes seven, fourteen? Let’s read it.

Ecclesiastes seven fourteen. We can go back there. You all know what the second half says, but let’s just read it again. Verse fourteen, “In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider God also has set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him.” Did you pick up on that? God clearly blesses us in our lives, but did you realize that it’s God who has set adversity in our lives as well at times, or at least allows adversity?

So the second point is, do we see trials, adversity, difficulties, tribulations in our lives as actually proof that God is working with you, proof that God is in your life and actively working because He set the one against the other? He brought at times trials in our lives or allowed the trials in our lives so that we could build the character to become more like him.

Have we ever looked at trials and tribulations, days of adversity, as proof and evidence that God is alive? Maybe from now on we will, because again, God set the one against the other. I would venture a guess that most of us have maybe never thought or consciously thought of trials in our lives as ways that we can just prove God exists. Most of our time, we think about the other side of the coin, the blessings

Turn over to Psalm thirty-four. Psalm thirty-four. We will just read one verse, Psalm thirty-four and verse nineteen. Here it says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Now here’s an interesting point. God gives us days of prosperity. But then at a point, at a natural point, God says, “Okay, it’s time for you to build character. I’m going to allow, maybe sometimes I’m going to even bring on a trial,” or maybe you brought the trial on yourself so that you can develop the character during these days of adversity.

The trial, in and of itself, should be evidence that God is alive in our lives because without trials, brethren, we’re not considered righteous. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Many. If we go through trials, actually it’s proof in our lives that God is with us. But do you know what’s also encouraging about it? Through the trial, if we see it the right way, if we use the trial the way that God intended to build character, to learn lessons to grow, to overcome. Through that trial, God says that he will deliver us out of them all. And in a way, when he delivers us out of those trials he’s showing us yet again more prosperity. Delivering us through the trial. Getting us out of that trial and showing us that he is the one who’s doing it. He’s telling us over and over and over again, whether we’re in days of prosperity or days of adversity. Days of prosperity, days of adversity.

He puts them back and forth so that we can see him working, actively working with us, through any part of those trials or days of prosperity. Grasp the power of this because the reason God allows trials is so that he can deliver us out of them and prove to us that he exists. It’s an amazing thing to really sit and meditate on when you have the time. Never again should we see trials and tribulations the same way. Just like we won’t see flowers the same way. Just like we won’t look at the spiral galaxies and see them the same way. Or our fingers.

How many of us could ever imagine that this ratio is found dozens of times on our bodies? And probably more than that, in ways that we can’t even know. Never again should we see trials and tribulations the same way. To a converted mind, to somebody whom God is working with or has been baptized or received God’s Spirit, these tests are evidence that God is real. And then when he delivers you out of them, they’re also evidence that he’s real. Here’s the next point. Proof that God is with us. Proof that another totally different way to look at evidence that God is alive in our lives is that God’s living word is in your mind.

Turn over to Colossians chapter three. God’s living word is in your mind. Colossians chapter three. Colossians three, we’ll pick it up in verse fourteen. Paul, speaking to the Colossians, says, “And above all these things put on love.” Just recently gave a sermon on love. Above all things, put it on, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you are called in one body, and be you thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Just focus on the first part of verse sixteen. “Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom.” Now, if we let God’s word dwell in us richly, it’s always at the ready to help us bring peace to our lives when we need it. Now, have you ever been in a tough situation? Maybe you’re struggling with something, or you’re fighting a bad attitude, or you’re fighting whatever it might be. It could be anything. And you’re in a tough situation, and all of a sudden a scripture will come to mind that just sort of puts you at peace. It brings you peace. Or a thought comes to mind that just calms you.

Or frankly, sometimes, I’ve done this before is just ask for God’s peace, and all of a sudden you just feel different. It’s like a wave of peace that the anxiety and the frustration or whatever it might have been at that moment just dissipates. When something like that occurs, it’s God’s word in you, particularly when you think about scriptures or when you think about something that helps you overcome something. Let’s say you struggle with fornication. If something comes to mind, flee fornication. Flee fornication. Just run away from it. Run away from it.

