The Harmony Between God's Greatness and Goodness--Attributes of God Series

            Perhaps you remember this common meal-time prayer from your childhood: “God is great, God is good, thank you Lord for this food.” A very simple prayer, but with very profound truth. In fact, you may not have realized it, but a number of the psalms in the Bible follow that same pattern of emphasizing God’s greatness and His goodness. These two truths aren’t just arbitrarily thrown together; they balance each other out and give us a well-rounded picture of just who God is. Each of these concepts serves to heighten the other and keep them in their proper context.

            Psalm 113 is a psalm that follows this pattern. Psalm 113 draws both of these ideas together and reminds us that while God dwells in majestic splendor above the heights of heaven, He is still concerned with the plight of man and involves Himself in our lives. For this reason, God is richly deserving of our praise!

I. Praise God for His greatness  vv. 1–4

            The psalmist begins with a call to worship or praise [READ v. 1–3]. And by the time the psalmist is done with v. 3 we’re thinking, “Okay, we get the point. We’re supposed to praise the Lord.” The repetition here, of course, is for the rhetorical effect of emphasis—we are supposed to react to this call, and in a very specific way. The psalmist is calling us to praise. But what does it mean to praise?

            You’ve probably heard of a person called an appraiser. I think virtually every county has an appraiser, and a lot of cities do, too. The appraiser’s job is to declare how much your property is worth so the government can collect personal property taxes. He “ap-PRAISES” your property; he states how much is it worth. So when we praise God, we are declaring how valuable he is to us.

            Now you may have noticed in these verses that several times the psalmist mentions praising God’s name. This may strike you as a little strange because we don’t think of names the way Old Testament Jews did. We use names mainly just to tell people apart, but Jews had a different concept of what a name meant. To them, a person’s name represented their character, their personality. It stood for who the person was. That’s why we see some Old Testament characters having their names changed after significant events that shaped their lives. For example, Abraham’s names originally was Abram, but after God gave the promise that He would have many children, God changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” This name was better suited to what Abram would become.

            So we see that what the psalmist is pointing to here is God’s essence, His character. He is calling us to praise God for the things that make Him God.

                       

            But a big question remains unanswered in the psalm thus far: “Why is God worthy of such praise?” The psalmist is going to give us two answers, the first of which we find in v. 4. The first reason for praise is God’s greatness [READ v. 4] A common religious idea in Old Testament times was that deities were localized. In other words, each nation had its own god and his power was confined to that nation. The psalmist of course flatly rejects any such notion about Yahweh, the God of Israel, because He is high above all nations. His power is not limited in any way and He shares His throne with no one, especially not some carved image of stone like these other nations worshiped. God is to be praised from every nation of the Earth because He is truly the God of every nation of the Earth, whether men bow the knee to Him or not.

            But not only is He above the nations, but in fact the world and the universe itself cannot contain His glory. Solomon touched on this idea in 1 Kings 8 during his prayer of dedication for the temple. He said in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built?”

            Herein lies the first reason for the psalmist’s call to praise, because God is so great. Mankind is dwarfed by the majesty and power of God, and such a being who cannot even be contained by the universe should strike fear into our hearts and wonder into our souls.

II. Praise God for His goodness  vv. 5–9

            But there is another reason why we should praise God, and it is an important balance to the first. We should praise God not only for His greatness, but also for His goodness, which is His care and concern for mankind, and this is the key point of the psalm. The psalmist dwells on this for five verses. Not only is God great, but He is also good, and this is important because if God were only great, He would be no better than all of the other so-called “gods” out there.

            Many other religions believe in a “god” who is great, but no other religion has a god who is good. Islam certainly preaches about a god who is great and mighty and powerful, but he is not good—certainly not in the way that the Bible describes goodness. In Islam, the will of Allah reigns supreme, and there are no restrictions on it. He doesn’t have to be fair to you—he can literally choose to do whatever he wants. You could serve him faithfully your whole life, and he could still condemn you Hell simply because he chooses to do it. That’s why martyrdom is so attractive to those who are engaged in terrorism—they feel like that sacrifice gives them a guarantee of going to Paradise.

            The psalmist mentions God’s greatness again in verse 5 to set up a contrast with v. 6 [READ vv. 5–6]. Though God cannot even be contained by the universe, the psalmist here says that God stoops down to see what is taking place. God is concerned about what is going on and from other passages we know that He is working out a plan for His glory.

            Now this is not a normal thing for rulers to do. Think about all the dictators you know from history; how many of them have been concerned about the day to day affairs of their people? Even leaders in a system of government like ours. You may find them at a hospital when the cameras are rolling, but when the TV lights go off, where are they? There are some exceptions, but most rulers lose touch with and lose concern for the individuals they rule.

            Not God though! He is concerned with people and what goes on in their lives. You know I started out this sermon talking about the prayers of little children. Do you know that we can learn this lesson from their prayers as well? Sometimes adults don’t pray about certain things because we feel like they are trivial matters to burden God with. But when a child prays, what do they pray for? Their dog who is sick, the doll that they lost. Kids pray for every little thing you can imagine because they believe that God cares, and you know what? He does! God is great, but He stoops down to see our lives because He cares.

            But not only does He care, He gets actively involved. In vv. 7–9, we see that He raises the lowly up. God doesn’t just care about the rich and powerful, He cares about the lowest members of society. [READ 7–9] In ancient Israel, the two groups that the psalmist mentions, the poor and barren women, were looked down upon. They were stigmatized by society simply because of their condition, and the status of the poor that the psalmist mentions here was one of destitution. He makes reference here to the ash heap, which was essentially the town dump. Every good sized town would have a landfill outside the walls of the city where they would burn their trash and their human waste. People who had nowhere else to turn would live at these landfills, begging for the scraps of food that people brought out and huddling into the ash at night to stay warm. You can imagine that these people were not highly esteemed.

            But look at God’s actions! God, who is so great, looks down from above the heavens, sees people in absolute destitution, and is moved with compassion to raise them to a position of prominence. He sees the barren woman in her grief and is moved to grant her children. Now these examples should be taken as proverbial. In other words, they express a general truth of life. God doesn’t take every poor person out of their poverty, and He doesn’t give children to every barren woman. He has his own plans which ultimate are good and perfect, even though we don’t understand them. But this is God’s character—to be moved with compassion by the needs of people. And we clearly see from this the goodness of God.

            God’s goodness stands with His greatness to make Him the God that He is. These two aspects of God’s nature are not contradictory, they are complimentary. If God were only great, He would not be concerned about mankind, but if He were only good, He would not have the power to act on His concerns. These truths should draw out a complimentary response from us. His greatness makes Him worthy of our worship and adoration, while His goodness makes Him worthy of our love and devotion. We can see clearly now why the psalmist calls for such a response of praise, and our hearts can respond appropriately.

God's Pervasive Presence--Attributes of God Series

            1 Kings 20 records the details of a war between the people of Israel and their northern neighbors, the Syrians. The children of Israel were victorious in the first battle, much to the dismay of the Syrians, and later on, as the Syrian leaders gathered for coffee at the local café, they tried to figure out why they had lost. One of the leaders said, “Aha! Why didn’t we think of this before? They beat us because they had home-field advantage! Their god must be a god of the hills, so next time let’s fight them down in the plains, and our gods will give us the victory.”

            After that conversation, the Lord sent a prophet to the king of Israel, who said, “Because the Syrians think I’m only the god of the hills and not the god of the plains, I’m going to give them all into your hand.” In that moment, God wanted to make a crystal-clear distinction between himself and the so-called “gods” of the other nations—the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, cannot be assigned to one location as if His power were only operative there. Rather, the testimony of Scripture is that our God—the true God—is in all places. He is king in all places and every place at the same time.

