"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God...." Psalm 14:1

"God is a Spirit…." John 4:24

"Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" Hebrews 12:9

"If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people." Leviticus 26:3-4,12

"And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the LORD their God." Exodus 29:45-46

Good morning, friends, and truly a good morning it can be to you!

Today I want to talk to you about God, the very Creator of heaven and earth; that Being Who has brought into existence the entire universe and everything which manifests therein. For lack of something better, we use the word "God" to designate this Being. A little later on, I shall tell you something about the meaning of this word, which today carries no meaning whatever to any person, except as a term to designate the Creator.

It seems utterly fantastic that in this day of enlightenment and great learning, we should have so many people who doubt the very existence of God. I have dealt with this matter before; in fact, a great number of my talks constitute an undeniable proof of God in an indirect way. For, that which I reveal necessitates a Supreme Intelligence behind it. This time, I will not endeavor to establish any proof of God's existence, but will merely set forth a thought or two pertaining thereto. And I will present this thought against the backdrop of the 1st verse in Psalm 14, which at your convenience you might look up. The great Prophet-psalmist of God strummed his harp and sang, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (verse 1). With that sentiment I am in full agreement, because I know that there is a God. Then the Psalmist continued by saying that such people are utterly corrupt and their works are abominable. What he meant was that such people are corrupt at heart, and because their works are evil, their wishful thinking prevents them from accepting the existence of God; that is, they want to live their evil lives with impunity, kidding themselves that there is no day of judgment; that they shall never have to stand before the scrutiny of the all-seeing eye of the Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth.

The thought I want to set before you is merely this: when you see a house or a factory, a bridge, or a piece of machinery, an engine or a phonograph, a radio or TV, do you, or any of those who claim there is no God, ever say to themselves: "I wonder how many millions of years of evolutionary development it took for the primitive cells to become developed into this finished product?" Just why is it that you don't ask yourself such a question? For the simple reason that the simplest among us know that wherever there is a product, there is a producer behind it; wherever something has been built, there has been a builder behind it. We know that whatsoever manifests, which involves intelligence or a plan or an order, has intelligence, planning and orderly execution behind it.

Yet quite occasionally in these days of modern science, we come across the fool who has said in his heart, "There is no God." He knows that the human body with its multitudinous organs, nerves and cells, constitutes by far the most marvelous invention on the face of the earth; that it involves an intelligence behind its complex functioning far beyond the deepest understanding of our brightest scientific minds, but still that fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." This stupendous wisdom just happened to evolve by itself! So, for the moment, we will just let that fool remain a fool in his own wishful thinking, in his vain hope that the spirit of intelligence within him has no begetter.

May I leave a suggestion with you who are sufficiently honest to recognize that there is a God? When next time you talk with someone who postulates that there is no God, just make this casual statement to him: "My friend, did you know that Noah Webster's Unabridged Dictionary was never written by any one person, but that long ago there was an explosion in a print shop, and it just so happened during that explosion that all the typefaces required got assembled into words, and the result was Noah Webster's Unabridged Dictionary?" And then, when he looks at you with amazed contempt, or perhaps pity, you say to him: "Your postulation that there is no God is at least 1,000 times more preposterous than my statement that Noah Webster's Unabridged Dictionary came into being through an explosion in a print shop."

Now I want to talk to you about the Being of God, that you may better understand His Nature and our relationship to Him. That book in the Bible which we call Genesis: how did it come into being, who wrote it, what were the conditions behind it? About 3,300 years ago, a man lived by the name of Moses. He spent 40 days on a mountaintop with God, and then some days later he returned to the mountaintop and spent another 40 days there in the presence of the ever-living God. As a result of His abiding with the very Spirit of God in open communion more than 11 weeks, he came into an understanding far greater than that possessed by a living man since the days of Adam, outside of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Based on the words he heard from the mouth of very God, he wrote, according to Genesis 1:26-27,

"And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His Own image...."

People who believe in God usually talk of Him as their Father in heaven. This is quite correct according to the Bible, but why do we call Him our Father? The average person might answer: because He is our Creator – He fashioned this body of flesh and bone and blood. He breathed His breath of life into that body, and we became living human beings. Although this is basically correct, it is not the answer to why we call God our Father in heaven.

Let us just suppose that a bachelor scientist, a great scientific genius, were to invent, or to mix together, a number of chemical ingredients to create or form an egg; that he would put this egg through an incubation period and bring forth a little chick, live and normal like other little chicks that we know about. I say, just supposing he were able to do that, would we then say that bachelor had become a father? Well, hardly. Or if that wonderful scientist were able to create a school of fish, would we then call him a father? Not by a long shot! Or if he were able to bring into being birds that could fly in the air, would we then call him a father? How preposterous!