That verse may just come to mind if you’re tempted at any point in time. That’s God’s Spirit working in you. That is the engrafted word of God in your mind, active. Now, we can look past that very easily, like we go on a walk, and it’s just a nice, light, breezy day, and we don’t think about the wind at all. But do we actively recognize that when that happens, we stop and say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, that wasn’t me that did that. That was God’s Spirit in me. That was the Word of God built into me now through his Holy Spirit, giving me that help and that aid that I needed at that critical moment.”

Do we recognize that? Do we stop and recognize and consider that’s proof that God is alive in my life? Those kinds of things don’t necessarily happen in the world. They don’t have God’s Spirit engrafted into their mind. They don’t have the word of truth embedded into their thinking. It’s proof that God’s Spirit is actively working with us and with our consciences. Sometimes our consciences will prick us. Do we see that when our consciences prick us and they say, “Oh, you really shouldn’t do that? Don’t do that. Stay away.”

That’s proof that God is with you, working with you actively. Again, it’s one thing to know that it happens and to have it happen, but to stop and recognize that it’s happening and see it as proof that there is a living God. That’s what this whole message is about. Internalizing that. Stopping to take the time to think, “Wow, God is alive. He is working with me.” Are we thankful when these things happen? So that’s the next point. The fourth point, a little bit longer point, it ties back to the introduction.

The fourth way that we can see the effects of God in our lives is through meditation on and learning about creation. Meditating on and learning about creation. Turn back to Romans chapter one. Read verse seventeen. Romans one, seventeen. It says this, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” You know, there’s a coming time when people will receive the wrath of God, and you’ll see why the wrath of God is coming on people in the future.

It’s because they reject God. The wrath of God doesn’t come on people who don’t deserve the wrath of God. God doesn’t want to bring wrath on people, but he knows that he needs to bring wrath on people if they don’t obey or if they don’t come to recognize God for who he is.

Let’s keep reading, verse eighteen, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it to them.”

God has shown the Fibonacci sequence to the rest of mankind the way that he showed it to you and I today. They don’t know anything. They probably know more about it than you and I do and they know a whole lot more than just the Fibonacci sequence, but the problem is, is they ignore it. They don’t see it as a fingerprint of God throughout the universe. You and I would. Because of this verse. It says here in verse nineteen, twenty, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.”

We see them in flower petals, we see them in shells, we see them in the universe, we see them in our DNA, we see them all across our bodies just with the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made. They understand it. I didn’t learn that on my own. I went to Google. Some unconverted person told me about the Fibonacci sequence.

They know a whole lot more about it than I do. They know the same things you and I know. But here’s the problem. “Being understood by the things that are made even as eternal power and Godhead; so that they that are without excuse.” They just ignore it. They’re without excuse. All the proofs in Mr. Pack’s booklet about does God exist which, by the way, are just the tip of the iceberg of the proofs that God exists. You don’t have to stop there. Go find your own reasons God exists in your life. That’s the whole point of this.

This point is meditating on and learning about God’s creation. Take time in your own personal life and studies to prove God exists by just studying interesting things. Just ask Google and AI now with all kinds of technology that we have, what are some of the things that repeated themselves throughout nature? Fibonacci sequence will come up, other things will come up, like the shape of a hexagon. Who would have thought the shape hexagon? A hexagon, a six-sided shape, repeats itself all over the place too throughout nature.

Do you think that just happened on its own? Of course not. Of course not. Beehives have hexagons. The basalt columns in Iceland have hexagons. These pillars of stone that are shaped in hexagonal forms. Fascinating. Those are all throughout nature. What else can you find? The whole point is, take time on your own and prove and meditate on these things that make God real to you because there’s a whole lot out there that’s fascinating to contemplate. It says here in Romans that these people are without excuse. God left his fingerprints everywhere.

The words without excuse means indefensible. If they were to come before God and lay out their case, God considers them to be in an indefensible position. They can’t come before God and be able to defend themselves effectively. I gave you all of these proofs and evidence that I exist, and you just blew them off as being nothing but happenstance or a big bang or whatever, evolution? Of course not. Of course not. We must be different from the world. We have to look at it differently. We have to be curious about God’s creation.

