January 13, 2009

• God's Attributes

  From John MacArthur's series "God, Satan and Angels"

  

  God: Is He? Who Is He?

  The Bible says this about God in Psalm 90:2: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst form the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God."  It tells us that God is the only God, Thou art God. It tells us that God is the eternal God, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. It tells us that God is the creator God. Before the mountains were made, before You formed the earth and the world.

  That Psalm, written by Moses, expresses the character of God in contrast to the frailty of man. In Psalm 90:10 he makes the statement that man lives 70 years and if he's really strong he lives 80 years, but even after those 80 years he finds that his strength, his labor and sorrow, it is soon cut off and he says almost pensively, we fly away. He shows the frailty of man and the sinfulness of man and against that he shows the refuge, the security, the eternal character of God.

  In verse 1, for example, he says, "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." We've always found our refuge in You. We've always had to face our own inadequacies and our own frailties and we've always known that the only strength was Your strength. So we see God as the eternal one God, the creator God, the strength of His people.  That is God, basically.

  The question that comes to mind as we begin our look is the fact that some people say that Christians have simply invented this God. In fact, that everybody in the world who has religion has just postulated that religion or been victimized by some forefather who did when, in fact, there really is no supernatural at all.  Is the God that the Bible claims exists really in existence?

  Sigmund Freud said that man created God. Which, of course, is the reversal of what the Bible says, that God created man. Freud said in his book The Future of an Illusion, "Man so desperately needs security and because he has such deep-seated fears and because he lives in a threatening world in which he has very little control over his circumstances, he invented God to get him out when he needed something." And in his book The Future of an Illusion, Freud said that God was invented by man for three reasons.

  Reason number one, man fears the unpredictability, the impersonality and the ruthlessness of nature. In other words, he sees disease and famine and disasters and he knows that he hasn't got any defense against any of these things and so he postulates somebody somewhere who can deliver him.  When the lava starts pouring down the hillsides there's no way out and so immediately he has only one thing and that is to look to a sort of a supernatural superhuman skyhook to get him out.  So Freud says he invents God. The second thing that Freud said caused man to invent God was that man is afraid because of his relationships to his fellow man.  Because man so very often feels that he always gets a raw deal from everybody else, he wants to postulate a sort of a divine umpire, a sort of a cosmic God with a super whistle who ultimately can stop play and give everybody what they deserve. Somebody who's going to make it right, even if you haven't been getting it right on the way. Freud thirdly said that man has invented God because he's afraid of death and extinction, so he wants to find a heavenly Father, a happy person somewhere who will take him to a happy place, because he can't stand the fact that he would go out of existence.  And so he postulates heaven.

  Now that is Freud's view of God. There is no God except in the figment of man's imagination. There is no proof for that.  That was spawned out of his own corrupted mind as were all of the other things that he generated. There isn't any proof for that whatsoever. It's totally indefensible. And yet there have been myriads of people who have believed it. It even shows a rather simplistic, ignorant view of religion. For if you really examine religion, you'll find out that when man does manufacture a god, he very rarely is a delivering god. He is usually an oppressive god which continually has to be appeased.  Have you ever noticed that?

  I would rather disagree with Freud and postulate the very opposite, and offer this for your thinking. I believe that man has not made God. but, in fact, if man had his way he would rather that God did not exist, he would rather eliminate God. In fact' if you really study history you'll find that man either philosophically or pragmatically, exists without God. He does the very best he can to eliminate God. He even comes up with theology that says God is dead. And even the people who can't cope philosophically with no God live as if there wasn't any.

  For example, you go back to the garden and the first thing that happens in the garden that we know about, apart from walking and talking with God, was sin. Right? Adam and Eve fell. What is the very first thing they did immediately after they fell? Immediately Adam and Eve hid themselves from whom?  From God. They began to wish that God didn't exist and that has been a constant thing with men throughout history.

  Romans 1 tells us that God exists and that men know that God exists in their heart. "That which is known of God is in them." And it says in verse 20, "They knew God." Verse 2l, "They knew God." Romans 1:28, "But they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." Have you ever read that? Man has not made God, man has wished God not to exist. And so I would say that Freud is dead wrong. Man has not invented God. And let me add this. Where men have invented gods, where men in false religions have invented gods, they are not super-protector gods, they are gods that men fear.

  The evidence is pretty clear that God exists. I don't think that you can just strike aside all evidence and postulate no God and then invent a theory like man making God without really ignoring some very startling truth. Theologians have cataloged the reasons we believe in God in many ways. One such catalog, I'll just list for you, I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but theologians say there are many reasons why we believe in God.  And they can't prove God but they can certainly show us that there's more reason to believe in God than reason not to believe in Him. 

  As Christians we accept one big miracle - God - and everything else makes sense. An atheist denies God and has to have a miracle for every other thing.  What theologians call a teleological argument comes from the Greek word teleios which means perfection, or result, or end, or finish. We look at something that is perfected, or finished, or done and we say it's a design and it must have had a designer. You can take your watch apart and put all the pieces in your pocket and shake your leg a long time before you'll hear a tick. You know, when you're going to have something that works, somebody made it work. You see a piano you don't assume there was a...you know, an elephant that ran into a tree and a guy sitting in the tree playing a harp and it all fell together and there it is...the whole thing, ivory, wood and strings. Ridiculous....absurd. Design implies a designer.

  The second argument used for God's existence is the ontological argument. Ontos is a Greek participle referring to the verb - to be - the being of God.  The very fact that man can conceive of God in the terms that are truly God's character, indicates He exists.

  A third argument for God is from aesthetics. People say because there is beauty and because there is truth there has to be somewhere in the universe the standard on which beauty and truth are based.

  There is the volitional argument. Because man faces a myriad of choices, because man has a volition to make those choices, because there is an ability for a man to express an individual will, there must be somewhere an infinite will.  And the world must be as it is, the expression of that will.