            In other words, God’s presence is pervasive—He is in all places at once. This characteristic of God is often called His “omnipresence,” and today, I want to look at this idea so that we can understand our God in better detail, and think about some implications of God’s pervasive presence in His creation.

Where is this idea found in Scripture?

            The clearest expression of this idea is also the most moving and memorable. It is found in Psalm 139:7-12. In this psalm, David had just stated how thoroughly God knows him, and now we read that part of the reason for that knowledge is that God is everywhere. I know in years past, I have read these verses as if David was trying to run away and hide from God—probably because of the word “flee” in v. 7—but upon a closer look, these verses don’t have to be understood that way. In fact, it seems that just the opposite is the case—David sees God’s presence as comforting and reassuring [READ Ps. 139:7-12]. Notice how David considers various factors like distance, speed, and even a condition like darkness and concludes that none of these things can separate us from God. He is with us!

            But how can God be with you in your house and also with me in my house at the same time? It’s important for us to remember that God does not have the limitation of a physical body like we do. John 4:24 states that God is spirit, which means that He doesn’t have flesh and bones like we do. My body can only be in one place at one time, but since God doesn’t have the limitation of a physical body, that is one reason that he can be omnipresent.

“You’ve got some ‘splainin to do!”

            We should clarify at this point just what we are claiming when we say that God is “omnipresent.” As much as it pains me to say this, since I love these movies, the Star Wars movies have popularized some ideas that some people have wrongly associated with God. People have been tempted to draw parallels between God and “The Force” in the Star Wars movies, but we really don’t want to make that connection.

            In Star Wars, The Force is a kind of power that flows through humans and rocks and trees and spaceships and everything that exists. That idea is actually based on a religious belief called “pantheism,” which comes from religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. But when we say that God is omnipresent, we should not be thinking that God is somehow inside the wood that makes up my pulpit, or that He is somehow inside the pew that you’re sitting on.

            What we are actually claiming is that God is aware of all that is happening in every corner of creation and that He is active in every corner of creation—all at the same time. When we say that God is omnipresent, that should be the idea that we have in mind, rather than some notion that God is inside the carpet or the drywall or the lightbulbs.

Unique Reminders of God’s Presence

            Now, God does, at times, give unique reminders of His presence to specific people in specific places. One familiar example of this kind of act of God is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that accompanied the people of Israel during the Exodus, when they fled from their slavery in Egypt. That pillar wasn’t visible from every place on the planet! It was in a specific location, and from time to time it would move to a new location to show the people where to go.

            In such moments, when God offers a unique reminder of His presence, He does so to teach people important lessons. Think about what the children of Israel should have learned from that pillar of cloud and fire. God wanted to teach them lessons like:

·         “I am here to guide you”

·         “I am here to protect you” (like when Pharaoh chased after them)

·         “I am here to provide for you” (giving them light and warmth by night).

            Of course, the greatest example of God making His presence known in order to teach us was the Incarnation, when Jesus added a human nature to His person. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known (NET Bible).”

Some Implications of God’s Omnipresence

1. His knowledge about me is first-hand knowledge

            I am repeating this thought from my sermon on God’s omniscience, but I think it bears repeating here. Since God is personally aware of everything that is going on in creation, then He personally knows everything that is going on with me. I think this observation is comforting, because so many of our problems with each other are either created or exaggerated by misinformation—for example, someone hears a piece of gossip about you and they start to act differently around you. Perhaps they’re less friendly or less open with you—all because they heard something about you that didn’t reflect the truth.

            But we don’t have to worry about any such issues with God! He doesn’t have to seek information about us from some other source—He sees us, so He has direct knowledge about us. This thought is also the second implication.

2. God always sees what is happening to us and what we are up to

            Many situations in life can move us to think, “God, where are you?” Though it may not feel like God is always with us, that is only an appearance; it is not the reality. God sees all that is happening to us. He sees when people sin against us; He sees when people are kind to us. He sees it all!

            He also sees what we are up to, and this thought should be a powerful reminder for us as we make choices in life. The temptations we face always look more appealing when we think that no one will see what we’re doing and no one will find out about what we’ve done. We can hide things from each other, can’t we? And when we’re only thinking on that level, our temptations look far more appealing. But when we remember that God is always with us and He sees us at all times, we are reminded that we can’t hide anything from Him.

            You may remember a children’s song that tried to teach us this lesson when we were young. It goes like this: “Oh be careful little eyes what you see, oh be careful little eyes what you see, for the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.” That little song reminds us that God is watching us, and it contains such an important reminder when it says that God is “looking down in love.” God is watching, yes, but He’s watching in love! He is not like some grumpy piano teacher who’s waiting to slap you on the hand any time you play a wrong note. Remembering that God watches us in love will help us think accurate thoughts about God, and it still leaves us with the awesome realization that we will one day answer to God for everything that He has seen us do.

3. I am never alone—God is always with me!

            When God asked His people to carry out some task in Scripture, He always reminded them that they would not be alone—He would be with them. When Moses was preparing to lead the people of Israel toward their first attempt to conquer the Promised Land, God said to him, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest (Exodus 33:14).”

            When the people rebelled before their first attempt, and God prepared Joshua to lead the second attempt, the Lord told him to remember what he had been promised, to remember God’s commands, and he wrapped it all up by saying this: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).”

            When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, and He told His disciples on the night before He died that He would be going away, He said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18).” And when He gave those men the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations, He said, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).”

            We are not alone as we seek to carry out the tasks that God has for us. When you’re going around town and you see that person that you know you should forgive, you are not alone. When you walk into the office to co-workers who do not share your faith, you are not alone. When you are facing down the temptation that has tripped you up a hundred times, you are not alone. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go!

God's Unrivaled Power--Attributes of God Series

            Dr. Seuss once wrote a book called “Yertle the Turtle.” In this story, Yertle the Turtle is the king of the little pond where he lives. He is the king over everything that he can see, but one day, he decides that he can’t see far enough, and his kingdom really deserves to be much bigger. So he commands other turtles to come and stand on top of each other so that he can stand on top of them and expand his view. After spending the day enjoying his new view and the power that is supposed to come with it, Yertle is enraged when the evening dawns and he realizes that the moon is still higher than he is.

            This story is a good analogy for our position with respect to God. No matter how much power we may think we have or how much power we may actually have in this world, we are all still looking up at God! God’s power is truly unrivaled, and when He decides to act, there is no power anywhere in all of creation that can stop Him.

            This attribute of God is often called “omnipotence,” and today we’re going to discuss what this means and how it should be comforting and inspiring for us to know that God’s power reigns supreme.

How is God’s Power Proclaimed in the Bible?

1. Through titles

            Throughout Scripture, God is referred to as “the Almighty,” which is a pretty easy word to understand. God has ALL the MIGHT He needs to do whatever He wants to do. In Genesis 17:1, God appeared to Abraham and said, “I am God Almighty.” Perhaps you have heard the Hebrew phrase el shaddai—that phrase means “God Almighty.” That title was especially meaningful in a time when most people believed there was a god of the rivers and a god of the lakes and a god of the mountains and a god of the plains and so on. This title proclaimed that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was supreme over all.

            At the opposite end of the Bible, we read in the book of Revelation that the people and angels in heaven refer to God as the Almighty (Rev. 19:6, 21:22). So from the first book of the Bible to the last, that title runs throughout to proclaim God’s unrivaled power.