We have to look at the things that we can see on our everyday walks and just find not only beauty in them but an intelligent, almighty creator being designed them. Turn over to Psalm nineteen. Psalm nineteen, verse one. This one’s interesting. Part of the same point about meditating on and learning about the creation. Psalm nineteen one says this, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.” Now, Do you think about the heavens as actually speaking to you? They declare God’s glory.

I’m declaring to you what the Bible says. But do we when we look up at the heavens when we look at the sky, we could see the aurora borealis, we could see northern lights. It could be just the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the sunset, anything. When we look at the sky, does it actually speak to us because it’s God saying that the universe, the sky, is actually speaking to you? It’s not the physical sky, it’s not actually talking, but what it’s saying is that God is speaking to you through his creation. He created it to tell you things, to evidence that God is alive. Just keep reading. “Day unto today utters speech.” Every day utters speech to us. When we see the sun rise and set, when we see the stars come out at night, God is speaking to us through his creation, showing us that he’s in existence, that he’s alive. “And night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” God is in effect saying doesn’t matter if you live in the Amazon jungle or you live in London or if you live in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

Doesn’t matter where you are, what language you speak, everybody can appreciate and understand the beauty of God’s creation through the heavens. They speak to us all. That’s right. No man is defensible. We’re all without excuse to be able to say that there is a God. Verse four, “Their line has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. In them has he set a tabernacle for the sun.” God has set the place of the sun. He’s established this, “Which is as a bridegroom coming out of her chamber and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.”

“He is going forth from the end of heaven and his circuit under the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” The fact that we are precisely the right distance away from the sun in order to be able to sustain life, do we think about these things? Do we remember them? Because I know we’ve all probably thought about that at one point. But when we stand outside and we see the heavens, do they declare God’s glory to us, or do we just kind of walk through our life? And it’s very easy to do this. Very easy. There’s a lot going on in our lives.

It’s very easy for us to just get caught up in the, you’ve heard the term the rat race of life, particularly in the twenty-first century. But do we take time to think about what the heavens are declaring to us, and in fact, what God is declaring to us that he’s alive and well? He’s not just a dead idol. Like a lot of the Catholics or some of these other Hindus or some of these other people on earth, they worship dead idols. God is alive and he has things to say to us through his creation. Now, the question is, do we study it? Do we meditate on it? Do we think about it?

Do we go and dig and find other things that may not be in the does God exist booklet? There are proof to you now personally, that’s exciting that you can share with other people and edify them with. Say, “I’ve never seen this before.” I was edified by the Fibonacci sequence, and I hope you were too. The golden ratio. Just an example. I’ll just give you a few examples, some springboards that you can jump off of and do your own research. Do you think about the fact that there’s symmetry all throughout the creation? Every bug is symmetrical. Human beings are symmetrical.

Generally speaking. We’re not perfect, neither the bugs, but trees are generally speaking symmetrical. Think of flowers, plants, leaves. Some rocks are symmetrical. Even the shape of if you look it up, pyrite, it’s fool’s gold, it comes in perfect cubes. Human beings, planets. Think about the orbits of the planets around the sun. They’re all symmetrical. Why? It just didn’t happen from a big bang. These are all the heavens declaring to us. This is the earth declaring to us too the things that God made. Do we consider all of these things?

I mean, you look at the physical temples that God has built in the past, that God has had built, or that he says will be built in the future, there’s a lot of symmetry with the temple. A lot of symmetry. There’s a lot of symmetry if you look at Noah’s Ark. It wasn’t just some asymmetrical blob of wood. Go for wood here and there to kind of make sure they’re... no, God had it built very symmetrically. Ships are built that way today. The Ark of the Covenant, symmetrical. All of the things that God had commissioned, if I could put it that way or had built, were all very symmetrical because that’s how he thinks.

He thinks decently and in order. We’re getting a window to the way that God thinks. And so when we see the physical buildings and the physical structures and the boats that God has built or had built in the past. And we also then see that almost all of his creation has symmetry, bugs, plants, trees, everything, us, it’s evidence that he exists. And it should be exciting to us. It should help us remember regularly that he is alive. You could go do your own study about music. I love music, but I haven’t studied a lot into it.