  Then there is the argument from morality. The very fact that we know there is right and wrong suggests the necessity of an absolute standard. And if there is a standard then we better find out from that standard what else is right and what else is wrong.

  Then there is the argument from cosmology, the argument of cause and effect. You see, there's only two views of the universe, either God is, and that makes sense' or God is not, and then we've got some problems. For example, the equation of God is not is - nobody times nothing equals everything.  That's a little difficult to believe. You look at the universe - say, nobody times nothing equals everything. The other possibility is - somebody times something out of nothing equals everything.  And that makes sense. You see, cosmology is the argument from cause and effect, kosmos, the world...the effect, the universe.  We look at it and we say somebody made it. And as we define the world we learn more about the one who made it.

  For example:  The cause of perpetual motion must be powerful. The cause of complexity must be omniscient.  The cause of consciousness must be personal. The cause of feeling must be emotional. The cause of will must be volitional. The cause of ethical values must be moral. The cause of religious values must be spiritual. The cause of beauty must himself be aesthetic. The cause of righteousness must be holy. The cause of justice must be just. The cause of love must be loving. The cause of life must be living.

  All you need to do is look at what we have in the world and look at it carefully and you'll see that there must be a God who is infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, personal, emotional, volitional, moral, spiritual, aesthetic, holy, just, loving and living. It's all there. And you pick up the Bible and the Bible substantiates every bit of that.  God is.

  For a man to believe that God is not, he'd have to be ignorant. No, the Bible says it clearly in Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1, "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." That's a foolish statement. But not only am I convinced that God is...because I have no other way to explain anything...but I'm convinced that God is because I need Him so badly. You know, it's like the atheist who finally wound up in a terrible position, he began to call out to God. Somebody said to him - What are you doing calling on God? He said - Well, if there isn't a God there ought to be for times like this. You know, one of the most convincing things in my mind that God exists is because of my tremendous desire to know that He exists because I look at people who deny that He exists and I see the kind of life they live. You know, to study history and catalog all the well-known philosophical atheists and then to watch how their lives wound down to the end is one of the most interesting things you'll ever study. Those were the most bleak, hopeless, fearful men that you could ever read about.

  Voltaire, he said this at the end of his life: "Strike out a few sages (or wise men) and the crowd of human beings is nothing but a horrible assemblage of unfortunate criminals and the globe contains nothing but corpses.  I tremble to have to complain once more of the being of beings and casting an eye over this terrible picture. I wish I had never been born."

  H.G. Wells, another atheist, said: "There is no way out or around or through, it is the end."

  Mark Twain said this: "A myriad of men are born, they labor and sweat and struggle for bread. They squabble and scold and fight. They scramble for little mean advantages over each other.  Age creeps upon them. Infirmities follow. Shames and humiliations bring down their prides and their vanities. Those they love are taken from them and the joy of life has turned to aching grief.  The burden of pain and care and misery grows heavier year by year.  At length, ambition is dead. Pride is dead. Vanity is dead.  Longing for release is in their place. It comes at last. Death, the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them. And they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, where they achieved nothing, where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness, where they have left no sign that they have existed, a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever. And then another myriad takes their place and copies all they did and goes along the same profitless road and vanishes as they vanished to make room for another and another and millions of myriads to follow the same arid path through the same desert and accomplish what the first myriad and all the myriads that came after it accomplished...nothing." 

  Bertrand Russell, "That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms, that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave, that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noon day brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.  All these things if not quite beyond dispute are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand."

  Pretty bleak life, isn't it? All the evidence says God is...and any desperate man would certainly seek to know the truth if he knew that if he didn't know God he'd end up like this.

  The consequences of faith in God are bright. The psalmist said: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for Thou art with me."

  So, I say, in Christianity we accept one big miracle - God.  And everything makes sense. You deny that one big miracle and nothing makes sense. God is.

  Who is this God? God is a person.  Personality must come from personality. And we are persons and we have all of those personal things that make up personhood and they must have come from a source that is equally personal. We know God is personal from the Bible because it says He is a person, because it uses personal titles to describe Him. He is given personal names. He is called, for example, a Father. He is called a Shepherd. He is called many things; a friend, a counselor. The terms that are used to identify God are identifying Him as a person. Personal pronouns are used. The Hebrew and the Greek always refers to God as He, never it. God is a person. He is a person because He thinks and acts and feels and speaks. He communicates. That is a characteristic of personhood. All the evidence of Scripture indicates that He is a person. And all the evidence of creation and our personhood indicates that we came from such a person.

  How do we define His person? We define it in those three terms. Number one, He is spirit. God is a spirit. God is not a man, it says in the Old Testament. God is not a man, Numbers 2S:ig.  God is a spirit. And in John 4:24, Jesus said: "God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." God is a spirit. "A spirit," said Jesus in Luke 24:3, "has not flesh and bones." God is not a body.

  You say - But the Bible says - His eyes go to and fro throughout the earth. His arm is not shortened that He cannot heal. His right arm is a mighty arm. Yes, but that's what we call anthropomorphisms, terms used to speak of God in the body of a man, as if God were a man. Why? Because if it said - God looks around the earth with his glirp...you don't understand that so there's no sense in saying it. When you say - God hears - you immediately assume an ear, because that's all you know. So you think of God in human term. The Bible simply accommodates that. But don't push it and make God a man, like some of the cults have done. You have a lot of problems with that. Did you know that some places in the Bible talks about God's feathers covering you. God is not a bird either. God is not a man, God is a spirit.

