Sermon: And God Created Colors

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10302016andgodcreatedcolorsdonruhl

And God Created Colors

Don Ruhl • Savage Street, Grants Pass, Oregon • October 30, In the year of our Lord, 2016

Song Leader and Song Suggestions: Kevin Michael – Songs on God and creation

Prelude:

Proverbs 20.12

12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye,
The Lord has made them both.
(Pro 20.12)
1. And what does the eye see?
2. It sees color…a lot of color!
The color we see helps us to affirm these statements of Solomon,

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time (Ecc 3.11).

17 …then I saw all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. For though a man labors to discover it, yet he will not find it; moreover, though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it (Ecc 8.17).
1. How many photos could I show you of all the color God created?
2. How many colorful things did He create?
  1. He may know the number, but
  2. we can only speculate with wild numbers.
Do you find this declaration to be true in your life concerning color?

8 The eye is not satisfied with seeing…
(Ecc 1.8)
1. Can you see too many blue skies?
2. Can you see too many fields of wildflowers?
3. Can you see too many rainbows?
4. Can you see too many green plants?
5. Can you see too many NASA photos of the heavens?
6. Can you see too many beautiful people?
7. Can you see too much color?

Persuasion:

God Created Colors
1. Color is a creation!
  1. How could the Big Bang cause the beauty of color?
  2. Color does not happen by accident, but
    1. Someone put it all together.
    2. He put colors together in the most beautiful way.
      1. If you do not believe this,
      2. try creating color.
        
        Or just throw some things together and
        
        see what happens,
        
        what kind of color you get.
        
        It will be a mass of gray or dark gray or black.
2. To demonstrate that we live in a created world,
  1. as seen in the colors that fill our world,
  2. when was the last time you were in nature, and
    1. you looked at it and concluded
    2. “Those colors do not match”?
      1. Colors in nature always match, because
      2. the Creator is the ultimate interior and exterior Designer.
        
        He is the Artist of all artists.
        
        He knows how to make color and how to use it.
        
        Therefore, I have never heard anyone say when looking at any natural setting,
        
        that the colors do not match, they do not go together!
God Created Our Ability to See Colors
1. What good would all this color be,
  1. if we could not see it and
  2. appreciate it?
2. What good would all this color be,
  1. if we could not see it and
  2. if we could not discern
    1. danger some colors represent and
    2. good things some colors represent?
3. What good would it be,
  1. if we could see color, but
  2. the variety of color did not exist?
4. Truly, as Solomon affirmed,
  
  12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye,
  The LORD has made them both.
  (Pro 20.12)
5. God obviously likes color, and
  1. He wanted us to live in a very colorful world.
  2. The beauty of Earth we see today,
    1. cannot compete with the beauty of Earth before the Flood.
    2. We know that He once destroyed the entire planet with a flood.
      1. Earth has recovered well, but
      2. we have learned that forests existed
        
        where they do not exist now.
        
        For example,
        
        the Petrified Forest of Arizona,
        
        there is petrified wood in Eastern Oregon,
        
        the Sahara shows evidence of forests, and
        
        the Antarctica shows evidence of forests.
        
        The Earth has a plethora of color now,
        
        what did it have before?
6. When we look into the night sky,
  1. especially with the help of special telescopes and special cameras,
  2. we see amazing beauty and color.
  3. We agree with David,
    
    1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
    And the firmament shows His handiwork.
    2 Day unto day utters speech,
    And night unto night reveals knowledge.
    (Psa 19.1–2)
    1. The creation of color in the heavens and
    2. the creation of our eyes and brains
      1. that make out what God made,
      2. shows the glory of God.
  4. When we look at our colorless moon,
    1. the single-color planets and
    2. even the multi-colored planets,
      1. we can see quickly
      2. that they do not compare with the Earth
        
        in the variety of color and
        
        the richness of color on the Earth.
        
        Pictures of the other planets compared to Earth
        
        make them look like death.
        
        The colors of Earth show life!
        
        Look at the comparisons between Earth and Mars.
        
        Many scientists are actually beginning to believe
        
        that life came here from Mars!
        