I’m sure you could find something fascinating about the fact how music... like where did music come from? Where did the scale come from? Why are music waves? I mean, there’s so much you could look into. I guarantee if you dig into it at any small shallow depth, you’d find some kind of a fingerprint of God wherever you look. That’s the whole point is take time to meditate, take time to learn about the Creation. And in doing so, and you’re going to unearth things that are probably going to be fascinating to you and inspire you and make you remember evermore how alive God is.

Let’s go to the next point. Do we consider that God’s Church, God’s Church in the Laodicean era is proof that God is alive and well? We’re all sitting here at services, we could be here at headquarters or we could be one person out keeping services alone or with a small group. It doesn’t matter where we are. The fact that we are in God’s church is evidence that he is alive and well. Do we think about that or do we just... if we’ve been in God’s church for any length of time, do we kind of let that... I don’t know.

Do we just let it slip? Do we kind of forget about that? Do we forget how special it is to be part of the one true church that God is the head of in the final era? Turn over to Revelation chapter three. Revelation three, verse fourteen. Revelation three fourteen says this, “And unto the angel of the church of Laodicea the Laodiceans write.” This is the final era, the era that we live amongst, the era that Mr. Pack is trying to reach and open their eyes to the truths that you and I know.

This is the environment that not only we live in from the splinter perspective, but the environment that the entire world is steeped in. Let’s read about it. “And unto the angel of the church in Laodicea write, These things says the Amen, the faithful true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works, that you are neither hot, cold, nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot.” God would rather we be cold than lukewarm. Consider that.

That’s actually a really fascinating thing to contemplate. God prefers us to be dead cold, spiritually speaking than to be lukewarm. That’s how much he hates lukewarm thinking. It’s really a powerful thing to consider. “I know your works, that you’re neither hot nor cold. I would that you were cold or hot. So then because you’re lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I’ll spew you out of my mouth because you say, ‘I’m rich and increased with goods and I have need of nothing and no knot that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked.”

These people think that they have it all figured out. They don’t need God. He says that they are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” And he says, “I counsel you to buy me gold tried in the fire that you may be rich and white Rayment, that you may be clothed and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear. And anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I to stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, sup with him, and he with me.

To him that is he here will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and set down with my Father in his throne.” You know the word Laodicea you’ve heard it many times. Laodicea means the people decide, the people rule, judge, and decide. The people in this era don’t really understand how important it is to be in one true church. That’s one of the final points here we’re covering. Do we see God’s church?

Just remember, do we see God’s church and how special it is to be a part of the one true church in the Laodicean era as proof that God exists. Because God said the gates of the grave will not prevail against the church. Nothing will destroy God’s church. It’s going to be alive. Even in an era where there’s all kinds of people rule, judging, and deciding. We have the unique privilege to be amongst brethren where we all speak the same thing. We’re of the same mind and of the same judgment. That’s not the case in the Laodicean era. Never mind, the case in the world.

You go to congregations either in the Laodicean era splinter groups, or you go into the world, what you’ll find is people can believe whatever they want. There’s no unity. You could have a pet doctrine over here. You could be a minister preaching things that are just simply false and you won’t be taken off the ministry, out of the ministry, or kicked out of the church because it’s okay. Everything’s accepted. It’s okay. Everybody has their opinions and there’s no central truth. That’s what separates God’s church from the rest of this era, frankly, and makes it so special. We are of one mind and of one judgment.

You can go to Abu Dhabi, or you can go to India, or you could go to Australia, or you could go to South America. You could go anywhere around the world. Anybody in the world who’s in RCG and in the ministry too, will all teach the same thing. Shocking. But you can’t believe how rare and special that is in this era because it’s nonexistent outside of God’s church. Everybody has their opinion and God says it. Just believe what God says about the Laodicean era. That’s all you need to know. Everybody has their pet ideas. First Corinthians chapter one and verse ten.

Mr. Pack has driven this home time and time again and its importance. Verse ten of First Corinthians chapter one. “Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing. That there be no divisions among you, that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Brethren that describes us. That’s not to say that all of us are perfect, but when it comes to what we teach, what we believe, none of us are out of line. We all believe the same thing. We obey God.

But the question remains, do we remember that this is the oasis that God has given us amongst the sea of Laodicean thinking in this world? God has given us this special precious place that we can be united and obey him and follow him. And it’s frankly, brethren, comes back to this whole point, it proves he’s alive. It proves he’s alive. We can’t forget that. We must never forget how this one true church proves God’s existence. Turn over to First Corinthians chapter twelve, just a few chapters over. The body of Christ chapter.