  He is spoken of in I Timothy 1:17 as being the invisible God. No man will ever see God. No man ever has seen God. In order for you to see God you'd have to be God. "And no man can see Me and live." No man can ever ascend to the level of visually seeing God. Now God represents Himself in the Shekinah glory of the Old Testament, in the light, in the fire.  God represents Himself in the form of Jesus Christ in the world and we see Christ. And Jesus said: "If you've seen Me, that's as close as you're going to get," John l4. We'll not see God because God can't be seen, He's invisible. He may choose to manifest Himself in some way, limiting His total person to some visible thing and in so doing reveal Himself, but that is not the totality of God. God is spirit. I'm glad He's spirit because He's omnipresent spirit as well.  

  Number two, He is one. God is one. And there are not a lot of gods. Did you know that?  There's only one God, that's all, just one. "Hear, O Israel."  Deuteronomy 6:4, great statement that the key to the...the key to everything, really, for a Jew, "the Lord our God is one Lord." That's it. They were living in the midst of a...of a polytheistic society, multiplicities of gods and they were saying - there is only one God. You say - Yeah, but what about Jesus? He came along later and He claimed to be God, is He God number two? There are at least two. No.

  Mark, chapter 12, I'll show you something very interesting. I want to show you something about how Jesus saw Himself in terms of the concept of one God. "And Jesus answered," Mark 12:29, this is what He said: "The first of all the commandments is this," and He reiterates it, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and all thy strength." Now listen to me, if Jesus was coming along as some say and was saying in addition to God-God there is Jesus- God, We are both God...then He would never have said this: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." And then He followed it by saying: "Love Him with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind." If Jesus was equally comparing Himself and saying - I am another God...He would have had to say - Split your allegiance between the two of us.  When He says love God with everything He is saying He's the only one there is. And the same time He is claiming to be that very God.  Do you see? Great statement of His own deity and yet even saying that He is God, He is saying at the same time - though there are two persons, there is one God. And you can give your total allegiance to that one God. That's why He says all your heart and mind and strength and everything because there's only one God. There isn't any competition, you don't need to divide your allegiance. That's the potency of the passage. God is one.

  Over in I Corinthians chapter 8, Paul was solving another one of the Corinthian problems and they had a problem because they were living in a pagan society where there were a lot of gods.  There were all idols everywhere. And the people would do this, they would offer offerings to their gods and commonly they would offer food. You want to go down and worship whatever god you wanted. You'd go down, you'd take a little pile of food and you'd go in there to your temple and you'd plunk your little deal down in front of your god. Of course, nobody was home but you didn't know that. And you'd put your food there.  Well, after you put your food there, it wouldn't just stay there, the priests who operated the little place where you were would come out and take your food away and they'd haul it out the back and they had a little market. Now they were selling the food.  Why not? Make a buck. People get to worship, we get to make a little profit, keep the thing going.

  So, they'd go right out the back and sell the stuff you'd brought. Well what happened was, the Christians would go downtown, they'd be looking for a good bargain, they'd find a deal and they'd buy the food. Well, it happened they were buying it out of the market coming out of the backside of the temple.  So some of the Christians were getting very uptight about other Christians eating food offered to idols. And they'd go over for a little dinner and they'd say - Where did you get the food?  Well, we got it at the....... Oh, I'm not eating that...that was offered to idols. There were all kinds of problems going on in terms of their fellowship. So Paul is writing here to tell them what to do about this matter.

  Verse 4, I Corinthians 8: "As concerning therefore the eating of those things which are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world." Now that's his whole point.  An idol isn't anything, live it up. If it's the best bargain in town get it. Eat it up. It isn't going to make a bit of difference.  There's nothing there anyway. An idol is nothing.

  Look at the end of verse 4, "And that there is no other God but one." That's it...just one. "And though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or earth, for there are gods many and lords many, to us there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things and we in Him." Now listen to this, "And one Lord Jesus Christ."  You say - Well, now wait a minute. You've got one and one, that equals....two. No, no, listen, there's one God, the Father of whom are all things and we in Him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by Him. How can all things be by God the Father, and all things be by the Lord Jesus and we be by God and we be by the Lord Jesus unless They're both the same? You see, another claim to the absolute deity of Jesus Christ without dividing God into two parts. God is one. God is one. First Timothy 2:5 is the same thing. There's one God, that's all, one God, not a lot. Now you can simplify your religious life, folks, there's only one God.

  Three, and it's fitting that this be number three, God has three persons. God is a spirit. God is one. God is three.  Now people always say - Well, you can't prove the trinity. Well, the simplest way to prove the trinity is just to read the Bible from the beginning to the end. You always come up with the same three persons operating. It's a total thing. But just to show you some verses that are very interesting; Genesis l says, "In the beginning, God," and the word for God is Elohim and anytime there's an im i-m ending on the end of a Hebrew word it's a plural.  It's like s in English...dogs, cats, etc. It's plural..im is plural. In the beginning. Gods...plural. And yet it's a singular concept...God who is seen in a plural way. So even the trinity is introduced at the very start.

  In Matthew chapter 3, Jesus is being baptized. And the Bible says that Jesus was being baptized, the Holy Spirit descended as a dove, the Father said, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all together, same scene, same passage. John 14, Jesus says: "I'm going to go, I'm going to talk to the Father, He's going to send the Holy Spirit," all three in the same passage, John 14:16-17.

  In I Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul talks about spiritual gifts. He says, "There are different ways the Spirit works. There are different ministries the Lord uses. But it's the same God." Three verses, all three members of the trinity mentioned again. Have you read the end of II Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of God, the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen "? All three in the same verse. And I'm thinking too, I Peter 1:2, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience in sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."  All three in the same verse.

