 and running? For all you fathers out there, this happens every Father's Day where your children will say, well, last month we celebrated Mother's Day, now we're celebrating Father's Day. When are we going to have Kids' Day? Have you ever heard that one? I think every parent has heard that one, right? And every parent and every parent's got a ready answer. Every day is Kids' Day. All right, okay. Well, I'm glad that Lee Strobel's got a book coming out in miracles. Eric Metaxas had one, we had one from Craig Keener, and in September, September 1, I'm bringing out a book on miracles. Different kind of book on miracles. Basically saying, if you as a Christian have never experienced the kind of miracles you see in the book of Acts, all you got to do is follow through on 1 Peter 3, 15, and 16, guaranteed. And the book basically talks about the theology of that guarantee, and then it's loaded with stories who people didn't believe that, put it into practice, and that happened to them. So, 1 Peter 3, 15, always be ready to give reasons for the hope within you and Jesus Christ with gentleness, respect, and a clear conscience. A lot of people are the first part, but they don't have the second part. Both parts are going together. If you do that, you will see God miraculously bringing people to you that are prepared to hear those reasons, respond to those reasons, and give their life to Jesus Christ. The first five or six times that happens to you think, well, those are just coincidences. But when it happens a few hundred times, you realize these are not coincidences. And also, if you do this for a sufficient period of time, you'll see things like you see in the book of Acts where God literally is miraculously bringing people to you. And I've told a couple of stories here in the past about how that happened. I won't go into that in terms of the book. But I will make this one response. About 30 years ago, 35 years ago if I'm honest, we had a practice here at the church. If you're suffering from a physical malady and need healing, come to us as elders and we'll pray for you. But we're going to pray for you behind closed doors. We'll be public. Moreover, don't come unless you're prepared to come in the spirit of the book of James. And what does James say? Some of you are sick and in need of physical healing, go to the elders, but notice the big proviso. Confess your sins before the elders. And if you confess your sins, you'll be healed. And it's based on the principle God's much more concerned about your spiritual healing than your physical healing. Because even if he heals you physically, guess what? You're still going to die. I mean, yeah, you may be healed of that problem, but others will come. God's not going to deliver you from the second law of thermodynamics. Your body is decaying. If you don't believe it, just look at one another, okay? There's ongoing decay. And, you know, I've been teaching this class long enough that I've actually been able to see significant passage of decay in a few of you. And of course, you've seen a lot more of it than me. I used to have black hair one time. So even though I've been teaching this class for 43 years, I've never had hair that covered. I mean, I had a little more hair, but just a little more. No, actually, I started losing my hair when I was 15. So I was a little older than that. And I started attending the church here. So I already had a lot of hair loss. It runs in my family. So, yes, that's true. We're all under the process of decay. However, our spiritual healings are eternal. And that's where God's really interested. And so we would have people come to us. And then we would say, look, this text in James is basically focusing on you getting the spiritual healing that you need. We want you to confess your sins before us. But would you be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to work through us to expose sins in your life that you're not even aware of? And we'll pray about those and see if that is the thing that's holding you back from being physically well. And we saw that happen over and over again. We also told these people, look, we're your elders. But this isn't going to work unless you really trust us. Because things might come out. And so unless you're completely comfortable in trusting us, we're not going to pray. We're not only going to do to be got your permission. Well, I've been talking to the elders about reinstituting this. So let's see what happens here. But you know what was kind of scary for the elders? Often it wouldn't be something in the person that was exposed. It wasn't one of the elders that got exposed. So that's something that we shared as elders saying, okay, we're going to do this. Are we really ready for this? Because God may be much more focused on what's going on in our life than the person that's coming to us. And that often happened. God would send someone to us. They would confess one of their sins. And suddenly one of the elders would say, I got the same problem. And then they would confess. And then the Holy Spirit would reveal. I mean, some of these meetings took a couple of hours because of how much they got exposed. But I remember this one lady that came in and she was all bent over, crippled, excruciating back pain. She couldn't stand up straight. And so they need to be healed above my back. But she said, I give you permission. I want the Holy Spirit to use us. I confessed everything I can think of. But maybe there's something I'm not paying attention to. And about 20 minutes into the prayer, suddenly it came upon us. Ask her questions about her mother. And so we asked her questions. They said, Well, we haven't been getting along for 15 years. And well, what's the problem? She says, Well, I want to get along with her. And then suddenly it became clear to us as elders, she has not forgiven her mother for something she needs to forgive her mother for. And she said, I forgot all about it. Thought I'd taken care of everything. But suddenly it came to her mind. And so she says, Don't even pray for my back. I need to go to my mother. I know exactly what I need to do. So she came back to us a week later and said, My relationship with mother is healed. tears were coming down her eyes. Her mother said, I've been praying for years that you would recognize this and marvelous reconciliation. But the interesting thing was she walked into our prayer room standing straight and said, No pain. All that was gone. So now, I mean, as she continued to live, I mean, obviously, all of our backs begin to decay over time. It wasn't a permanent healing. I also remember people come into our prayer room there and saying, I want a perfect physical healing. I says, Well, that's your