2. Through direct statements

            Some verses simply state that God is all-powerful. Here are just a few examples:

·         Psalm 115:3—“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”

·         Job 42:2—“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

·         Daniel 4:35—“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’”

            You can probably think of other verses like these because such verses are very popular because of the comfort and confidence that they bring to us.

3. Through rhetorical questions

            On a number of occasions, people used rhetorical questions to say, in effect, “Isn’t it obvious how powerful God is?” When Sarah laughed at the idea that she would have a baby at the ripe old age of 90, God said, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14). And when Paul was declaring Christ’s resurrection to a Jewish leader, he said, “Why do you think its incredible that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8). Even a humanly impossible act like that was no challenge for God.

4. Through His actions

            The reason that the rhetorical questions we just read can work is that God has put His power on full display through His actions. The greatest example of God’s power was in the creation of the universe back in Genesis 1-2. Remember—when God began to create, He didn’t just take “stuff” that already existed and make planets and stars and air and water out of it. When God began to create, nothing existed but Him, and the Bible tells us that He simply commanded things to exist, and they did! That’s why Paul could say, “Why do you think its incredible that God raises the dead?” We’re talking about God, after all—the one who just speaks things into existence.

            The miracles of Jesus also display His power as God. Let’s just think for a moment about the miracle recorded in John 5. In that story, Jesus encountered a man who had been unable to walk for 38 years. He asked the man if he wanted to be made well, then he simply told him to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk—and he did!

            Think about the extreme makeover that this man’s body experienced. His muscles would have been severely atrophied after 38 years, so he probably instantly received new muscle mass. His bones would have been frail from not supporting any weight for all that time, but they instantly became strong. His circulatory system was immediately capable of sustaining him in a standing position. Think about that—have you ever stood up quickly after you’ve been lying down? You get light-headed because your circulation has to catch up. Imagine standing up after lying down and only sitting up on occasion for 38 years!

Miracles like that are an amazing display of power, and they show us that God truly is almighty—He can do anything He chooses to do!

What Does it Mean that God is Almighty?

            We need to spend a little time discussing what it means that God is almighty, because some people have enjoyed challenging this idea with questions like, “Can God make a rock so big that even He can’t pick it up?” or “Can God make 2+2=6?” or “Can God make an elder board so stubborn that even He can’t make it act?” (A little joke among pastors!). So what does it mean that God is almighty? I think we can clarify this idea in two ways.

1. God can do whatever is possible to do

            If something can possibly be done, God can do it if He chooses. Keep in mind that the idea of possibility extends beyond what is merely possible for humans. Even though something may be impossible for us, it is possible for God as long as it is a real, logical possibility.

            Some things are not real possibilities, like making 2+2=6, and so God cannot do something like that. This really isn’t a limit on God’s power, however—its actually just a limit on what is real. I like what Charles Ryrie said about questions like this. He said, “We might as well ask if a nuclear explosion could make 2+2=6.” A question like this isn’t really about how much power something has—its about what sort of actions are real possibilities. So just remember—if something can possibly be done, God can do it if He chooses.

2. God cannot do something that is outside of His nature

            Your nature simply refers to what you are. For example, I am a human being, so I have a human nature, and if you think about it, my nature puts limits on what I can do. I can’t fly like a bird because its not in my nature to do that; I can’t see through a wall because its not in my nature to do that; or, as a male, I can’t give birth to a child because its not in my nature to do that. These things aren’t really limits on my power or strength; they’re just the boundaries of what I am.

            Likewise, God cannot do something that is outside of His nature. So for example, Hebrews 6:18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. Lying is outside the boundary of who God is, and so its not in His nature to do that.

These are some helpful clarifications to keep in mind when you think about God being “almighty.” They may seem a little abstract or philosophical right now, but I know that with just a little bit of thought time, you can understand these ideas. Just bring them to mind again and let them sink in. For now, let’s spend the remainder of our time talking about some implications of God’s unrivaled power

Implications of God’s Unrivaled Power

1. God has no true rival

            By “rival” I mean someone who is on an equal footing and could actually keep God from achieving something that He chooses to do. God certainly has enemies—such as Satan and his demons—but they cannot match His power. In fact, in the book of Job and in the temptation of Peter we discover that Satan has to ask for permission before he can act. Now, the reason that God gives him permission is another sermon for another day, but we can see clearly through this observation that even God’s greatest enemy is no match for His power.

2. God has power over everything that happens to me

            Nothing happens in our lives because God was somehow unable to stop it. We will never hear God say in Heaven, “By the way, sorry about that car accident. I tried my best to stop it, but I just couldn’t do anything about it.” We will never hear anything like that!

            While this doesn’t answer all of our questions about why God allows things to happen, it is comforting to know that we’re not simply at the mercy of fate or chance or karma or anything like that. Everything that happens to us is under God’s control, so there is a purpose behind everything that we face. One part of that purpose is to give us opportunities to express faith in God so that we might earn a greater reward from Him someday. There are likely other purposes as well, but we should be encouraged just to know that everything that happens to us has already passed through the hands of a loving God, so there is a reason for it.

3. God is able to keep His promises

            God is fully capable of doing whatever He chooses to do, so nothing can keep Him from fulfilling His promises. As humans, we sometimes have to deal with broken promises from other humans because we don’t have that kind of power over our circumstances. Perhaps you promise your child that you’ll make it to their ball game, but car problems keep you from getting there, or a broken fence allows the cattle to get out and you have to round them up.

            When we receive promises from each other, we have to allow for things like that, but with God, we don’t have to entertain any doubts about whether He will keep His promises. And so, His promises become a tremendous source of comfort and a solid foundation on which to act in our lives. They are a bedrock on which to build, and that is because of God’s unrivaled power.

            When we consider the ability that God has to do whatever He chooses to do, it is all the more amazing to think that He chose to send His Son to die for us. God has provided us with forgiveness of our sins because He chose to do so, which tells us of His tremendous love, mercy, and grace. God has exercised His unrivaled power for our undeserved benefit, and we praise Him for this today.

God--The One, True Know-It-All--Attributes of God Series

            Nobody likes a know-it-all—someone who acts like they know everything. That’s why such people are so annoying—because their attitude is only an act, and everyone knows it but them. However, I believe everyone desires the sense of security that comes from knowing that someone really does know it all!

            This morning as we study God’s attributes or characteristics, we will see that God is the one, true know-it-all! According to the Bible, God knows everything that can be known. The big, fancy word for this attribute is “omniscience,” a word that comes into English from Latin. I want to answer a couple of general questions this morning about what God knows and how He came to know it, then we will talk about some comforting and challenging implications of this attribute of God.

1. What does God know?

A. He knows all factual knowledge about the past, present, and future (1 John 3:20; John 21:17)

            This claim will become obvious as we go on this morning, but the Bible does include a couple of short but direct statements to this effect. In 1 John 3:20, John writes about how God’s knowledge is greater than ours, and he concludes the verse by simply writing, “God knows everything.” Also, in John 21:17, Jesus is having a conversation with the apostle Peter in which Jesus repeatedly asks Peter about Peter’s love for him. Finally, Peter simply says, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Peter was affirming that Jesus is God, and as God, He knows everything. So God knows everything that has happened in the past, He knows everything that is happening now, and He knows everything that will happen in the future. But not only does He know what did happen in the past…

B. He knows what would have happened in the past if circumstances had been different (Matt. 11:20-24)

            In Matthew 11, Jesus speaks out against the people of certain cities who refused to believe in Him. In v. 21 he says, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” Tyre and Sidon were cities that were frequently criticized in the Old Testament for their idolatry, but here Jesus says that they would have repented if they had seen the mighty works that He was performing! This is a fascinating statement because it tells us that God knows all of the various courses that history could have taken. So for example, He knows how the US would be different if the South had won the Civil War, or if Germany had won World War II. Sometimes when I was on vacation as a child, my dad would ask me how I thought my life might be different if I had grown up in our vacation town rather than my hometown. That was always interesting to imagine, but God doesn’t have to imagine it because He actually knows!