  That's just a scattering of what's in the Bible. God is one, yet He is three. You say - Well, how does that work together?  I haven't got the faintest idea. And this whole message as compared to the true reality of God is like one pebble of sand compared to every piece in the universe. I can't figure God out. Let it be. Just believe it. God is one, yet He is three. And I don't mean in saying that He's three that that's like modalistic Monarchianism or Sabelianism,which was an old heresy that said God was really a quick-change artist. That God had a closet and He'd just..you know...He'd come out and do His God thing - da-da - and then He'd run back in and put on His...put on His Holy Spirit suit and He'd run out and do that bit for awhile and then He'd run back in... That's really what they were saying. No. God is one and yet He is three at the very same time.  And people say - Well, it's like an egg; the yolk, and the white and the shell. Oh, that doesn't make it...to me, I...I can't compare God to an egg. Other people say it's like water that's got...it can be ice, or liquid, or vapor...that doesn't make it either. It's not like anything, people, it isn't like anything at all. Some people say it's like light, it can illuminate, or it can warm, and it can produce energy. God is just God and there's not a light bulb in the world or an egg in the world or a chunk of water like Him. He's God. And He's three in one. I don't understand it.  I believe it. And I'm glad I don't understand it. The day I understand God I'll be equal to God and when that happens everybody's in a lot of trouble.

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  What is God like?

  What is this God like? He is unchangeable.  In Psalm 102:26 he says: "The heavens are going to change and You will change them but You are the same." God never changes.  In Malachi 3:6 He looks down at Jacob and He says: "Jacob, I ought to destroy you, but I'm not going to destroy you because I am the Lord, I change not. I keep My covenants." I am the Lord, I change not. James says: "Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights in whom is no variableness, not even a shadow of turning." Not even a hint that He would alter. God doesn't change. There's only one thing in the universe that doesn't change - that's God.

  What does it mean to me as a Christian that He doesn't change?  It means comfort. Listen, if ever He loved me, He loves me forever.  If ever He forgave me, He forgave me forever. If ever He saved me, He saved me forever. If ever He promised me anything, He promised it to me forever. "My God is not slack concerning His promise."  Romans 11 says, "The callings of God are without repentance."  God doesn't change His mind. Aren't you glad about that? And He may look at me and say - MacArthur, I ought to really wipe you out, but I am the Lord, I change not. And it says in one of the most powerful portions of Scripture, and I don't know whether you're familiar with it, but I'm going to take the minute to just read you this thought. If we believe not, II Timothy 2:13, yet He abides faithful, He can't deny Himself.

  Do you know what your salvation and security is based on? What's it based on? God's unchanging character...God's absolute nature. Jeremiah Si:3 says this: "I have loved you with an everlasting love," If ever He loved you, He loved you forever.  The mountains shall be removed, said Isaiah, but My loving kindness shall not depart from thee, neither the covenant of My peace be removed. "My counsel shall stand," Isaiah 46:10 says.  Isn't it paradoxical that in order for us to be rightly related to an unchanging God we have to undergo a drastic change?  In order to be rightly related to an unchanging God we have to undergo a drastic change. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born all over again."

  You say - Well, MacArthur, you have bypassed several scriptures.  There's one there in Amos chapter 7. There's one there in Genesis 6:6 There's one there in Jonah 3:10. And they say, "It repented the Lord that He did this." That's right. But it says in Numbers 23:19, "Ah, the Lord is not a man that He should repent." Now how can it say the Lord doesn't repent, and then three times He did? Well, you have to understand the situation. And it's unfair to just lump that all together without seeing the situation. God doesn't change, listen to this, God doesn't change. That's clear.  He never changes. God never changes His will, however, within His will He may will a change under certain circumstances.  When the Bible says God repented, it doesn't mean that God said - Oh, I think I made a mistake, I'll do it another way.  It means God altered what He had already been required to do because of how they were behaving and He turned to do what He was then free to do because how they altered their behavior.  But His will never changed, His will was always the same...punish evil, and reward good.

  I belong to Him and He's going to take care of me.  Ii He ever promised me a promise, He promised it to me forever.  If it says - My God shall supply all your needs...that doesn't mean that He ran out of stuff in 1950 and now He's got problems.  That's good for everybody for all time. I'm secure in that, aren't you?

  What does it mean to an unbeliever? If God said a soul that sins will die, He meant it. If God said the wages of sin is death, He meant it. If God said there is an eternal hell.  He meant it. And if that's what He says now, that's what He said in the past, that's exactly what's going to come to pass. The Bible says in Psalm 119:89, "Forever," how long? "Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven forever." God never changes.  For some of us that's ecstatic joy. For others of us it ought to be fear.

  A second attribute of God is that He is everywhere at all times. Theologians call this omnipresence. God is everywhere at the same time. God is infinite. There is no end to God. His being fills all of endless infinity.  Jeremiah 23:24, he says: "Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?" First Kings 8:27, "Will God dwell on earth? Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee." Then Solomon said ‑ How much less this house that I built. As God is before all things eternal and after all things eternal, He is within all things and without all things. He is everywhere. No limits. God is infinite. You can't find the end of God. There is no end. He has no limits. He is not limited to places or buildings.  The symbol of God's presence is never the prison of His essence.  Some think that God lives in heaven and that's where He is confined, that God is sort of up there and, you know, when you think of God you think of a puffy place with a big bright throne and sort of a foggy thing sitting there and we imagine God way off somewhere in celestial palace and...He's everywhere.

  God is everywhere. Now, doesn't this make some problems? It does and I want to answer those problems. Number one, if He's everywhere then He's impure because He's defiled by the things that are impure that are touching Him. If God is in the world then He's being touched by impurity. I would say this in answer to that, God is in all places and in everything.  He is in the heart of a sinner by inspection and conviction. He is in hell by his acts of judgment for it is He who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. His essence is everywhere but it never mingles with any impurity. If you want an illustration, God is like the sun's rays. The sunbeam may fall on a manure pile in a field but that manure pile never ever lays any of its corruption on that sunbeam. That's the same with God. God is the essence of who He is, He is unmixed His own with anything. And nothing defiles Him. He is His own antidote against evil. Illustration: Jesus came into the world, walked through the world, and when He was all done it was said of Him. "That in Him there was no sin." He was among men and yet totally undefiled by them. And God is as Jesus was, as a sunbeam is, it can touch anything and be undefiled by it.