Even the simplest among us know that fatherhood, or let us say, parenthood, implies the bringing forth of one's own kind. That is a basic statement in Scripture by this man who had spent 80 days in the presence of the living God, that everything upon earth brought forth after its own kind. This is a law in what we call nature. Therefore, before that bachelor scientist or anyone else can be called a father, he must have brought into being one of his own kind; then do we give him the title of a father. The same applies to God. If He created 100 billion solar systems, that would not make Him a Father. His filling the waters with fish and filling the air with birds to fly and covering the earth with creatures of all types, finally man himself, did not constitute Him a Father. It only constituted Him a Creator. This same Moses, as well as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, said very clearly that God is a Spirit, and that a spirit has not flesh and bones (Num. 16:22, 27:16; Jn. 4:24; Lk. 24:39).

Therefore, before the Spirit of God could be called a Father, He had to live up to the selfsame law that we see manifest in the species: He had to bring forth another spirit in His Own form and likeness. Then was He a Father-Spirit, being the Father of another, or a number of spirits. Therefore, do we find it written about the "...spirit in man..." (Job 32:8; Zech. 12:1). And "...the spirits of all flesh..." (Num. 16:22, 27:16). That is, there is a divine spirit within each human being, and that spirit has been begotten by the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9), Whom we call God; and, being the Father of the spirit within us, we can properly call Him our Father.

Now this is the important truth that we are leading up to, namely, that God, having begotten the spirit within us in His Own image and after His Own likeness, requires that for us to know God, and His Nature, we have only to study man. That is, a normal man, a prince among men, the noblest and the finest that we can ever find among the greatest of men. When we have thoroughly examined such a human being, and know him, then we know God in a measure. In order to know His Nature and His attitude towards man, we have only to study the nature and attitude of a normal and good father toward his own children. If that comparison is not true, then it is not true that God made man in His Own image, and after His Own likeness.

In this short talk I have not the time to give the numerous Bible references and the reason and proofs for the statement I am about to make, so this time I will merely make the point-blank statement, that the meaning of the word "God" can best be summed up in our one English word "keeper." It is natural to a normal father to want to protect and to provide for his children. We can see even that in all of manifest nature. So if you are a parent, stop to analyze your deepest feelings and basic attitude towards your own offspring. When this you fully understand, then do you understand the nature and the attitude of our Heavenly Father toward His Own offspring. His offspring is not fish or cattle or birds, nor even human beings. His offspring is that which we might term the human spirit, that is, the lifespirit which indwells every human being.

The reason for my bringing out this basic fact is to provide, or set before you, the one basic key unto success and happiness; unto health, strength and abundance in this life here and now. It is too great a subject to be covered in one talk, nor even in several talks, but I can and will set before you some of the basic essentials, in order that your own life may become transformed into that of a son or a daughter of God Almighty, that you may enter into the kingdom of God, here upon earth, right now.

We have already looked at two basic facts: first, that the great Being Whom we call "God" is the Father of the spirit indwelling man, and secondly, that this word which has been rendered "God" in our English versions, means `the Keeper.'

As we reflect on these two words, we know immediately that the meaning of "Keeper" fits like handinglove into the basic nature of any true father. Thus we have here a double, or a repetition – the one underscoring the other.

Just WHY did our FATHER in heaven give us this word "God" to designate Himself? To deeply and forcefully impress upon us that not only is He our Father (of the indwelling spirit), but in truth and reality, OUR KEEPER. THAT is why we read that God said to the Israel people after they had come out of Egypt, that IF they would HEAR His word and obey His injunctions, then would He be their "God" (Lev. 26:3-12). They knew that He was the Father of the spirit within them, but would He also be like a father unto them who were the children of FLESH? Yes, indeed! THAT is precisely why He gave them that word (designating Himself), to remind them every time they used it or thought of it, that He was more than a spiritual "Father" – even a "KEEPER" of their physical bodies and material fortunes.

What an utterly fantastic realization! The very Creator of this universe is the "Keeper" of this body of flesh, and will provide for our every material requirement. When once we have entered into the fullness of this realization and deep within KNOW its truth, then does peace settle deeply into our hearts and happiness starts to overflow. But as God of old said to Israel, "IF you will hear My word and obey My Voice, then indeed will you be My people, and I will be your God." This clearly implies that there are laws and regulations to be observed in order for God to truly be our "Keeper" in its fullest and generous sense. Yet, isn't the same situation true here on earth? What father in his right mind will provide lavishly for a son who disregards his word and who is a perpetual disgrace to his father's name? This is intrinsic to human nature: we want our children to be somewhere near that standard we believe in and which we live and practice. HOW then should we expect of God our Father to be less concerned over the rightness of our conduct, than are human fathers?

Yet let not this discourage you; for, the ways of God are easy, and His laws a great joy to practice. But the trouble has been what Jesus said to the priests of His day: "You have taken away the KEY to the Kingdom." There is so much which the people do not understand, and have never known.

For, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Ps. 14:1).