ĐỨC CHÚA TRỜI TỰ HỮU 1

Kinh thánh: Xuất Ê-díp-tô ký 3: 1-14

Câu gốc: XUẤT Ê-DÍP-TÔ KÝ 3: 14 – Đức Chúa Trời phán rằng: Ta là ĐẤNG TỰ HỮU HẰNG HỮU; rồi Ngài lại rằng: Hãy nói cho dân Y-sơ-ra-ên như vầy: ĐẤNG TỰ HỮU đã sai ta đến cùng các ngươi.

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GOD IS SELF-EXISTENT 1

Bible: Exodus 3: 1-14

Main verse: God said to Moses: I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you.

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– From the ancient time until now many people often asked this same question again and again: Who is God? How was He created? By asking that question they showed their lack of understanding of God, because they thought of Him in the way of human’s thinking.

– We must understand that if God was created by some higher spirit, He was not God at all. And that higher spirit should be God instead.

– Therefore God has told us via the Bible that He is the self-existent God, Who came into being by Himself. That’s the main understanding of the Bible, or in other words, the main foundation of the Bible.

– The Bible is the Word of God, and via the Bible, God has told the world that He was there before everything. That means there was completely nothing before Him:

ISAIAH 43: 10 – You are My witnesses, declares the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, nor will there be one after Me.

Ê-SAI 43: 10 – Đức Giê-hô-va phán: Các ngươi là kẻ làm chứng ta, và là đầy tớ ta đã chọn, hầu cho các ngươi được biết và tin ta, và hiểu rằng ta là Chúa! Chẳng có Đức Chúa Trời nào tạo thành trước ta, và cũng chẳng có sau ta nữa.

– We have to use our imagination to picture God surrounded by a vast emptiness without anything. For many people it’s so hard that they rather believe in myth created by human’s mind than in God.

PSALM 90: 2 – Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.

THI THIÊN 90: 2 – Trước khi núi non chưa sanh ra, đất và thế gian chưa dựng nên, từ trước vô cùng cho đến đời đời Chúa là Đức Chúa Trời.

– Many people cannot understand how God came into existence without being created by someone else. That is the main reason that makes people refuse the belief in God.

– Almost all other religions have some ways, even obscure and ridiculous, to explain the origin of their gods, but the Bible has a very realistic way to tell us about God. That’s one of differences between Christianity and other religions and that’s what I am going to explain to you today.

– The science community usually criticize Christianity of the belief in the God that self-existed. They argued that no one can come into existence by that way. But that’s one of many contradictions in their thinking and argument.

– Because until now scientists cannot explain how the first living cell came into existence. Their evolution theory only explain things that were or are already there, but they cannot come up with any proper explanation of the first living cell.

– They discovered life forms in fossilized microorganisms, that means living cells in the dirt of the Earth but they cannot say specifically how they came into existence.

– According to the science community, they have three main schools of thought of how the first living cell came into existence on Earth. The first group argued that the first living cell was naturally created in the bubble of clay in a pool of water or from a deep sea vent. The second group supposed the first living cell was created by lightning striking on some natural element in specific environment (for example, a reducing atmosphere). The third one thought the first living cell came into the Earth by meteorites from outer space.

– In other words, all of scientists believe that the first living cell came into existence by itself under some suitable conditions that they are not sure about.

– As we can see, one of the scientist’s contradiction is they don’t believe God is self-existed but they all believe the first living cell came into existence by itself and have the ability to evolve.

– To help you to understand the belief of scientists who don’t believe in God, I’d like to give you this example: There was a housewife who used flour as a main ingredient to make many kinds of food like Chinese buns, noodle, cup cakes and bread. After making them in her kitchen, she sent some to her neighbors out of her friendliness and hospitality. But when they ate her food, they said something like this: these kind of food were made by flour, so they concluded that flour was self-existent and after some times it evolved into many kinds of food. They recognized the main ingredient that made up of their food, but they refused to acknowledge the work of the housewife.

– In the same way, science community has recognized the living cells in human body but they refuse to acknowledge God’s creation although the Bible tells us that God used the dirt of the Earth to create all living things including humans.