C. He knows my very thoughts (Ps. 139:1-4; Gen. 6:5)

            God not only knows what we actually do—He knows the thoughts that lie behind our actions and the thoughts upon which we never choose to act. In Psalm 139:1-4, King David wrote, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”

            Also, just before the global flood in the Book of Genesis, we read this: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).” The Lord not only saw the people’s wicked acts, He understood their thoughts as well. And not only does God know the thoughts of my heart…

D. He knows my heart more accurately than I do (Jer. 17:9-10; Ps. 139:23-24)

            It is very easy for us to act a certain way and tell ourselves that our motives were good and noble when in reality they were anything but. But God is not fooled by our mind games. Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

            Now this idea of self-deception is a little disturbing, because we may think, “How will I ever know if I’m deceiving myself?” Well, we can pray the same prayer that King David prayed at the end of Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Ps. 139:23-24)!” David is admitting that even he doesn’t understand his own heart the way that God does, so he asks God to search him and then lead him. That is the same prayer that we should pray as well.

Well, we have seen now the basics of what God knows, now let’s answer the question…

2. How did He come to know it?

A. Not through the instruction of anyone else (Is. 40:13-14; Rom. 11:34)

            In Isaiah 40:13-14, Isaiah asks some rhetorical questions about God. He writes, “Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?” Since these are rhetorical questions, the obvious answer is—no one! He has not consulted with anyone to acquire His knowledge; no one has taught Him anything. He just simply knows what He knows! This reality is true largely because…

B. He knows the future because He has planned the future (Eph. 1:11; Is. 46:9-11)

            From the moment that God created the world, He had a plan in mind that He is now carrying out. Ephesians 1:11 says, “God works all things according to the counsel of His will.” When the Apostle Paul wrote those words, He may have had a passage like Isaiah 46:9-11 in mind, which says, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” According to these verses, why is God able to declare the end from the beginning? Because He has a purpose or a plan that He is able to carry out.

            I used this illustration a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating here. When God tells us about the future in the Bible, He is like an architect giving someone a tour of a job site. The architect is able to tell you what the final product will look like because he has already planned it, and now he is just carrying out his plan.

            God’s knowledge operates the same way. Now, this does not mean that you and I are merely puppets or robots who don’t make any real choices. The Bible always speaks to us as creatures who make real choices for which we are responsible. I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait for God to explain all of this to us someday, but suffice it to say that God’s knowledge comes from His plan for all things.

Let’s conclude this morning by thinking about a few comforting and challenging implications of the fact that God knows all things.

3. Some comforting and challenging implications

A. God knows my needs even before I ask Him to meet them (Matt. 6:7-8)

            Jesus specifically makes this point in Matthew 6:8. This thought is very comforting because we have many daily needs about which we simply forget to ask! For example, when is the last time you asked God to protect you while you sleep? We don’t think about that often around Montezuma, but it’s a real need!

            We also never need to worry that we’ve failed to give God enough information about our needs. We never need to think, “Oh no! I forgot to tell God when that bill is due! How will He ever know?”

            We also have needs come up that can drastically change our lives, like medical problems or a death in our family. Sometimes we’re unprepared to deal with the needs that come during these times, but God was not caught off guard! He knows His plan to help us before we even know we need help!

B. God’s knowledge about my life is first-hand knowledge

            God doesn’t learn about us through some heavenly game of “Telephone” where one angel talks to another angel who talks to another angel until the news finally reaches God. He doesn’t need to rely on anyone else for His knowledge about us.

            Sometimes people treat us unfairly because they received bad information about us. Friends may pull away because they’ve heard some rumor about us, or they may assume that we’ve had bad motives for some decision that we’ve made. But we don’t have to worry about unfair treatment from God! We will never hear Him say, “Rumor has it…!”

C. God knew about all of my future sins when He gave me the gift of salvation

            This is a very comforting thought. In our series on eternal security, we learned that when God grants me forgiveness for my sins, God as my Judge is declaring that my “debt to society” (so to speak) has been fully paid. When He rendered that verdict, He did so not only with knowledge of all my past sins, but with knowledge of all my future sins as well, and He declared that all of them had been paid for by the blood of Christ.

            So you can rest assured that there is no skeleton in your closet that will cause God to re-open the case against you! There is no new evidence against you that will come to light because God already knew about all of the evidence. This thought gives us the confidence and reassurance that we need to thrive spiritually because we never have to wonder if God will change His mind about adopting us into His family.

D. I cannot hide anything from God (Heb. 4:12-13)

            God knows me inside and out, so consequently, I can never fool Him! I could be two-faced and live a double life for a long time, and its possible that my secrets might never get out. But no matter how many people I fooled, I would never have fooled God for a single moment.

            This thought is very sobering. It means that my life is an open book to God. Hebrews 4:12-13 states, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” I think the author of Hebrews may have had Genesis 3 in mind when he wrote that last sentence. After Adam and Eve sinned against God, the Bible says that they sewed some fig leaves together to hide their nakedness, because now all of a sudden they were embarrassed and ashamed. But God wasn’t fooled by a few fig leaves, and He’s not fooled by our attempts to hide our sins today. He’s not fooled when we delete the browsing history on the computer; He’s not fooled when we say hurtful things and then try to pass it off as a joke. Its just fig leaves! King David’s prayer is worth repeated here: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Ps. 139:23-24)!”

            May we be corrected today by understanding the depths of God’s knowledge, and encouraged by basking in His greatness. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways (NASB)!”