request. You're asking us that you'll die on the spot because that is the perfect physical healing says, No, I want an imperfect physical healing. But it's clear to make that point, no matter what physical healing you get, it will be an imperfect physical healing. But when God heals you spiritually, that's a perfect eternal thing. And that's the whole focus of the book of James. If any of you are sick, if any of you are ill, or any of you are inferred, God may be getting your attention to deal with something that's much more important. Now, something else that happened back in those days. I mean, credible things happen. Sometimes people have come to us and nothing got exposed. But God performed a miracle anyway. I remember one time was a daughter of one of the teachers, wasn't an elder, but one of the Sunday School teachers here. His daughter came in, she was 21 years of age. And says, I just got back from the doctor. I got a massive tumor in my brain. It's growing. And they tell me four or five months at best, and I'll be dead. And can you please pray that these four or five months will be times I can really make my life count. And so we prayed on that account. But we also prayed that the tumor would shrink. She came back a week later and said, not only did the tumor shrink, it's 100% gone. Just like that. And says the doctors are calling it a miracle. Because they said we saw the tumor on the x-rays, and now we see nothing. It's just not there. So but we made a mistake. We began to tell from the pulpit, what was happening during these closed or private prayer meetings, we always made sure the person was healed, gave his permission. We never do it unless we had permission. But what we noticed when we did that, the number of healings dropped. And so several of us got into a study on this going through the whole of the Bible about healings. And what you notice is so frequently in the Gospels, Jesus would physically heal somebody. And what would he say? Don't tell anybody. So he said, maybe we made a mistake. We shouldn't have been telling people. And why did Jesus say to people don't tell anybody? Anybody got a clue? Why did you do that? Well, you're raising a good point. Because it was a time when he fed, you know, 4,000 men plus other children and women. And what happened? They flocked after him. And he says, why are you flocking after me? You're flocking after me because you want me to do it again. He says, that's not why my father sent me. He didn't send me to give you fish and bread, to physically heal you. He sent me to redeem you from your sins. And says, so therefore, you're not going to see any miracles. I'm not going to do any. And that's the whole point is that if you quote glorify the physical miracles too much, people won't focus on what's really important. And I had a friend, he's a professor at a Biola University. And like me, he believes God performs these kind of miracles. He's trying to document them. And I told them, don't try to document. God doesn't want these things documented. And now he does want the spiritual breakthroughs documented. So this is go for that. But don't focus so much on the physical things, focus on the spiritual things. So we changed our policy, this church, when people came in for prayer, about healing, we would always get permission. But we would share from the pulpit was the spiritual healing, we wouldn't share the physical healing. And the numbers came back up. I mean, several of us were scientists in the Board of Elders. And that's how we appealed to the other elders is let's do an experiment and see what happens to the numbers. So the numbers spoke for themselves. Yes, because there's lots of does seem to have some value. It does. But again, balance it with the spiritual. So again, and you know, we would do that. There was a time in the history of this church where every Sunday, we featured a two minute testimony from the pulpit of somebody who came to Christ. And quite frequently, they would talk about a physical breakthrough. We always told them put the focus on the spiritual breakthrough. So I said, Yeah, you can talk about it. But always made sure that people were comfortable talking about it as well. So anyway, I said the numbers speak for themselves. And it seems consistent, which you see in the Gospel passages. But what I like about first Peter 315, that focus is all spiritual. And God wants those things documented. So I'm feeling quite free to document. And incidentally, I actually have some people in the book, writing the stories in their words. And so it's not just me recording them, I have them testify. Yes. There are slow miracles, too. Well, there are two stories in this book coming out. By the way, the book's title always be ready. Basically, saying if you're ready, God will use you. You're prepared, God will use you. But I tell the stories of each of my parents, how literally for over three decades, Kathy and I prayed that they would come to faith in Christ. And it happened to both of them when they were in their late 70s. So yeah, sometimes you got to be patient. But here's something I'll learn about my mother, because she was a little bit after my father, is that my mother had this very tight relationship with five nurses that she trained with in Montreal, and they just kept in touch, literally throughout all their life. And what I realized is, the reason why God was not answering my prayers for my mother to come to faith in Christ, is that he knew that if she came first, those five would not. So those five had to come first. And it was amazing because I came home, I mean, my parents lived in Vancouver, I was at Caltech at the time, and came home, and my mother said, This is really weird. My nursing friends want appointments with you. And I've no idea why they want these with you after all, I mean, they hardly know you so. And, you know, I remember the first one coming forward. And it was clear that she had a lot of spiritual questions. But my mother was always interrupting with her own philosophy. I mean, yeah, there is no God. And she just kept interrupting, interrupting. But my mother's nursing friends knew that my mother had this intestinal condition, which meant that she'd have to go up and spend quite a bit of time in our family bathroom. And so as soon as she left to go upstairs to the only place we had in the house, she this nurse lean for and says, We got five minutes. She rattled off her questions in quick order, answered them all, and says, You know, what do I need to do to become a Christian? So I led her to Christ. And she went on about baptism, but church you should get to because she was not a town got all that taken care of before my mother knew anything that