        Color alone refutes that idea!
7. How many colors did God create?
  1. I can understand the variety of colors when talking about computers.
    1. At first computers were monochrome,
      1. they had a dark background with white or green letters.
      2. That sounds incredibly boring now.
    2. Then a certain computer came along, and
      1. I had one of them,
      2. that provided the user with…256 colors!
        
        How could there possibly be more than 256 colors?
        
        Then I thought about buying paint.
        
        I know that technically black and white are not colors, but
        
        work with me on this.
        
        Anyway, have you tried buying white paint or any color?
        
        They will want to know what tint of white you want.
        
        They will want to know what kind of green you desire.
        
        There is
        
        Creamy white,
        
        Cool white,
        
        Soft white,
        
        Antique white,
        
        Ivory white,
        
        Gray white,
        
        Warm white, and
        
        do I have to keep going on
        
        for you to see my point?
    3. So, yes, Don, there could easily be 256 colors.
      1. Then as the brand of computer I use continued to improve
      2. they came out with displays that showed thousands of colors,
        
        then millions of colors!
        
        If that claim be true.
Why Did God Create Colors and Our Ability to See Them?
1. He wants us to see beauty.
  1. God is an artist.
  2. Artists want others to see their work.
    1. He wants us to enjoy His work.
    2. By enjoying His work we enjoy Him.
2. He wants us to see variety, and variety that is practical.
  1. That variety helps us to know what to eat and what not to eat.
  2. The variety of color just helps to make life more interesting.
3. Just think of what the priests wore in the tabernacle and temple.
  1. Exodus 28 speaks of the holy garments that they wore,
    
    28 And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty (Exo 28.2).
  2. Note that what the priests wore
    1. was not only for their work of sacrificing, and so on, but
    2. also just for glory and for beauty.
  3. The rest of the chapter shows that included color
    
    6 …they shall make the ephod of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, artistically worked (Exo 28.6).
    
    15 “You shall make the breastplate of judgment. Artistically woven according to the workmanship of the ephod you shall make it: of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, you shall make it” (Exo 28.15).
    
    17 And you shall put settings of stones in it, four rows of stones: The first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and an emerald; this shall be the first row; 18 the second row shall be a turquoise, a sapphire, and a diamond; 19 the third row, a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst; 20 and the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. They shall be set in gold settings (Exo 28.17–20).
    
    28 They shall bind the breastplate by means of its rings to the rings of the ephod, using a blue cord, so that it is above the intricately woven band of the ephod, and so that the breastplate does not come loose from the ephod (Exo 28.28).
    
    31 “You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue” (Exo 28.31).
    
    33 “And upon its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet, all around its hem, and bells of gold between them all around” (Exo 28.33).
  4. The Bible also goes into detail about the Tabernacle and the Temple.
God Wants Us to Know that Earth Previews Heaven
1. God wants us to see the colors of heaven, but
2. to appreciate the glorious colors of heaven,
  1. we have to see the colors of Earth, for
  2. I get the impression that the colors of heaven
    1. will make the greatest displays of color on Earth
    2. look faded and washed out.
3. How can you read the Book of Revelation and not see color?
  1. Revelation 4 shows us the throne of God briefly,
    
    3 And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald (Rev 4.3).
  2. Revelation ends with a spectacular view of our place in heaven,
    
    19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst (Rev 21.19–20).

Exhortation:

Red or crimson seems like a meaningful color to God.
1. The color red appears 56 times in Scripture.
2. Israel covered the Tabernacle,
  1. the place where the priests offered the blood of animals,
  2. in red-dyed ram skins.
3. In Isaiah 1, the Lord reasoned with Israel,
  
  18 “Come now, and let us reason together,”
  Says the LORD,
  “Though your sins are like scarlet,
  They shall be as white as snow;
  Though they are red like crimson,
  They shall be as wool.”
  (Isa 1.18)
4. It comes as no surprise then
  1. that when Israel was baptized into Moses (1Co 10),
  2. it took place through the Red Sea.
5. In like manner, Romans 6 shows that when we are baptized, this happens,
  
  3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Rom 6.3–4).
6. Acts 2.38
  1. When we submit to baptism,
  2. we contact the red blood of the Lamb of God, and
    1. that blood removes our sins.
    2. 1Co 6.9–10
So then have you had that experience?