God in Three Persons: Thinking About the Trinity--Attributes of God Series

The Trinity is easily one of the most confusing beliefs that Christians hold about God. Even those of us who believe in it feel like we don’t understand it very well. We will loudly and boldly proclaim our belief in the Trinity, then we will get quiet very quickly when someone asks us to explain it! No matter how you look at it, a full understanding of the unity between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is beyond our ability to comprehend, but this is really no reason to be uncomfortable with the doctrine or to reject it. When we consider who God is supposed to be and who we are, we should expect to bump up against ideas that we do not fully understand. Why does it seem like such a scandal to us when we can’t fully understand something about a being who is said to be eternal, all-powerful, and all-knowing? Nor should our lack of total understanding about the Trinity be a reason to reject the idea. I can’t give you a complete explanation of how a plane flies, but I’m not going to tell you that it can’t! In our modern scientific age, we like to tell ourselves that we understand so much, but in reality, each scientific discovery only uncovers greater mysteries. Today we’re going to discuss how to think about the Trinity and what we actually mean when we say that God is one being and three persons. I hope you’ll see that we can gain a decent understanding of this doctrine, and our reflection on it can lead us to stand in awe of God all the more. 1. Where do we get the idea that God is a Trinity (tri-unity)? In his book The DaVinci Code, author Dan Brown repeats the claim that Christians invited the idea of the Trinity around 325 AD in order to make a God out of an ordinary man named Jesus of Nazareth. In reality, the idea of the Trinity springs from the Bible itself, which was written much earlier than 325 AD! Let’s take a brief look at what the Bible has to say. First of all, the Bible repeatedly states that there is only one God: • Deut. 6:4--"Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.” • Is. 43:10-11—“Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.” • Is. 44:6-8—“I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god…Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” • 1 Timothy 2:5—“For there is one God…” We could list many more examples, but that will have to do for today. So we can see that the Bible wants us to understand that there is only one God, but at the same time, Scripture gives three distinct persons the status of being God, and they are addressed as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: • Matt. 28:19—“…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” • 2 Cor. 13:14—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” We could also look at verses where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are individually referred to as God. So the doctrine of the Trinity is an attempt to explain the fact that there is only one God, yet three persons are given the status of being God. 2. What are we saying when we say that God is a Trinity? Many people have scoffed at and rejected this doctrine because they think we are saying that one somehow equals three, that God is somehow one thing and three of the same thing all at once. That’s like saying that my pulpit is one pulpit AND three pulpits, or that I am one human being AND three human beings. If that is what the doctrine says then we should reject it, because that kind of thinking is a contradiction. But the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being and three persons. That claim is not a contradiction because a being and a person are not the same thing. Let’s make sure we understand these words. A being is simply an object that exists. My pulpit is a being; the pew that you’re sitting on is a being. That’s all that we mean by this word—an object that exists. A person is something that is living and thinking, something with a mind and a will—like you and me. So the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one existing thing that possesses three different living and thinking personalities. One comparison that may be helpful here is to think of Siamese twins. Siamese twins are conjoined, which means they share one body. In that sense, they are one being—one existing thing. Yet Siamese twins are clearly two living, thinking people. They each have their own mind and will and they actually have a relationship with each other. This idea is the kind of idea that we have in mind when we say that God is one being and three persons, though this analogy is certainly not perfect. For one thing, God does not have a body, so we don’t want to think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as living within one body, because God is a purely spiritual being, as we are told in John 4:24. Also, Siamese twins can sometimes be separated through surgery, and in that case they would become two separate beings. That is not possible with God because, again, God does not have a body. So the comparison is not perfect, but it points us in the right direction to think accurately about the Trinity. 3. What are we NOT saying when we say that God is a Trinity? For the sake of clarification, let’s look at what we are NOT saying when we say that God is a Trinity. A. God is one person with three different masks In theater, one person will sometimes play multiple characters simply by wearing different masks or costumes. Some people have applied that idea to the Trinity by saying that God sometimes acts as the Father, sometimes as the Son, and sometimes as the Holy Spirit. But we are not talking simply about alter egos, like Bruce Wayne and Batman. This idea is not a correct understanding of the Trinity because it leaves us with one being and only one person—not three persons. In Scripture, we see that the Trinity must be three persons because all three are capable of acting at the same time. A great example of this comes at the time of Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3 [READ Matt. 3:16-17]. This situation cannot describe one person playing three roles because we have three persons who are all on the stage (if you will) at the same time. B. The Trinity is three beings with one purpose This idea views the Trinity as a team of three beings who are all united in one purpose—like a three-man basketball team. The members of the team all share a common purpose, but the members of the team are clearly three beings and three persons—not one being and three persons. This teamwork idea is the explanation that cults like the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses use to explain the unity between God the Father and the Lord Jesus, but it does not do justice to all of the biblical data. 4. Why does this doctrine matter? It is rather easy to think to yourself, “Why does this doctrine even matter? It’s kind of complicated, so why do I need to think about it? Pastor, I’ll believe that God is a Trinity if you say so, but why do I need to try and understand it?” You need to have a basic understanding of this doctrine because it tells us about who the real Jesus is. The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that Jesus is fully divine. He is of one being with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They share one existence, which means that Jesus cannot be the offspring of God and one of his wives, as Mormonism teaches, and He cannot be a created being, as Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses claim. One of Satan’s favorite schemes is to offer counterfeit Christs to the world. What better way to make people resistant to the real Jesus than to convince them that they already believe in Him? Thus, Satan has twisted the truth about Jesus in many subtle ways, so if we do not understand the precise truth about Jesus, we are at risk of being deceived by a counterfeit Christ who looks oh-so-close to the real thing. There is a big difference between having a counterfeit Rolex and having the real thing. Likewise, there is a big difference between believing in the real Jesus and accepting an imposter. The doctrine of the Trinity protects us from the trap of believing that Jesus is anything less than fully divine.

God's Eternal Existence--Attributes of God Series

I want you to think about this question for a moment—what comes into your mind when you think about God? More specifically, what characteristics do you think about Him possessing? Pastor A. W. Tozer once wrote, “Were we able to extract from any [person] a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that [person].”1

That’s quite a claim! Did you think that your answer to that question could actually predict your spiritual future—in other words, your progress in developing Christian character? I must say that I think Pastor Tozer is correct, because in Romans 12:2, the Apostle Paul says that we become transformed or changed “by the renewing of [our] minds.” Christian growth happens as we change the way we think, and the cornerstone of the way we think is the beliefs that we hold about God.

Today, we are going to begin a series on the attributes of God, which is just a fancy term for those things that are true about God—the traits that accurately describe Him. We will continue this series for a while each time that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together so that we can learn more about this Being who has shown us such love and mercy through the death and resurrection of Christ.

This morning, we are going to discuss an attribute that describes the way in which God exists—namely, that God is eternal. To say that God is eternal means that He had no beginning to His existence, and He will have no end to His existence. He has simply always existed, and He always will exist; or as the angels in heaven declare in Revelation 4:8, God is the one “who was, and who is, and who is to come.” That statement is true at any point in time that you can imagine. If you could travel to any moment of history—past or future—you could truthfully say at that moment, “God was, God is, and God is to come.”

Let’s look at some of the biblical statements that describe this attribute of God. In numerous verses, God is simply referred to as the “eternal” or “everlasting” God. Isaiah 40:28 is a good example of such a verse: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” This attribute seemed to have a particularly strong impression on Moses, perhaps because he was the first to receive from God the divine name Yahweh, or Jehovah—which simply means “I am.” In Deuteronomy 33:27, Moses told the children of Israel, “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” And in Psalm 90, which Moses composed, he wrote in vv. 1-2, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Job and his friends spent a fair amount of the book of Job talking about the nature of God, and in Job 36:26, a man named Elihu says, “God is exalted beyond our knowledge; the number of His years cannot be counted (CSB).” Now think about what this means: if the number of God’s years cannot be counted, then his lifespan must be infinite—without beginning and without end. If God had a beginning or an end—and thus a limited lifespan—you could count the number of His years. It might be a very large number, but you can count to a very large number—it just takes a while! So if the number of God’s years truly cannot be counted, then He must be eternal—without a beginning and without an end.

Paul stated in Romans 1:20 that we can learn that God is eternal simply from observing the world around us. In that verse, he writes, “For [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” When we look at the world around us, we see a collection of things that all began to exist at some point in time. Even our universe itself began to exist at a point in time, as the Bible tells us, and as all but the most radical scientists will admit. Now, we all know that when things begin to exist, they don’t just come from nowhere—they come from something that existed before them, as you did with your parents. You began to exist when you were conceived, and you came from your parents, who existed before you did.

So we can conclude that if our universe began to exist at some point in time, then there must have been something that existed before the universe that caused it to exist. Now, logic also tells us that something which began to exist at some point in time must ultimately come from something which has always existed—something that did not begin to exist. Something that begins to exist is the effect of something else which caused it, and you cannot have an endless chain of causes and effects.

Think of it this way—suppose that you wanted to build a house. Before you can start, you have to have the necessary permits to build. Now suppose that you had to apply for a literally endless number of permits, and you had to have Permit A before you could get Permit B, and so on. Now, when could you start building your house? The answer is never—because you would never get to the end of this endless string of permits. There would always be one more permit that you had to have in order to start construction.