happened at all. But after all that, my mother finally gave her life to Christ. And part of it was through her favorite brother, she had five brothers. And her favorite brother, who was living on Vancouver Island, had a shoulder problem. And kind of similar to your situation, a shoulder problem. One at the hospital, they said, Let's just need minor surgery. They did the minor surgery. He got an infection. And two weeks later, he was dead. And great health, very strong impacted my mother incredibly, because she was really attached to him. But the wife of this man was a Christian, and my uncle had just given his life to Christ. So they asked me to give the funeral message. And I remember my mother coming up to me afterwards and saying, When it's time for my funeral, I want that same message. And I want that him. I said, Well, mother, that only works if you're a follower of Jesus Christ. She says, I'm not there yet. But I'm getting there. So and it was about, you know, eight weeks, eight months later that she gave her life to Christ. And then she was totally infirmed. I mean, she had this nerve condition where she was lost control of her body. And she said, All of my life, I neglected to communicate to God. Now I can't do anything but communicate with God. I'm going to make up for lost time. So for the last four years of a life, she just dedicated her life to praying, and prayed for all kinds of people, all kinds of needs. And now while she was dying, she led the last of those five nursing friends to Christ. Right there in the hospital room and literally three days later, she was gone. But that was her last work that she did. And God's at work. He can do things. But thank you. I'm sure that's happened to a lot of you. And the thing I noticed as the son, sometimes parents have a hard time hearing it from their children. And so I began praying, God send people in their age bracket, their cultural bracket, who are Christians to share with them. And I didn't know anybody in Vancouver who fit that description. But they actually came to this class. And you know, you say how did they come to a class like this? Well, first of all, before they came to the class, and this is also in the book. I was invited to speak to a group out in Hollywood. And my parents happened to be visiting us at the time. They said, you're speaking in Hollywood? I said, yes. Who are you speaking to? Street people? I said, we got to go. We want to see if all these things we've heard about Hollywood are true. So they came to the event. And yeah, it was a bunch of street people in their late 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Very few of them were believers. And a fistfight broke out five minutes into my message. So they came in this long before people have body piercings. But almost everybody there did. One lady came in with half of her face painted black, the other half white. So all kinds of weird clothes and stuff. My parents went back to Vancouver and told all their friends, everything you heard about Hollywood, 100% of it is true. We got to see it with her own eyes. But after that, they said, you know, hey, we want to come to the paradoxes class, we want to see if it's just like Hollywood. And this is, it's not quite like Hollywood. But we did have a couple of Hollywood people coming. So they said that that's good enough we'll come. So but it was a couple in this church that reached out to them. And that couple always wanted to take a vacation in British Columbia. So about two years later, they did and they wanted to stay with my parents. And that had a huge impact on preparing them to finally give their life to Christ. And the husband of that couple has passed away. But the wife is still here, still a member of this class, I don't see her here today, but it's Jackie Stewart. Jackie and Cliff Stewart. And what was interesting, my parents were really into jewelry and lapidary, also are Cliff and Jackie. So and they weren't raised in a Christian home, so that also helped. And so I'm thankful for Cliff and Jackie doing that. So anyway, we're going to get into the text here. And I apologize for the lack of visuals, because I tried three different connectors, all three failed. So I'm hoping we can get an OHTMI work so hopefully we can work out, maybe get a projector here, it'll take HDMI. So but for those of you who are new to the class or haven't been here in a while, we're going through the book of Isaiah. And I meant to bring study questions with you, we're still on question number one. But we're looking at Isaiah and what Isaiah has got to say about creation and God's involvement in creation. And we assembled 29 passages out of the book of Isaiah say we we actually did it as a class. We read through the entire book of Isaiah assembled all the passages that pertain to God's activities in creating and designing the universe. So what I'm going to do is rapidly read through, because we're about halfway through these texts, I'm going to rapidly read through these, and I'll stop where we left off last week, and we'll go on from there. So it begins with Isaiah 6 3. Holy, holy, holy, as the Lord of hosts, his glory fills the whole earth. The Lord of hosts has sworn, as I have put purpose, so will be as I have planned it, so it will happen. The Lord of hosts himself has planned it. Therefore, who can stand in its way? It is his hand that is outstretched. So who can turn it back? The Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, that is the higher angels, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, you made the heavens and the earth. And little caveat there, there is no word in biblical Hebrew for universe. Wherever you see the phrase, the heavens and the earth, that means the totality of physical reality. That's the Hebrew way of talking about the universe. It's distinct from the phrase heaven and earth. Heaven and earth is used 19 times in the Old Testament. Heaven and earth refers to the universe, plus the spirit realm that God created. The heavens and the earth is just the physical universe. It's used nine times in the Old Testament. Isaiah 37 16 is one of those nine times you made the heavens and the earth. Okay, Isaiah 40 verse five, the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Have you ever sung the Messiah? This is one of the passages in the Messiah. Isaiah 40 verse 12, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with a span who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure. And we went through this. He said, even a speck of dust as purpose determined, created and measured by God. If every speck of dust as God's purpose and plan behind it, how much more so for every human being? Isaiah 40 22. This is the first passage that speaks about the expansion of the universe. This is unique to the Bible amongst the world's holy books. Matter of fact, no book outside of the Bible made the claims that we live in an expanding universe, except for the Bible. So it's one of the more powerful texts we can go to that the Bible's got predictive power. Thousands of years before astronomers discovered it, the Bible declares that the universe expands. God isn't thrown above the circle of the earth. Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth and spreads them out like a tent to live in. The phrase stretches out as the Hebrew verb Natah, which means expansion, expands the universe, spans it in such a way that we can live in it, spans it like thin cloth. And actually, as I mentioned, we went through this text, astronomers have established that all the galaxies and stars gas does energy is constrained to the three dimensional surface of the four dimensional universe. So the thin cloth of a tent, that's like the two dimensional surface of a three dimensional body. But the universe, it's a three dimensional surface of a four dimensional body. This is the passage we left off with last week. Look up and see who created these referring to the stars and galaxies that you can see. He brings up the starry hosts by number. He calls all of them by name, because of his great power and strength, not one of them is missing. Now when this was written, everybody could look up and see. Today, a lot of people look up and they don't really see anything, except a lot of haze and smog, and the bright lights. But the whole point is, we talked about this last week. If you haven't really seen the stars and the galaxies like Abraham has go somewhere where you can. And interestingly, as I mentioned last week too, this got published in the journal Science just a few months ago, less than half the world's population has ever seen the Milky Way with their eyes. And that's because so many of us live in big cities. I mean, go out tonight and take a look at the skies. You'll probably be doing well to be able to count 40 stars. Although hey, today is a special treat. You got Venus, you got Jupiter, Mars is that closest approach. Mars tonight is just as bright as Jupiter is. And I don't care how you're going to be able to see those objects. Jupiter, Venus, and Mars are all brighter than the brightest star in the sky tonight. And Saturn's also at maximum brightness. So take a look. Special night. Yes. Well, what's interesting, they're not so much aligned as they are all, they're all maximally bright. Venus isn't maximally bright. But Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn are exceptionally bright tonight. No, we're not all going to die. Well, that's one of the advantages of being as old as we are, Gary, is that I've been around long enough to think there's been a total of eight times where the planets have lined up. And every time they lined up, people say, this is a sign that the world's coming to an end. And I says, well, I don't think so, because this already happened seven times in my lifetime, the world hasn't come to an end yet. And people say, well, when the planets all line up, they all gravitationally tug. And I says, well, yes, but for example, you can add up all the gravitational tugs of the planets on me. It's overwhelmed by the gravitational tug of Gary on me. So or the rest of you on me. So those planets are far away. And yes, they're very massive. But because of how far away they are, the gravitational tug doesn't make much difference. Or what you hear in astrology, and by the way, you can get a paper from us astrology science or what, it's definitely not science. And the Bible warns us to avoid astrology. But what the astrologers tell you is the positions of the planets at the time your baby is born, determines the personality of that baby for the rest of his life. And therefore they tell you all about the alignments of the planets, and how the gravity of those planets basically determines the personality of the child, the future outcome of the child. But once again, the position of the father in the birthing room, and the obstetrician in the birthing room has a far bigger influence than all the planets combined. So watch where the father is in the obstetrician is so but I don't think they affect the personality of the child either. But I will say this, having been a father and this is father's day. I was the first to hold both of my sons. Then I let my wife hold them, but I got to hold them first. And just looking at the newborn baby, I could tell the personality of each of our sons with literacy within the few first few seconds they were born. And it held true. I mean, that to me is one of the special gifts of being the dad. You get the first to see that. So the obstetrician gets to see it too. But just holding that baby for a while and seeing the way the baby interacts with you, I could tell my older boy was going to be the more contemplative philosophical type. And the younger one was going to be the kinetic social type. I mean, that all was evident right there at birth. Although my wife says I knew that before they came out. Just emotions going on. All right. So okay, look up and see who created these, who brings up the star he hosts by number. He calls all of them by name because of his great power and strength. Now one of them is missing. And you know, we mentioned that Psalm 147 also makes a claim that God has a name for every single star that exists in the universe. And we astronomers have counted up those stars are roughly 50 billion trillion. That means there's over 7 trillion stars for every human being that exists on planet Earth today. Yet he knows the name of every single star. Not one of them is missing. So he knows each one is he cares for each one. Each one is something he pays attention to. And keep in mind, a star is nothing but a huge ball of hydrogen and helium gas. So if he cares that much for hydrogen and helium, again, how much more must he care for you. But as astronomers can also share with you, which is not one of them is missing, every one of them is necessary. Every star that's out there has a role in making possible the redemption of billions of human beings. Not only is none of them missing, every one of them needs to be there. It's such that if you were to remove one star from the universe, it wouldn't make any difference today. But if you were to take that much mass away from the universe when the universe is very young, none of us would be here today. Everyone must be in place. Okay, that's where he left off last week. Let's get to something new. Isaiah 40, verse 28. Do you not know? Have you not