  If God is everywhere all the time then how come the Bible says that He is either nearer to someone or far from someone? And you know, it does say that. In fact, it says in Isaiah 55:6 that He's near the ungodly. And elsewhere in the Old Testament regarding Israel ‑ that He's far from them.  So, how is it that He's near and far? Well, you have to think of God in terms of two words: essence and relation. God is everywhere in His essence but is specially certain places relationally.

  In other words, God's presence is there, essentially, in essence. But only in the godly is He there relationally. And isn't it true that the New Testament tells us this? Don't we find that when we become a Christian, Christ is in us?  In Ephesians 5 it says the Spirit fills us with His fullness  Christ in you, Colossians, the hope of glory.  When God comes to dwell in us relationally, that's different than Him being in us essentially, or in His essence. But, you had to be there in His essence before He could be there relationally, because He had to do some convicting work, and some saving work.

  Now, people, when you think that God is everywhere, that is a staggering, staggering thought. And He is unmixed with anything.  Nothing corrupts Him. Nothing touches Him to change His character in any way at all. God made His creation. God mingles in His creation, absolutely unaffected by it.

  What does it mean to me as a Christian to know 1hat God is always present in my life? Always there...essentially and particularly to me relationally? Number one, it means comfort. When I stop to think that God is always there, that's a very comforting thing. It doesn't matter what I'm going through, God is there.  And it doesn't matter whether I realize He's there or not, He's there. And I know there are times in our lives when we may cry out and say, "God, where are You, You seem so far away." He's no further away than He's ever been. He's always there. He said, "I will never," Hebrews 13, "leave you, nor forsake you."  If God said that, that's what He meant, because He can't lie.  God never leaves us.

  In Philippians 4:5-6 says: "The Lord is at hand, be anxious for nothing." Don't worry, He's there. That's what it means. It's not talking about the second coming, it's talking about Christ being there, God being there, the Lord being there. He's there all the time. This is His character.  Can a Christian be separated from God? No. Nobody in the universe can be separated from God essentially, and a believer could not be separated relationally. He is always there.

  Second, not only comfort, but support. You know, when God called Moses to be the prophet that He wanted him to be and to go and proclaim His message and get Israel out of bondage, Moses said to God in Exodus 4, "But I have a speech problem, I can't talk." And God said "I will be with your mouth." Isn't that terrific?  It means that He's there in support of our service.  Listen to this, we all know Matthew 28 where He says: "And lo, I am with you always." Do you know what that is in reference to?  Listen, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize and lo, I am with you always." Not for comfort in that portion, but for support in service.

  And thirdly, this is a shield against temptation. You know, anytime Satan wants to get to me he's got to go through God? In I Corinthians 10:13, it says: "There is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." The point is, God says that nothing will ever come to you that I will not give you the strength to resist. And. people, that's different for every believer, because every believer is at a different level of maturity and different temptations will have different results. What would cause somebody else to crumble, you may be able to handle. But at every individual level God is there to defend that believer against something he couldn't handle.

  Fourthly, the doctrine of omnipresence is a motivator to holiness. To know God is present always is to know that everything we do we do in His presence.  When you sin, whether it's a sin of thought, or a sin of word, or a sin of act, is done in the presence of God.  Whenever you sin it is as if you ascended the clouds, walked into the throne room of God, walked up to the foot of the throne of God and performed your sin right there. You see, you're doing what you do in the presence of God. David's integrity in his life, when he finally got it straightened out, was based on the statement: "All my ways are before Him." I can't do this. He's there. See. Job...what was the basis of his integrity? Job 31:4, "Does He not see my ways?" God sees it all. My integrity is based on the fact that everything I do I do in His face. That's what Proverbs means when it says: "In all thy ways, acknowledge Him."  In other words, in everything you do, realize He is there and that alone will take over the direction of your paths.

  To believers, then, the doctrine of omnipresence is extremely important. To an unbeliever it is also important to understand that God is everywhere. In Psalm 21:8 it says: "Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies." A man who is an evil man has no hiding place. There is no escape. Amos 9:2, "Though they dig into Sheol there shall Mine hand take them." That's the grave.  "Though they climb to heaven, from there will I bring them down.  Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I'll search and take them from there. Though they be hidden from My sight in the bottom of the sea, there will I command the serpent and he shall bite them. Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword and it shall slay them for I will set Mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good." In Obadiah verse 4: "Thou shalt exalt thyself like the eagle,  though thou set thy nest among the stars, from there will I bring thee down." There is no place to hide. And the ungodly man must realize that no matter how he tries, no matter how he runs, he may decide he doesn't want to go to church, he doesn't want to read the Bible, he wants to avoid any religious discussion, he wants to put God out of his mind, he may not think about God but God has His thoughts centered on him.

  The thief steals because he thinks no one sees. The adulterer commits adultery because he thinks no one sees.  The liar lies because he thinks no one finds out. God knows.  Just because God is invisible doesn't mean He isn't there. God never slumbers and never sleeps.

  In Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 13, a very poignant statement.  "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Everything is seen by God. Isaiah 65:12, "You did evil before My eyes."  Proverbs 15:3 "The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good." God knows everything. He's everywhere. God is unchanging and God is everywhere.

  Thirdly, God is all powerful. There is nothing He can't do.  He has no bounds to His energy. Job 9:19 says: "If I speak of strength, Lo, Thou art strong." God is called El Shaddai, El is the name of God, Shaddai means almighty, the Almighty God.  Revelation 19:6 "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." He is powerful. He is strong. The psalmist said: "power belongs unto the Lord."