This scenario illustrates an endless chain of causes and effects. Something that begins to exist is an effect of something else, and there cannot be an endless chain of causes and effects behind that existing thing. Otherwise, the whole chain of cause and effect could never get started. Eventually, there has to be a cause which is uncaused; there has to be something that exists which simply exists and which did not need a cause.

Now that your brain has exploded, let’s remodel it by talking about what this attribute of God means for our lives. We learn several important lessons by reflecting on God’s eternal existence.

1. God does not need you

That statement may sound harsh, but this thought is actually a very healthy one for us to embrace because it puts us in our place, yet it also magnifies God’s love for you. Let me explain.

If God is eternal and thus had no beginning, this means that He exists by His own power. If that’s the case, then He has no needs that He cannot meet for Himself. He is thus self-sufficient, meaning that He doesn’t need anyone else. God doesn’t need someone to look after Him or take care of Him or any such thing. Here is how Paul put it in Acts 17:24-25—“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

What could God possibly need from us since He existed just fine without us? Perhaps someone has told you that God created us because He was lonely. God was never lonely! He is a Trinity—three persons in one being! God doesn’t need us to take care of Him, He doesn’t need us to love Him, and He doesn’t even need us in order to act in the world!

This observation cuts us down to size and keeps us from becoming proud, but here’s the thought the builds us up in a healthy way—God doesn’t need you, yet He chooses to love you. Isn’t that amazing? He doesn’t need you, yet you are not insignificant to Him. He chooses to love you and He chooses to use you to accomplish His will in this world. He sent His Son to die for you—not because He couldn’t stand to live without you, but simply because that’s the kind of God that He is. Here is how God describes Himself in Exodus 34:6-7—“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” This awe-inspiring God is completely self-sufficient, yet He chooses to extend mercy and grace to us, as we remember today in the Lord’s Supper.

2. God does not experience urgency

Since God’s existence cannot be measured by time, He does not experience time the way that we do. 2 Peter 3:8 says, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” This verse tells us that God’s interaction with time is so different from our own.

This lesson is so important to remember when we’re thinking about God’s work in our lives. When we have problems that feel extremely urgent, or when we pray about something for weeks or months or years and it seems like nothing is happening, we have to remember that God just doesn’t experience time the way we do. Urgency is only experienced by those who feel the pressure of time bearing down on them. We feel urgency when we feel like we are losing time or when we feel like we don’t have enough time.

But God doesn’t have such limitations on Him. The constraints of time do not bind Him. He can literally roll back the clock if He chooses, as He did for Joshua in Joshua 10 and for Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20.

This lesson simply reminds us that we cannot let ourselves become angry with God if He doesn’t seem to be working by our schedule. If He doesn’t seem to be answering one of your prayer requests, or if He seems to be “late” in coming through for you, just remember that God does not have to fit into your Day Timer!

3. God does not act in haste

Sometimes, we make mistakes or we do poor work or we make bad decisions because we act in haste. Sometimes we throw something together just before a deadline, or we make an uninformed decision because we feel the weight of urgency. But God does not have such constraints, so we don’t have to wonder if His work is imperfect because He rushed through it. Nor do we need to ask if God made a bad decision because He “didn’t have time to think through it.”

God’s actions are deliberate and on purpose. He is never forced to act by deadlines or by the fear that He may miss out on a moment in time that will never come around again. And so, this is just one of the reasons that God does not make mistakes. So when God acts in your life or when he allows certain circumstances to come into your life, you can know for sure that He did not make a hasty decision or have a spur-of-the-moment reaction. He knows exactly what He is doing and He does it at exactly the right time.

Learning what we have today about our God magnifies His love, grace, and mercy that we remember in the Lord’s Supper. That such a being would make such a sacrifice for us is indescribable. So as we partake, let us mourn for our sins which have made the Lord’s sacrifice necessary for our forgiveness, and let us rejoice over God’s willingness to provide it.


Notes:
1. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978), 1.

Messengers for the King--Isaiah Series

No one likes to be the bearer of bad news. I’m sure police officers don’t fight each other to see who gets to tell someone that their loved one passed away. Nurses probably don’t volunteer to call people and tell them that their test results were bad. We would all much rather be the Publisher’s Clearinghouse guy, who gets to surprise people with those giant, cardboard checks.

Sometimes its easy for Christians to feel like we’re always raining on someone’s parade. After all, the message of the Gospel calls us to proclaim that all is not right with the world; and what’s more, we must also tell individuals that all is not right with their soul. Now we also get to proclaim the good news of God’s love and forgiveness, but the realism of the Gospel demands that people understand why they need to be forgiven in the first place.

As we seek to proclaim the Gospel, it can also be discouraging if we don’t see people respond to it positively. This isn’t surprising, because everything becomes discouraging if you feel like you’re not seeing the desired results.

So when we might be discouraged about our role as messengers for the king, how can we press on in faithfulness? What is the bedrock that can serve as a lasting foundation for faithful obedience to God?

When the going gets tough, remember what got you going in the first place!

Would you turn with me please to Isaiah 6? In the first five chapters of this book, we have received a basic summary of the message that Isaiah preached throughout his entire ministry. He certainly had the privilege of proclaiming some amazing prophecies about the future, and that message of hope will be prominent in certain parts of this book. But by and large, Isaiah had to repeatedly warn his own people that they were not doing right. Very often, Isaiah had to be the bearer of bad news. So how did he keep going?

In chapter 6, Isaiah describes for us how his ministry got started in the first place. He tells of seeing a majestic vision of the Lord and the commission that he received from the lips of God. His vision can remind us of the gracious cleansing that we have received from God, and the great calling that accompanied it.

1. God’s gracious cleansing (vv. 1-7)

First of all, Isaiah tells us in v. 1 that his vision took place “in the year that King Uzziah died.” According to 2 Chronicles 26, Uzziah had two very distinct periods within his reign. He was king for 52 years—one of the longest reigns among the kings of Judah—and for many years at the first part of his reign, he was faithful to serve God. As a result, God blessed the kingdom greatly.

Unfortunately, all of this success went to Uzziah’s head, and one day he decided that he was going to go inside the Temple in Jerusalem to burn incense to God. That doesn’t sound like such a big deal until we realize that Uzziah wasn’t allowed to do this. According to God’s law, only the priests were allowed to go into the Temple building itself—everyone else could only come into the courtyard around the building. Not even the king was allowed past the courtyard, but Uzziah decided to do things his way, and as a result, God struck him with leprosy, which was a terrible skin disease. Lepers were not allowed to live among the rest of the people for fear that the disease would spread, so Uzziah spent the rest of his life living in solitude. He still retained the title of king, but his son Jotham actually led the nation.

Uzziah’s life was a living example—as clear as day—that God blesses obedience, and punishes disobedience. The people of Judah should have seen that lesson in the life of their own king, but by and large they failed to do so, so God wanted to prepare and commission Isaiah to send a message to them.

Let’s look at a few of the details of what Isaiah saw [READ vv. 1-2]. These seraphim are angels who are mentioned only here in the Bible. It is significant that even though the seraphim, as angels, are sinless beings who dwell in the presence of God, they still demonstrate tremendous humility by covering themselves. We should probably picture them with large wings, so that as they cover their face and feet, their wings are actually covering the entire front of their body.

We can see that they were engaged in worshipping God [READ v. 3]. These angels seem to have had a special fixation on the holiness of God. Holiness is the only trait or attribute of God that is emphasized in this way in the Bible. In Hebrew, repetition like this was used to emphasize an extreme example of something. We do something very similar in English. For example, if you said, “Pastor Tim’s sermon went on and on and on,” you’re saying that my sermon was extremely long.