heard? God Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole Earth. He never grows faint or weary. There is no limit to his understanding. Okay, again, what do you think this is saying about God as a Creator of the universe? And keep in mind, he's been doing this for 13.8 billion years. So I mean, if you were to work nonstop for 13.8 billion years, I think you would get weary, you begin to lack an understanding what's going on, you would grow faint. This is not true of our Creator God. There's a hand up over here. Yes, Gloria, right. You took the deistic point of view where God winds up the universe in the sleep. One of the things, one of the prophecies talks about that in the last days of knowledge will, you know, go way off the chart, you know, exponentially. Well, just in the last 30 years. Well, Gloria, thank you for remembering the homework assignment it gave to all of you last week. That assignment was based on this text. How can we take someone from a deistic view of God to a theistic view? And I love the way you defined it. Deism, God creates the universe. And boy, it's a really big universe and really complicated and hard to make. And naturally, we would think, if God had created this universe as vast and complex as it is, he surely is tired and needs a nap. And people have actually quoted Genesis one for six days God creates on the seventh day he rests. He's tired from all the work he did. And man, look at all that he did. Surely he needs to rest. But that's not what this text is saying. And so literally, he knows and controls every aspect of creation. Got a hand here and a hand here. Go ahead. Sure. Well, that's what this text is saying. It says, you get weary, you need to rest, you need to recover. God doesn't need any recovery time. Okay, that raised an interesting question though. Why God's rest? If he's not tired, if he doesn't need time to recover, why did he stop creating and quote rest? Okay, you had your hand up. Go ahead. Okay, good insight there. Ross. And yet we got Jesus saying on the Sabbath, my father and I are still at work. So can you take that one step farther? Okay, because yeah, we are to take regular time away from our employment. But what do we to do on our rest day? Because after all he said, you still feed your children and your animals in your rest day. Okay, do you think God's doing the same thing? Yeah. You know, for six days he creates, why did he create? He created to make possible the redemption of billions of human beings from their evil, and to actually permanently eliminate and eradicate evil while enhancing our free will. So he's actually working harder on day seven than he is the first six days. Because those first six days were all about getting ready for his work on the seventh day. And like the way you put it, we have six days in which we engage in our normal employment. The seventh day, we focus on the most important issues of life. After all, we're all going to be here temporarily. We have a future life ahead of us. We're all going to live forever whether we like it or not. I'd probably be a good idea if we like it rather than dislike it. And that's what the seventh day is all about. Make sure that you spend enough time contemplating about the spiritual work God wants to work within you so that when you get to the next life, you're really going to like it. Yeah, go ahead. Well, that's kind of, I'm glad you brought that up, it's kind of the theme I'm bringing up in the introduction to this book, Always Be Ready. As the rest of my books, I'm documenting God's physical creation miracles. All that was for the purpose of opening the door for spiritual miracles. That's what's God doing on the seventh day. That's what he wants us to focus on. I love the way you nailed it. God's doing this while enhancing our free will. That's the great paradox. He's eliminating sin and evil while at the same time enhancing our free will. And that took an incredible creation to make that door possible. Travis, redeeming us, right? We are at the same time, of course, focusing on what God's working out with us in the spirit realm. Yeah, John, yes, very good analogy. Musicians will stop at a particular point in the score, not because they need a breather. That period of the silence that they have has a specific purpose in enhancing the message of music. And so, you know, I was part of an orchestra once, believe it or not, but I played the triangle. Well, I could read music so I could figure out how long I needed to wait before I dinged that thing, which might be only once in the course of half an hour. But that was my job is to basically figure out how much I need to do the ceasing part before I did that part. So now the rest of my family could actually play really complicated musical instruments, but that was the level of my talent was the triangle. So yes, what's a good analogy? Because guess what? That rest in court ends with the judgment sentence. And likewise, with the final judgment comes the end of God's rest. And the new creation begins. So and all of us have to face judgment. And I love the series that Josh has been doing on judgment is that believers will get judged too. When we get judge, it's an award ceremony. Yeah, he hands out different rewards. But we do get different rewards. And so it's important we prepare well for awards day, so that we finish well. There was a hand over here. Yes, faint. There's no limit to his understanding. Hey, works right when you got a new battery in this thing. All right. Sorry, I didn't notice it wasn't working. My apologies. So our ways are never hidden from God. He hears everything you say. He sees everything you do. He even knows everything you're thinking. You know, a lot of us think our thoughts. Well, that's something that's just private to me personally. God knows everything you're thinking, everything you're feeling. And then we've talked about this in the past because we spent, I think about a week going through First Chronicles 28, 9. We got King David exhorting his son Solomon and warning his son when you become King, God will know everything you're thinking. You'll know every single thought. Don't try to hide it from God. He knows. And I think that's the wonderful thing about King David. He was called a man after God's heart because David never hid from God. He knew and understood that God sees everything, understands everything. So hey, notice how often King David was emotionally distraught about what was going on in his life. He dumped it all on God. You see that in a lot of the Psalms he wrote. He just lets it out. You say, how can anyone show so much anger and disgust and angst? It's like, hey, God already knows all that's in your heart. You might as well be up front about it. Don't