  He can do anything as easily as He can do anything else.  It is no more difficult, it is no more difficult for God to create a universe than to make a butterfly.  He can do anything and He can do anything as easily as He can do anything else.  It doesn't take Him any effort to do anything.  God never needs to be replenished.  There is no source of replenishing God.  Where would He go?  He's already everywhere.  There's nothing outside of God.  Isaiah 40:28 "The Lord is never weary." There is no dissipation of energy. So the Lord can do anything and He can do anything as well as He can do and as easily as He can do anything else.

  He can do anything He wants to do.  He not only has the power but He has the authority, not only to do anything, but to do anything He wants to do. You see, built into power like that is authority to use it. Mark this ‑ God's power, God's authority and God's will are all equal to His nature. God can do anything. He can do anything by power and by right and He will do anything by power and by right that He wills to do and He will only will to do things consistent with Himself. That's why, for example, He can't lie.  He can't tolerate sin. He can't cherish an impenitent sinner.  He can't punish an innocent. He can't do anything that violates His essence because His will is always consistent with His essence.  Psalm 1l5:3 says: "Our Lord is in heaven, He does whatever He pleases."

  People sometimes ask you the question, "Why did God do this?"  And often I've said, "Because He wanted to."  And people say, "Well, that isn't a sufficient answer."  That's because you don't understand God. God can do anything He wants. And in Romans Paul says, "What are you?"  The pot going to jump up and ask the potter why he made you that way? That's the potter's right. Don't question God. God can do anything and He can do anything as easily as He can do anything else and He can do anything He wants. But He only wants to do what's consistent with His nature and He never violates His nature ever. He can't lie...can't love sin...can't violate His word...can't forget what He's done. And the will of God is only that which is worthy of His person. God is powerful.

  There are four areas where we see God's power. Number one is creation.  Now the Bible tells us that He spoke and it was done. Psalms 33:6: "He spoke and it was done." He commanded and they were created.  He did it without any advice. No one helped Him. Isaiah 44:24  "He stretched the heavens alone and He spread out the earth by Himself." He willed them and they existed at the instant that He willed them.  Romans 4:17 "He calls the thing which are not as if they were." And once He does ‑ they are. His power is seen in creation.

  His power is seen in preservation.  Hebrews 1:3: "He upholds all things by the word of His power."

  God's power is seen in redemption.  You know, and maybe even more power in redemption than creation because in creation there was no opposition...no devil to be subdued, no death to be conquered, no sin to be pardoned, rooted out, no hell to be shut, no death on the cross to be suffered. That was creation, but in redemption all of that struggle, the great display of power on the cross as Christ died and redeemed men to Himself, and then what makes it startling is God called to Himself a whole bunch of nobodies and made them confound the mighty, didn't He? Read I Corinthians l and 2, God took not many mighty, not many noble, just the common folks and set them out against the world and by the time you get into the first few chapters of Acts, they've turned the world upside down. That's God's power‑‑redeeming, saving power.

  God's power is visible in His ability to raise the dead. Do you realize that God has so much power that someday at the end of the age God is going to raise from the dead every human being that ever lived...righteous and unrighteous? You say, "Well, I knew that believers were going to be raised but is it true the unrighteous?" John 5:28 speaks of the resurrection unto life and the resurrection unto damnation. Read Revelation, where you find that the great white throne judgment, all the ungodly are brought before Him, chapter 20.

  God is all powerful but what does that mean to the Christian?  Number one, is a basis of our worship.  II Kings l7:36  "But the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, Him shall you fear and Him shall you worship." We come together and praise God because of His mighty power...there's none like Him.

  Second, the power of God is a basis of daily confidence, daily trust.  Philippians 4:13 says: "You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, who powers you." Because of His power we walk day to day in confidence. We are filled with the fullness of God, Ephesians 3:19-20 says, we are able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think according to the power that works in us. God's power becomes the basis of our daily lives.

  Then also the basis of our resurrection hope. As a Christian I look forward to rising from the dead. And I figure if I don't go in the rapture I've got pretty good chance of dying...a 100% guarantee I'm going to die. And I'm also hoping that I'm going to be resurrected. Well then, what is my confidence?  You go to I Corinthians 15 and, you know, my confidence for resurrection is based on the power of God. "Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept." And in verse 52: "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed." How so?  It is God who gives us this victory. The power of God is the basis of our worship, the basis of our daily strength, the basis of our resurrection hope for the future.

  Additionally, it is the basis of our comfort. And whenever I worry about my problems, I remember my God and I realize that there's nothing that I've got that's too hard for Him to handle.  Psalm 121, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord." The next statement is the key to the whole thing. "Who made heaven and earth."

  The doctrine of God's power is the basis of our victory. In Ephesians chapter 6 it says: "Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might." If you're going to fight the enemy you have His strength to do it. When the adversary comes and you're on guard, you don't fight the enemy.  You go tell the commander, he fights for you. The basis of victory is the fact that He's powerful. "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." Satan's an amazing being and he's very, very powerful but you know something?  He's under my feet, right where he belongs...right where God's put him. The victory is mine in Christ...tremendous power is available to me.

  The doctrine of God's power is the basis of assurance. God's just powerful enough to keep me. And the only person who could take me out of the hand of God would be somebody more powerful than Him...and there isn't anybody.  John 10:29 "I give them eternal life...they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." Why? "My Father who gave them to Me is greater than all and nobody's able to pluck them out of My Father's hand." There is no more powerful being in existence than God and when God's holding something you don't get it away from Him.  In Romans chapter 8 you find the same thing: "Who shall lay any charge to God's elect? Who's going to separate us from the love of Christ?" And he names all those things: principalities, angels and everything possible... Nothing. God is all powerful. The basis of my assurance is the power, the absolute total power of God.  In II Timothy 1:12 Paul said: "I'm not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed Him against that day." The confidence came, you see, in the knowledge that God was powerful.