GENESIS 2: 7 – Then the Lord God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

SÁNG THẾ KÝ 2: 7 – Giê-hô-va Đức Chúa Trời bèn lấy bụi đất nắn nên hình người, hà sanh khí vào lỗ mũi; thì người trở nên một loài sanh linh.

GENESIS 2: 19 – Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

SÁNG THẾ KÝ 2: 19 – Giê-hô-va Đức Chúa Trời lấy đất nắn nên các loài thú đồng, các loài chim trời, rồi dẫn đến trước mặt A-đam đặng thử xem người đặt tên chúng nó làm sao, hầu cho tên nào A-đam đặt cho mỗi vật sống, đều thành tên riêng cho chúng.

– Unbelievers usually have this kind of contradiction, like most of Vietnamese people. They worship kings of Hung’s dynasty as ancient ancestors but they never thought about those kings’ parents and distance ancestors, as if Hung’s kings were self-existed without parents and at the same refusing the belief in the God Who is self-existed.

– But if they tried to follow the ancestor’s tree to its original, they would discover that God is Most First Ancestor of all people on Earth including Vietnamese because He is the Creator, Who created humans from the beginning.

– Although we cannot see God while we are still in this human form with flesh and blood, we believe God is self-existed because the Bible says so.

– The whole Bible is the truth that has been proving itself throughout human history and in this present time, science also proves that the Bible is truth. That is one of many reasons that make us to study the Bible much more carefully, with themes like The Authority of The Bible, and The Truth of The Bible.

– Those themes, when being studied thoroughly, will help us to trust the Bible and from there can nurture our faith in Christ becoming more mature and grow up stronger in the belief in God.

– Another reason that makes us believing that God is self-existed is we know that the universe cannot came into existence by itself.

– Until now, even with the advance of science, scientists cannot measure the universe because they don’t know where it started and where it ends. With trillions of planets and uncountable elements, the universe cannot came into existence by itself, like a car with thousands of components cannot be self-existed.

– As a car must be built by engineer(s), the universe must be built by God Who is A Supreme Being, a Powerful One that bigger than the Universe, because the Bible has said so:

NEHEMIAH 9: 6 – You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.

NÊ-HÊ-MI 9: 6 – Ôi! Chỉ một mình Chúa là Đức Giê-hô-va có một không hai; Chúa đã dựng nên các từng trời, và trời của các từng trời, cùng toàn cơ binh của nó, trái đất và các vật ở trên nó, biển và muôn vật ở dưới nó; Chúa bảo tồn những vật ấy, và cơ binh của các từng trời đều thờ lạy Chúa.

ISAIAH 66: 1-2 – This is what the Lord says: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being? declares the Lord.

Ê-SAI 66: 1-2 – Đức Giê-hô-va phán như vầy: Trời là ngai ta, đất là bệ chân ta. Các ngươi sẽ xây nhà thể nào cho ta? Các ngươi sẽ lấy nơi nào làm chỗ nghỉ ngơi cho ta? Đức Giê-hô-va phán: Mọi sự nầy đều bởi tay ta làm ra, và có như vậy.

– That’s why true Christians never picture God in any form because nothing can describe or compare with His vastness and immensity, as the Bible has mentioned:

ACTS 17: 24 – The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.

CÔNG VỤ 17: 24 – Đức Chúa Trời đã dựng nên thế giới và mọi vật trong đó, là Chúa của trời đất, chẳng ngự tại đền thờ bởi tay người ta dựng nên đâu.

– If comparing to other religions we can see that none of their deities claimed that they created the world or the universe. Only God of the Bible declared that such in His book:

ISAIAH 45: 18 – For this is what the Lord says: He who created the heavens, He is God; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited, He says: I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Ê-SAI 45: 18 – Vì Đức Giê-hô-va, là Đấng đã dựng nên các từng trời, tức là Đức Chúa Trời đã tạo thành đất và làm ra nó, đã lập nó cho bền vững, chẳng phải dựng nên là trống không, bèn đã làm nên để dân ở, phán như vầy: Ta là Đức Giê-hô-va, không có Đấng nào khác!

– God Who created the universe is the Powerful, Mighty God and He cannot be created by someone else. That’s why we Christians believe that He is the self-existent God.

– May God bless us much more and open our eyes to see the truth in the Bible about Him so that we can confidently follow Him to the end of this life and can be able to see Him in His glorious kingdom. Amen.