try to hide it from him. He knows already. He knows everything you're thinking. And so he's never too weary, never too busy to know and understand everything you're thinking. And every he never sleeps. Moreover, every thought you think is valuable to him. After all, he created you, gave you your mind, gave you your brain. And so, hey, you may be having a thought that you're very ashamed of. God sees everything going on in your thinking, your thought life. And he sees it as something valuable. That's part of his creation. And yes, it may be something that displeases him. He wants it corrected. He wants it healed. But it can't be healed or corrected. If you don't acknowledge, God knows, understands every thought I'm thinking. And so, yeah, if you're embarrassed by what you're thinking, that's something that you realize God already knows. And that's something God wants to deal with and heal. And hey, there's a lot of thoughts up there, right? How many things that you're thinking need to be corrected and healed? Probably as many stars as there are in the universe. But if he knows every single star in the universe has a name for every one of them, a purpose for every one of them, every one of them plays a role in making possibly a redemption. Don't you think that's also true every thought that's going on in your head? And hey, when you get overwhelmed by the dark stuff that's in your mind, recognize the pathway to the light is through the darkness. That's basically the gospel message. You can't receive the light until you acknowledge the dark stuff. So God's going to take you through that dark stuff. Yes. I gave a kick out of the Las Vegas look and what happens here stays here. Yeah, right. Yeah. God knows everything that's going on in Las Vegas, every single thing. That's not going to stay there. There's a judgment day coming. Yes. Yeah. And that's why I've been emphasizing that the Sabbath, the day we take the set aside, it needs to be regular. You mean some people feel a lot of guilt or the fact you know what I had to work on Sunday. Well, pick another time. The scripture passage says take regular time to focus on the most important issues of life. And yeah, we can get legal listings that got to be in church. I mean, I remember running into a gal who was raised in a Roman Catholic home and she felt that she didn't take communion that, you know, she was violating the Sabbath. This is what communion is important. But if you miss it, and she was taking it five days a week and felt that every day, if she missed one of those five days, she was in trouble. It's like, no, the principle is take regular periodic time to focus on the most important issues of life. And yes, you need to be fellowshiping with fellow believers. But how that happens, basically, we have a lot of flexibility that, you know, we were talking before class. Nancy and I were talking about how it is with young Christians, they don't like to come to church, but they'll go to a Starbucks for a four hour theology night. I mean, they're actually engaged in studying the message of Scripture to a far greater degree than people who go to church every Sunday. There's different ways to define the church. Hebrews 1025 says, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. But notice it doesn't tell you how to assemble together. And that's part of my personal story too, because I came to Christ in Canada with no Christians. And I tried to find Christians in churches that wasn't very successful, because they didn't know how to find a good church. And in Canada, good churches are a lot harder to find than they are here. But when I came to Caltech, I ran into Christians for the first time, and they showed me how to find a good church. In fact, they shocked me by saying, here's a list of six outstanding churches in the Pasadena area alone. So there's that many just in Pasadena. Couldn't believe it. I checked out those six and realized what he said was true. They said, these are all places where it's filled with people who believe that the Bible is the Word of God, because the churches I tried in Canada, nobody believed the Bible was the Word of God. The pastor didn't believe the Bible was the Word of God. It was just a kind of a big social club. Although I did find some churches where they were passionate about God's Word. It was a cult. I learned a lot about cults just trying to find a good church. But it's different here in America. And there's different ways that we can fellowship with one another. Okay, notice that Isaiah 4026 was on our list. Isaiah 4028 was on our list. But I had Gary here read Isaiah 4027, because it really links those two passages together, that it's so easy for us humans to think. God's controlling most of the universe. He's controlling most of what's going on in our human affairs. But hey, given the vassals of the universe, and the fact that there's seven and a half billion of us thinking things all the time, there's no way that God could be paying attention to the thoughts of seven. I mean, how many thoughts do you have in one day? Okay, at least a million, right? Okay, and you've got seven billion people thinking like that. God's actually paying attention to every single one. He's paying attention to every one of us at the same time. He is. He's God after all. I mean, hey, if he's paying attention to 50 billion trillion stars continually, do you think he's paying attention to all of our thoughts? Nothing is hidden from the Lord. There's no limit to his understanding. He never grows faint or weary. He's always paying attention. Okay, Isaiah 41 verse four. Who has performed and done this? And this is referring to the universe calling the generations from the beginning, referring to the history. I, Yahweh, am the first and the last. I am He. Okay, anyone want to unpack that? Because Isaiah frequently talks about God being the first and the last. What is that reference to the first? And you'll see this in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation. What is this reference to? Why do we have New Testament authors citing this text? I am the first and I am the last. I am He. What is this saying about the Creator and his relationship to the universe? Yes. Yeah, this phrase actually means I am the God for whom there is no first and there is no last. It's basically saying I'm the eternal one. I'm not so all of you are created. God is the only entity that's not created. Everything else is created. Everything else is God of first. Everything else is God of last. He doesn't. I am the one without a first without a last. That's really basically what that passage is saying. And basically using control of everything that's happened in the history of the universe. All