  The doctrine of omnipotence is the basis of humility. It's really pretty easy to be proud if you don't think about God. As soon as you start thinking about God you realize you're nothing.  In I Peter 5:6 it says this: "Humble yourselves' therefore, under the mighty hand of God." Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. And the result is that He will exalt you. Why should I humble myself? Realizing the might and power of God. God's power is the basis of my humility, realizing I'm nothing...I could be nothing...I could accomplish nothing...I can do nothing apart from Him.

  What about the non‑believer? I Corinthians l0:22, "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?" Are you trying to make God jealous? Because if you are you better think of this question, Are we stronger than He? In other words, if God is jealous. and He gets jealous when you don't worship Him, you better be stronger than He is because He's going to fight against you. What is this saying to an ungodly person? When you don't worship God, God gets jealous. And when God gets jealous God fights against those He's jealous regarding. And when He fights against somebody, He wins because He's omnipotent. It's a tragic thing to realize that men in this world who do not know God, who do not worship God, who do not love Christ are being attacked ultimately in judgment by God who is omnipotent. And unless they are stronger than God they have no defense. And, believe me, you have no defense...for no man is stronger than God, who made him.  Job 9:4  "He is wise at heart and mighty in strength. Who hath hardened himself against Him and prospered?" Nobody.

  In II Thessalonians 1:7 it says: "And to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." For those who know not God and obey not the gospel, God is going to unleash His judgment power. A fearful thing to think of. No wonder the writer of Hebrews said, chapter 10, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

  We're telling you these things about God because this is God's nature and this is what He has revealed to us. We want you to believe in God and we want you to believe in the God who is God. Let me say this in conclusion. Did you notice that the same truths about God in all instances have two different results? To know that God is unchangeable, everywhere, all powerful is to a Christian bliss. Right? Joy. But to an unbeliever the very same thing is fear. You see, the issue isn't the character of God, the character of God is established. The issue is you. A man who smashes himself against God continually trying to live the way he wants to live no matter what God is like is a fool. God is who He is. God does what He does. And you have to get in line with it.

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  God: What Is He Like? Pt. 2

  Selected Scriptures

   

  To know God and all that God has revealed about Himself is the highest pursuit of life. Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." A man never even starts being wise till he knows God. A man never gains any understanding until he has the knowledge of the holy. To know God is the highest pursuit of a man's life. In John l7 our Lord in His high priestly prayer made the statement that He had come to give eternal life and that eternal life was to know Thee, the only true God. To know God is the highest goal of a man's life, for that Jesus came into the world that we might know God. That's a synonym for eternal life. People often ask what eternal life is, it's simply to know God, to know Him intimately and to partake of His very nature and life.

  The wisest man who ever lived got some good instruction from a man who gave evidence, sometimes, of not being very wise, and that was David giving instruction to Solomon. Sometimes what David said was very wise. In I Chronicles 28 David told his son, "And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind." And when you know Him, serve Him...willingly with a perfect heart, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek Him He will be found by thee, but if you forsake Him He will cast you off forever. Peter said, "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In II Thessalonians 1:8 it says that the Lord will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God.

  To know God is the crux of existence. To know God is the highest pursuit of life. To know God is everything and then to know all there is revealed about Him in the pages of this book.  Not only to know God is man's highest pursuit, but to know God is God's highest purpose. Not only does He want us to know Him, but He cooperates from His side. God desires that we know Him. The Bible is so explicit about this. In Hosea 6:6, in another context where God through the prophet is rebuking Israel for their hypocrisy, they carried out the sacrificial system with hearts that were totally estranged from God. "I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." More than any other external thing does God desire that we know Him. Men are to know God and God desires that men know Him, this is meaning to life. This is our highest pursuit and God's highest purpose for us.

  I was trying to think of a way to graphically illustrate to you how important it is to God that we know Him. And it came to my mind that the prophet Ezekiel sets about to reveal the glory of God. Ezekiel 1 begins with God. "Now it came to pass in the thirteenth year and the fourth month, the fifth day of the month as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God." Ezekiel begins his prophecy by talking about this vision of God that he saw. Then when you would go to the end of the book of Ezekiel, you don't need to turn to it, it simply says in 48:35, the last statement of the book, "The Lord is there." It begins with Ezekiel's vision of God and it ends with the eternal God reigning in His eternal throne in His eternal Kingdom. Ezekiel presents God in 1:1 and closes out with God in 48:35, and you know, everything in between is an emphasis on the character of God.

  Ezekiel 6:7 "You shall know that I am the Lord." Verse 10: "And they shall know that I am the Lord." Verse 13: "Then shall you know that I am the Lord." Chapter 7, verse 4, end of the verse; "You shall know that I am the Lord." Verse 9: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Further, and we may be skipping some in between, go over to chapter 11, verse 12: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Chapter 12, verse l6: "They shall know that I am the Lord." Verse 20: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Chapter 13, verse 9: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Fourteen: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Twenty‑one: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Twenty‑three: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Fourteen: Eight: "You shall know that I am the Lord." There's a message here somewhere, folks. Are you getting it? Chapter l5, verse 7: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Going over further to chapter 20, verse 12: "That they might know that I am the Lord." Verse 20: "That they may know that I am the Lord your God." Twenty‑six: "They might know that I am the Lord." Thirty‑eight: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Forty‑two: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Forty‑four: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Now that takes us through 2l...22:16: "You shall know that I am the Lord." Twenty‑four:24: "You shall know that I am the Lord God." Twenty‑four: 27: "They shall know that I am the Lord."