Well, these angels were saying that God is extremely holy. Holiness is the foundational trait that lies behind everything that God is. Holiness is the idea that something is different—it is in a class all by itself. Thus, God is holy in His existence because He is the only uncreated being that exists. He is holy in the way He expresses love because His love is not tainted with selfishness the way that human love often is. He is holy with respect to sin because He is sinless and thus morally perfect.

Thus, to say that God is holy is about the most concise description of God that you can give, and yet that simple statement speaks volumes. Isaiah was deeply shaken by the stark moral difference that existed between him and the Lord [READ vv. 4-5]. In the previous chapter, Isaiah’s message included several statements of woe against the people for their sinful appetites and attitudes. But Isaiah’s ministry began with him saying, “Woe is me!” We cannot preach a message to others about turning from sin until we have acknowledged our own sin to God, and we must acknowledge that we are sinful at the core of our being. Isaiah states that he is a man of unclean lips, meaning that he had sinned through things that he had said. Jesus clarifies for us in Matthew 12 that our words flow out of our hearts, so sinful words simply reveal a sinful heart.

Isaiah also states that he dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips. We just learned that God is holy, that He is in a class by Himself, but Isaiah is saying, “I’m just like everyone else around me. I am not holy!” Are we not the same? God has angels as His companions, who cry out about how unique and incomparable He is, but we have other sinners as our companions, and we are right at home with them.

Isaiah’s response is the fitting and appropriate response to his own sinfulness in light of God’s holiness. Within his own capacities, he is hopeless, and he can expect nothing but doom. His only hope is for God to extend grace and mercy, which is precisely what we find in vv. 6-7 [READ vv. 6-7]. Notice that the visible symbol of God’s forgiveness is placed precisely at Isaiah’s point of need. He had said, “I am a man of unclean lips,” so the angel applied the symbol of forgiveness to his lips.

Isaiah was now cleansed from his sins by a merciful and gracious act of God. After he was confronted with the holiness of God, his response of confession was followed by an act of cleansing. He was now prepared to make another response, this time to…

2. God’s great calling (vv. 8-13)

In v. 8, God draws Isaiah into service through a simple question [READ v. 8]. Isaiah’s willingness is a great example for everyone who desires to serve the Lord. When we read about a command from God in the Bible, the only fitting response is willing obedience. Isaiah may have gotten a knot in his stomach, however, after he heard what he was supposed to say [READ vv. 9-10]. Now, this statement sounds very strange. Did God truly not want the people to repent? I think we can safely say that God certainly did want them to repent. In Ezekiel 33:11, God says, “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”

So if God wants people to repent, then why do we read a statement like this in v. 10? Well, what we are seeing is an example of a theme that runs throughout Scripture, namely, that God sometimes allows people to feel the full consequences of their sins in order to bring them to repentance. This is similar to what we do as parents when we allow our children to make a bad decision. Sometimes, we warn our children about a bad decision, and we warn them and warn them, but we hit that point where its obvious that they’re not going to listen to us. And so we let them go ahead and make a bad decision in the hopes that they will learn the hard way, since they have chosen not to learn the best way by listening to us.

On several occasions in Scripture, God allowed people to feel the full effects of their rejection of Him. One example of this comes from Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. When God began to send plagues against Egypt to convince Pharaoh to free the Jewish people from slavery, the story says after the first few plagues that Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to let the people go. However, with the latter plagues, the story says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to keep him from letting the people go. It’s like God was saying, “Okay, Pharaoh. It’s obvious what your choice is going to be. Now, you will have to see this through to the end. I’m going to give you the full taste of your consequences so you can see the error of your ways.”

We see the same reality played out in Romans 1. In that chapter, the apostle Paul says that nature itself teaches us about God, but rather than worship God, mankind has chosen to worship what God has created—like idols and animals and the moon and ultimately, ourselves. So as result, it says three times in that chapter that God has given mankind over to our sinful passions. He has allowed mankind to go ahead and pursue our sinful desires so we can feel the full brunt of our foolishness and thus come to our senses.

I believe that is precisely what God was referring to in Isaiah 6:9-10. The people had already rejected the message of several prophets before Isaiah, so Isaiah’s ministry would have a touch of irony to it—as God was reaching out through him, the very act of reaching out would only drive the people further away. God’s Word would inoculate the people to God’s grace. Isaiah’s ministry would be like a vaccine that would make the people resistant to the very message that he was preaching.

Isaiah goes on to ask a very understandable question in v. 11—“How long, O Lord?” The Lord goes on to tell him that the people would in fact have to face the full brunt of His discipline [READ vv. 11-13]. Verse 13 feels like a bit of a riddle, but it seems to be sounding a note of hope in the midst of judgment. It seems to be speaking of a remnant of people who would remain who would be holy—people who would be followers of God. This note of hope would leave Isaiah with some encouragement that the nation would grow once again.

Isaiah had a difficult task ahead of him, and I’m sure there were moments of discouragement and frustration. But Isaiah had this spectacular encounter with God to look back on; remembering this experience could keep Isaiah pressing on to faithfully proclaim God’s Word even if he saw little response.

So how about you and me? What can keep us going when we’re tired of battling our own sinful hearts; when we’re fed up with being ridiculed by others because of the message that we proclaim? We may have never had a visible encounter with God, but we have experience the same blessings that Isaiah received in his vision.

First, we have been the recipients of God’s gracious cleansing. He has removed from our shoulders the weight of sin that threatened to drag us down to hell. Jesus paid our incalculable debt of sin to set us free from the wrath of God that we rightfully deserved.

Have we forgotten about our debt? Have we forgotten just how hopeless our situation was? Have we forgotten the heart-cry that Isaiah uttered for us all—“woe is me!”? Doesn’t it give you a little bounce in your step when you think about the reality of your salvation? When you remember how God’s grace met you at the precise point of your need and cast all your sins into the depths of the sea? When the going gets tough, remember what got you going in the first place!

Second, we have all received God’s great calling as well. We don’t need an audible voice to tell us what to do today because we have God’s Word written down in the Bible. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are ambassadors for Christ. He has returned to heaven for the time being, and He has asked us to watch after the place while He is gone. We are His representatives in this world to tell our fellow sinners that God has offered us terms of peace, that God longs to be reconciled with them if they will just confess their rebellion and accept the payment that Jesus made for them through His death and resurrection. Each and every one of us has this calling from God to keep us going during the times of frustration and fear. When the going gets tough, remember what got you going in the first place!

God: The Wisest of the Wise--Proverbs series

According to the biblical record, King Solomon was the wisest and most powerful king of his time—perhaps of all time. We have this conclusion from no less an authority than God himself. Early in King Solomon’s reign, God appeared to him and basically gave him a blank check. He simply said to Solomon, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.” You may know this story already—Solomon decided to ask for wisdom, and in response God said, “Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days” (1 Kings 3:12–13).

We’ve been studying the words of this wise man for several months now in the book of Proverbs, and I think we certainly have seen some keen and penetrating insights into life. But perhaps the quality that truly made Solomon the wisest man around was that he acknowledged that God was even wiser! Solomon said this and more about God in the book of Proverbs, and today we’re going to study what this book teaches us about our Creator.

This subject is one that is of no small importance. Pastor A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Worship is pure or [impure] as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most [important] fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”1 If this is true, then let’s allow Proverbs to clarify our mental image of God today!

What does Proverbs teach us about God?