the generations of humanity, all the generations of the universe, he's called the beginning of each one. Yes. This is a question. I realized that I have a first. Okay. As a human being, you will live for the rest of eternity. But you do have a last in this sense. There is a moment when you can do no more to impact your future career or your rewards at the day of judgment. You know, Hebrews 927. Everyone will face judgment. Once we die, then comes a judgment. So that's the completion date. And Paul makes that reference. We're running a race and we're all going to cross the finish line. And when you cross the finish line, the race is over. However, I like the analogy. The race is over, but you're not over. You're still there. So yeah, we have a beginning, but we don't have an ending. But there is a finality to what happens in this life. And we need to live this life in order to maximally benefit in the life to come. But something else about this passage talks about calling the generations from the beginning, basically making the point. God's in control of the timing of everything that happens. So with reference to the stars, for example, he knows what time to bring every star into existence and when to bring it out of existence. And again, as an astronomer, I can tell you, the timing of the appearance of each star, the burning of each star and the end of each star plays a role in making possible the existence of billions of us here on planet earth with the technology that we can hear the gospel and respond to that gospel message. So the timing of everything happens in creation. Same thing with the species of life. I mean, that was kind of a theme of the book and probable planet, that the appearance of every new species of life is perfectly time to prepare for the redemption of billions of human beings. Now we can extend that one step farther. Okay, the day of your birth, as it says in the Psalms, King David understood this, the day of the birth has been planned and purposed by God. He picked the perfect time and place for you to be born. And, you know, when you have a birthday, everybody celebrates birthdays, right? Okay, I think you need to do in a birthday is actually meditate. What was so special about the time and the location in which it was born? How did that play out in my development? You know, if I was born in a different place, my life would be different. I was born in a different time, my life would be different. Have you actually meditated how carefully God chose the exact time and the exact place? I think a lot of people live their lives saying, you know, I wish I was born a little bit later where I have all this amazing technology. I was born at a time, well, like personally, I was born in a poor neighborhood. So there was no refrigerator in our house. There was no TV in our house. I knew of a TV down the street two blocks away. And they got one. So it's like, gee, it'd be wonderful to be born later where there's more wealth and technology, but God actually picks the precise date. I also think it's a good idea. Think about your parents and your grandparents. How was the date of their birth special? And how did it impact your life? You want to say something? Yeah. Well, I was just wanting to put in a comment that for those of us who have buried the physical remains of our children early, that's also very, very comforting. Not only the moment of start, but the moment of transition. The moment of transition. Well, you know, as a minister here, I get to do a lot of funerals. And when I do funerals, I always hand out a sheet of scripture passages titled God's Mercy and Death. And when I've done in that sheet, it's basically assemble all the passages. Why does God have a righteous person die in their youth or their childhood? How is that a sign of his perfect timing? And what about somebody who really is wanting to graduate? And God says, you can't graduate. You got to stick around another 10 or 15 years. And, you know, why does God do that? Why does God make people live into their late 90s when they're ready to go in their 80s? Why does he do that? And what about people who are not righteous? Why does God stuff out the life of someone who's leading an evil life and doesn't give them a chance to repent, we think? Or why does God allow, and this question then comes up the most, why does God allow a wicked person to live so long and be so financially blessed during all those decades? Why does God do that? Well, what I've done in this sheet of paper, I just had the scripture passages, no commentary, but I got them all grouped together. Here are 15 passages in situation A, B, C. So there's about 60 passages on it, just read them, see what God's got to say. And I find that that's especially comforting for people who are not yet believers. They read those texts and they say, now I understand. So thank you for bringing it up. The timing of our death is also fine-tuned. And as it says in Psalm 139, God had a date on the calendar when you would be born. He's also got a date when you're going to die. And there's nothing you can do about it, about that date. He's got that fixed on his calendar. On the other hand, that's not an excuse to eat bad food all day long or not exercise. God's going to hold us responsible to make sure we get to the point where he's got that date on the calendar. As one doctor told me, you know, I really don't want God saying to me, why are you here so early? I gave you a really healthy body and look what you did to it. Kind of like what a father says when he lets his son drive a car and it comes back all wrecked up. I mean, I gave you this nice car. Okay? Now go ahead. Right? So that's a good, I mean that's part of what's one of the texts, by the way, of that scripture list is, you know, Hezekiah, righteous man before God. And God tums him and says you're 39 years of age. Get your household and water because you're going to be graduating. And Hezekiah says, I'm not really wanting to graduate quite this early. And you know, I've served you all my life. Can't you give me more years? And what you see in that text in Isaiah is that Hezekiah pled with God with tears and begged them day after day. I want more time to serve you. I want more time to be a healing factor in this nation of Israel. And God says, this is not my will, but I'll give you what you demand. I'll give you 15 more years. And you're right. During those 15 years, you had another son. And that son caused 60 years of misery for the nation of Israel. But that guy, Manasseh, did come to back to Israel. That's even more spectacular. Well, that's it. And I mean, God basically gave Hezekiah those 15 extra years he begged for. It was a disaster for the nation of