Verse twelve says this, “For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Christ is not divided. The body of Christ is not divided, and we see that in God’s one true church. “For by one spirit, all are baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.” That spirit isn’t divided, Christ isn’t divided, and the body isn’t divided. Come on down to verse twenty, “But now are there many members…” all of us are individual people called into this body… but yet one body.”

The body of Christ is not broken up into four hundred different groups, it’s in one place. Do we remember that? Do we see that as, wow, it is so special that I’m here. It’s proof God is alive. Verse twenty-four, “For our comely parts have no need, but God has tempered the body together… Tempered means to unite or combine the body together… having given more abundant honor to the part which lacked. That there should be no schism… no split or gap in the body… but that all the members should have the same care one to another. And another member, suffer, all the members suffer with it, because we’re unified.”

If one member be honored, all the members will rejoice with it. “Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular.” So, I’ll conclude this point by simply saying, in other organizations, members, ministers, whoever it is in these other organizations, including the churches of this world, they can believe or teach whatever they want, generally speaking. They’ve got freedom and flexibility. But few are truly unified. This is the opposite in God’s church. We’re all unified. It’s a fingerprint, a massive fingerprint of God that he exists. And it’s a miracle, really.

It’s a miracle like our calling. Our calling is a miracle. The fact that the small tiny church is alive is a miracle. And again, massive proof that God exists. But do we think about it? Do we remember to think about it? Do we consider how unified we are and how special it is to be a part of this organization? And the last part is associated with this. And the sermonette touched on it. Do we recognize… let’s just continue reading here in first Corinthians twelve, let’s pick it up in verse twenty-eight.

“Associated to this body… it says… God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, teachers, after that miracles and gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversity of tongues.” And it says in verse twenty-nine, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts. Yet show unto you a more excellent way.”

Part of the body of Christ is the fact that God has his government. And something else that we can very easily take for granted is the fact that we live in an era, just like the sixth era did, that has an apostle leading it. Do we take time to actually recognize how special that is? The first-century era had apostles, multiple apostles. But aside from the first century and toward the end, the twentieth century, twenty-first century, there may have been just a couple of other apostles, Peter Waldo might, or a few other people throughout the last two thousand years who might have been apostles.

It’s rare. But God has proven to us by the fruits, and we can see it also through the truths that are being revealed through prophecy, truth comes to the church through apostles, the evidence of that is manifest, it’s obvious. But do we see it as a proof that God exists, that God is alive and he’s working here, he’s with us. We uniquely live in an era led by an apostle, and not every era has had such a prophet and such a wonderful blessing. Turn over to first Peter chapter one, final verse. First Peter chapter one, and verse seven.

Peter says this, “That the trial of your faith being much more precious than that of gold, that perishes though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Christ.” Talking about the day of the Lord, “…whom having not seen you love is invisible. In whom though now you see him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied the grace that should come to you.”

Prophets, apostles, brethren of eras, and ages past have sought to understand the truths about prophecy that we have. Now, we still see through a glass darkly. There’s no doubt when perfection comes, that’s when we’re going to see perfectly. But do we take for granted just how special it is that God has unveiled so much of one-third of the Bible called prophecy to us in his final era? Do we remember that? Do we really sit back and see that as evidence that God is alive, proof that he’s right here with us?

Do we see it as evidence just the same way that the heavens declare to us? Do we see it as evidence the same way that trials and tests in the days of prosperity are evidence that God is with us? All of these things, brethren, point to a creator God, but not that he’s just academically the creator. Okay, yes, I’ve proven God exists. That’s fine, but that he’s working in your life and he’s alive. He’s a living God. He’s not a dead God. Brethren, to the discerning Christian, evidence of God’s existence is everywhere we turn, everywhere.

From blessings and prosperity, in days of prosperity, to trials and days of adversity. All around us in creation, from the Fibonacci sequence all the way to the hexagons and whatever else that you’re going to go out and study on your own and prove God’s existence. Through his church and his work and his government, God is present and alive, but the question still remains, will we see it?