I. God Knows Our Actions And Attitudes

This is a lesson that we teach our youngest Sunday School kids, but a man as wise as Solomon felt it was important enough to mention. Look at Prov. 15:3 [READ 15:3]. Here we are told that God watches everyone and takes note of our actions. Notice something about God’s knowledge here—His knowledge is first-hand knowledge. He doesn’t have to rely on someone else to tell Him what is going on—He observes everything first-hand, so there’s no possibility that a messenger got the story wrong or that details were left out.

Compare this with the knowledge of someone like the President of the United States. Our president has a tremendous amount of information available to him, but that’s only because we have a network of people around the world that collect information for him. Ambassadors, spies, our government allies—all of these people make information available to him, but this is nothing like God’s knowledge. God doesn’t need anyone to inform Him of anything. As Paul wrote in Romans 11:34, “Who has been his counselor?”

But God not only knows our actions—He knows our attitudes as well. He not only has an external knowledge of us, but an internal knowledge as well. Let’s read Prov. 15:11 [READ 15:11]. These two words—Sheol and Abaddon—are simply Hebrew words spelled out in English letters. So the first part of what I just read from the English Standard Version isn’t actually a translation—they just brought the Hebrew words into English in order to leave the interpreting up to us. Now some translations say, “hell and destruction,” and others say, “death and destruction.” I think “death and destruction” would be more accurate because the idea of sheol is not exactly the same as the idea of hell; its basically the idea of the grave or the afterlife. The destruction mentioned here would probably refer to the decomposition of the physical body in the grave.

But the basic idea of this verse is very clear—if even the grave and the afterlife are known to God, then how much more does He know our hearts!

But apparently God doesn’t just know our hearts—it seems that He actually knows them better than we do! Turn to Prov. 21:2 [READ 21:2]. This verse touches on the potential that we have for deceiving ourselves. We can convince ourselves that we are right in basically any situation—even when we’re doing something sinful! We can convince ourselves that we have some kind of special exception in certain cases. We can justify virtually any kind of behavior, but God sees the reality of things. He understands our true motives when we may not even understand them. God revealed the same message to the prophet Jeremiah when He said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jer. 17:9–10).

The application that we should take from all of this has both a challenge and an encouragement to it. The challenge is that we must not think that we can hide anything from God. He knows us better than we know us, so how could we hide something from Him? The encouragement is to remember that God doesn’t miss anything that happens to us. If someone hurts us or robs us of justice, God knows! If we are dealing with fear or deep emotional wounds, God knows! He knows, and He is there for us.

But not only does God know all things…

II. God Is In Control Over All Things

We see a lot of turmoil and upheaval in our world right now, but be assured that our world does not operate by chance or simply by the whims of human beings. God, the Creator, is still in control over His creation. Look at Prov. 16:9 [READ 16:9]. Verses like this strike a blow at our pride, don’t they? Now, there’s nothing wrong with planning, but as the old poem says, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” and that’s because we’re not ultimately in control! We can make all the plans we want, and have every detail accounted for, but ultimately it is God who determines what actually happens. History has rightly been called “His-story,” because God is the author.

Now, common people like ourselves can certainly understand that we’re not in control, because we’re used to being effected by things that are out of our control—like the economy, or the weather, or international politics. But surely this lesson wouldn’t apply to a king, would it? Who has more control than a king? Well, let’s read Prov. 21:1 [READ 21:1]. I love the picture of ease that comes through in this verse. It’s like when you water your lawn. It’s not hard—you just turn the water on, and turn the water off, however you please. And if you want more water in a certain spot, you just move the sprinkler. Aside from maybe a little walking, its as easy as can be!

That’s what God’s control over the most powerful people in the world is like! Its not difficult for Him; its really very easy. He just directs their hearts any way He wants!

Now this lesson brings up all sorts of questions for us that we really cannot completely answer. Some of these are philosophical questions, like “How do our choices play into God’s control?” or “If God is in control, do we really determine our own destiny?” But some of these questions are much more personal and even painful, such as “If God is in control, why do bad things happen in my life?” As I said, I don’t think we have a complete answer for this question, but I do think that our next lesson gives us at least a partial answer.

III. God Works To Purify Our Hearts

One of the purposes behind everything that God allows is to remove the impurities of sin from our hearts. Notice what Prov. 17:3 has to say [READ 17:3]. You probably know that when silver and gold are mined out of the earth, they don’t come out of the ground ready to be formed into jewelry. Because of geological and chemical processes, they are often bonded with rock and other materials, so they are put through a refining process to separate the precious metals from everything else—to purify the silver and the gold and thus reveal their true beauty and quality.

According to Prov. 17:3, God puts our hearts through a similar process. The contamination of sin is thorough within our lives, so that even our hearts are corrupted. Thus, even our most noble and godly desires may be bonded together with impure motives, goals, or aspirations. And so as God sovereignly directs our lives, part of His design is to melt away these impurities that pollute our hearts.

This purifying process is what Paul had in mind in Romans 8:28 when he wrote, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” And the good result that Paul had in mind is defined in verse 29: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” There’s the goal; there’s the point of this whole process—that we might be conformed to the image of Christ, so that we can be faithful representatives for Him today and become joint-heirs with Him (Rom. 8:17) as servant-leaders in His coming kingdom on earth.

Now I do not mean to minimize the pain that any of you have endured through the circumstances of your life, because that pain is very real and it can be very intense. Let’s face it—when we talk about being purified by God and compare it to gold being melted in a furnace, that doesn’t sound entirely pleasant, does it? I’m sure if gold could talk, it would probably scream as its being refined. Sometimes that’s where we find ourselves—screaming and crying out to God to put an end to all the pain. But please remember the final product, my friends. If you allow God to purify you, you have that moment to look forward to when Jesus will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.” That’s why Paul could say, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16). Don’t lose hope as God shapes you to be more like His Son.

IV. God Desires Obedience From Us More Than Religious Formalities

One of the reasons that God purifies us is so that we will offer Him obedience from the heart rather than just go through the motions of religious activity. Turn with me to Prov. 21:3 [READ 21:3]. This verse expresses a consistent theme of the Old Testament—God certainly did want the people to offer sacrifices, but He wanted the worship that flowed from the people to be consistent with the rest of their lives. He wanted their obedience first and foremost, and then their worship was to be simply one more expression of a life of obedience.

It is far too easy to go through the motions of worshipping God and not follow through with a lifestyle of worship. In corners of the world like Montezuma, KS, we often find what we might simply call “countryanity.” Countryanity is the basic religious mindset in many rural areas. It embraces a strong tradition of going to church, but sometimes it means little more than that. We hear this loud and clear in a lot of country music. The basic religious worldview of country music sounds something like this: “Yeah, I may get drunk and chase cowgirls over at the honky-tonk on Saturday night, but I’m in the front row at church on Sunday morning singing old-time gospel hymns at the top of my lungs.” Well, I don’t think “hymns with a hangover” is quite what God desires from us. He’ll take the hymns, but the hangover He can do without. He is pleased with our worship when it flows from a life of faithfulness and obedience.

And in light of what we’ve learned about our God today, how can we give Him anything less? If we simply give the Lord half-hearted obedience and worship, who do we really think He is? Do we truly think of Him as the God who knows all things and controls all things and who works to purify us, or do we think of Him as some kind of optional accessory in our lives? To quote A. W. Tozer again, he said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” What does the direction of your life say about your mental image of God? We would be wise to take a cue from a man of wisdom like Solomon and make sure that we think of God the way He truly is—the King of all things, who works for our good and His glory.


1. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, (San Francisco CA, HarperSanFrancisco, 1961) Pg. 1. Updated wording in brackets is mine. The original words are “base” and “portentous.”