Israel. But that young man that was born and reigned for 60 years, at the end of his life, he repented and said, yeah, I was profligate. I did things that were against your will, Lord. But I repent. He repented. The nation didn't. No human being could make this up. Yeah. Yeah, no human being could make up that story. You said, though, that God doesn't do all about it. Yeah. I think God was in control of the thing. So he kind of knew ahead of time exactly what Hezekiah was going to do. And it all worked out. Yeah, but as I read that text and said, you know, if I'm 39, because I was reading that text when I was just a bit past 39, and I said, okay, what have God told me? Okay, I'm going to give you more time. But he actually told Hezekiah exactly how much time. And can you imagine Hezekiah being 53 and a half and saying, okay, it's going to end? And he noticed he didn't beg God at age 54. He basically okay. He learned his lesson. He saw what happened as a result of having that extra time. And I think also, you got Hezekiah repenting, I should have listened to the Lord and I should have been willing to go when I was 39. Instead, I lived these 15 extra years. But now that I'm over 54, it's like 54 seems really young to have to cross that threshold. So, and I think Hezekiah had the issue. He knew exactly when his time would pass. God told him at a time, 54, it's all over guy. So, and there's something about not knowing that I think has its benefits, but also knowing it's on God's calendar. He's got it figured out. Yes. God loves us all. I've seen a long time ago where I was even much of anything. People how they die young, they seem to get their lives packed with the events that they need to have and their skills. Mozart, for example, at the 39, look what he produced. There's many, many. Yeah. Time is really relative. Well, I think another example is James Clark Maxwell died just a little bit after his 47th birthday. And, you know, not only it was his problem, some people say he was the greatest physicist who ever lived. But he was also one of the greatest Christian leaders who ever lived. One of the top leaders in the Presbyterian Church and a man of great wisdom. And he put Lord first in everything in his life. But when he was just had his 47th birthday, he was on the verge of launching general relativity and quantum mechanics. It's like people said if he had lived just another decade, our science would be 30 years ahead of where it is today. But maybe God had a reason for not our science being 30 years ahead. Nuclear bombs? Yeah. So, I mean, what would have happened if Adolf Hitler had nuclear weapons, for example? So, yeah. So, God's inconsistent with you. So, yeah. So, God's in control. He knows exactly. So, anyway, I just want to encourage you, this is Father's Day. Think about your dad. What was so special about the day of his birth, the location of his birth? And to think about your own self. What's so special about your birth date? Yes. Well, there's a famous physicist, not a believer, who wrote in a book that when you study the universe, you cannot avoid the conclusion that somehow the universe knew we were coming. And that's kind of a non-Christian's way of saying that, hey, every step of the way, the events in the universe over these 13.8 billion years, they're all necessary for us to be able to come upon the cosmic scene. Yeah. The universe knew we were coming. The creator of the universe knew we were coming. And, yeah, everything he was doing for those 13.8 billion years was preparing for a redemption, which I think leads us to a conclusion. Our redemption must be really valuable in the eyes of the creator, for him to actually devote all those resources. I mean, think of how much he invested. 50 billion trillion stars, where that's only 0.27% of all the stuff of the universe for 13.8 billion years, where every speck of dust is being explicitly fine-tuned and controlled by him throughout all that time. What does it say about the value of human beings and our redemption in a sight? But you're raising another good point. God created time. And so he's not subject to time. He can actually simultaneously live at every moment in our time. So 13.8 billion years ago, for God is like this present moment. And same thing with your life. He can operate from a single instant of time on every event in the history of your life. If you don't believe it, we've got diagrams and beyond the cosmos. It shows you how God can do that. I've got one minute left. Okay. Okay, with that, I'll give you an introduction to Isaiah 42-25 and see if I can come up with a homework assignment. All right. This is what God the Lord says. He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it. Okay. This is the second time in the text where you see a reference to the expansion of the universe. But it's a different verb for stretching out than spreading out the earth. A lot of people think it's just the same verb being repeated, but it's different. And the context is different. So what is this saying about the universe? What is this saying about the earth? And I think the key here, it's the earth and what comes from it. And you'll actually see in Isaiah 45-18 that God created the earth to be filled with His creation, with His life. And so this is kind of the first reference in our passages that talks about why God created the universe, why He made the earth the way it is, and what He intends to do with the earth. It says, what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it. So basically making the point, God created the universe, designed the universe, and the earth to make possible physical, spiritual beings. Meditate about that, and I want you to come back with loads of insights about how the physical creation actually is a key to the spiritual creation. With that, let me pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for this time that we've had here in this book of Isaiah. Thank you, Lord, that you created Isaiah when you did. You said in the first chapter that you created Him for this very purpose of giving us this amazing revelation and that you created Him exactly the right time under the tutelage of four different kings of Israel. And, Lord, how you communicate through Isaiah to each of those four generations. And, Lord, through them to our generation, to all generations. So, Father, I pray you give us great insights as we study the words of this amazing servant of yours and help us in the process, Lord, to emulate what we see in the character of Isaiah, especially in this day and age when there's so much opposition to your word and to your message of how we should live our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Happy Father's Day.