  I'm not going to beg the point. It goes on and on and on and on, right on out of the end of the book. I didn't even bother to count how many times, but just looking at chapter 39 I see it two times, once in chapter 38, and it just keeps going and going until you get to chapter 40 and then God appears in His great glorious millennial Kingdom, it's just one entire prophecy geared so that you may know that I am the Lord. Now what then is God trying to say to us? He wants us to know Him.  This is God's desire for man. God is not hiding. God is not sort of a sort of a cosmic Easter bunny, stashed in a bush and we're running around and He's saying, "You're getting warmer." God is not trying to cover Himself up. God has disclosed Himself and He wants us to know Him and that is the highest purpose of a man's life.

  How can we know God? Well, you know, the prophet said. "If you seek Me with all your heart, you'll surely find Me," didn't he? Solomon gave some wise information in Proverbs 2:3. He said, "If you cry after wisdom, or knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." Solomon said there's only one way to really know God and to know all that's revealed about God and that's to make that the pursuit of your life. Ii you're looking for money, if you're looking for success, if you're looking for something else, you'll not really discover all that there is to know about God. But, he says: "My son, if you seek God like silver and search for God as if for hidden treasure, you'll find the knowledge of Him." God wants us to know Him. God wants us to pursue Him. And that's why we're making this little study, in order for us to better now Him, in order for me to help you to know Him better.

  Now today I want to share with you two other attributes about the character of God. The fourth one: He is omniscient. That simply means He knows everything. God knows everything...everything.  In Psalm 147:5 the Bible says, "His understanding is infinite."  That means limitless. His understanding is infinite. He not only knows the knowable, He knows the unknowable. 

  I Timothy 1:17 calls Him the only wise God. Jude 25 calls Him the only wise God. Romans l6:27, Paul called Him. "God only wise." He not only is wise, He not only knows everything, but He's the only one who knows everything that He knows. Now the angels know a lot but they don't know what God knows. And you and I know some things, nobody knows as much as God...unrivaled, infinite wisdom and understanding and knowledge. Isaiah 40:13, "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counselor has taught Him?" Who taught God?  Of course, no one. Romans 11:34, Paul says: "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?" No one.

  When you stop to think about it, here we are sitting here, and most of us know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, most of us know God, have you ever stopped to realize that the most astounding fact about God's omniscience is that He knows us and still we're here? Yeah, that's amazing. God knows everything and still loves us. Incredible. When you match up the attribute that I'm going to mention in a minute, His holiness, God despises sin, God knows everything and then try to figure out how you got into His presence. Then you'll come up with one other attribute, love. God knows everything and still He redeems us.

  Why? Isaiah 48 explains everything to us.  Isaiah 48:8, he says: "Yea, you heard not," you didn't listen to Me. "You knew not, from that time thine ear was not opened," you never listened to Me. From the very beginning when I made man, they never listened. "For I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously and was called a transgressor from the womb." God knew you were a sinner from the very womb. You talk about when does a person become a person in the eyes of God? Pretty clear in the Bible, already in the womb. "For My Name's sake will I defer Mine anger, and for My praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, for Mine own sake, even for Mine own sake will I do it." God looks down and He knows everything.  I knew you were rotten from the beginning. I knew you were a transgressor from the womb and I hate sin but I saved you anyway. Why? Not so much for your sake but because I wanted to display to the world another of My attributes, and that is the attribute of love.

  he marvel of marvels to me is that God knows everything and still loves me. Nothing is hidden from God. Do you know that everything about your body God knows? And the hairs of your head are numbered?  He didn't have to count it, He intrinsically knows it. Anything that is, He knows. And doesn't have to learn it or find it out. He knows it. He knows your body. But do you know something? He knows beyond your body, your body is transparent to God. In Revelation 2:23 He said: "I am He who searches the hearts and minds." Your body doesn't cover anything. He sees your heart and your mind just as well as He sees your outside. The clouds, the darkness, the night are no canopy to Him. The night isn't any curtain to God. In Psalm 139:12 it says, "The darkness hideth not from thee." I...I suppose that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil has something to do with the fact that most sin is conducted in dimly lit places. But that's certainly in the...in the brilliant light of God's omniscience. Night doesn't hide anything from God.  Whispers are no muffler to God's ear. Psalm 139:4 says: "There is not a word in my tongue but, Lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it all together." God hears your whispers as if they were broadcast.

  What about my thoughts? Listen, your mind couldn't conceive the subtlest thought outside the knowledge of God.  Isaiah 66:l8: "I know their thoughts." Jesus in John 2 gave evidence that He was God when He said nobody needed to tell Him what was in the heart of a man, He knew what was in that man.  When Jesus confronted Nicodemus, Nicodemus asked one question with his mouth another one in his mind and Jesus answered the one in his mind that he never asked with his lips. There isn't a secret place in your house, or a secret place in the world that you can go to that hides you from God. Same chapter, Isaiah 88, same verse:  "I know their works." He knows. And listen to me, everything He knows is right because according to Deuteronomy 32:4 He's called a God of truth. It's impossible for Him to lie. He has never made a mistake. He cannot err. He knows everything and He knows everything right and truthfully...everything. Sometimes the godly people seem to be under more stress than the ungodly, Why is it that sometimes the ungodly prosper? They will not always prosper. Maybe like Ephraim their sin is for the time hidden, bound up against the day of judgment to come in the future. That's the meaning of Romans chapter 2, verse 5 and 8 where Paul says: "But after thy hard and impenitent heart treasures up under thyself wrath against the day of wrath." In other words, you're sinning, and piling up a stockpile of sin against a future day. The revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds. There's coming a day when that judgment will come and that sin which is now being hidden, or bound up against a future day, will be unmasked, punished. God knows everything...everything.

  Another attribute of God is the attribute of wisdom. Wisdom is omniscience acting with a holy will.  If God knows everything then everything He does is absolutely wise. If He knows the end from the beginning then He knows every step in between. If God knows that this is what you are and this is what you will be, you may not understand what's going on in between but He does. If He has perfect knowledge, He has perfect wisdom.

  You can get a lot of illustrations of God's wisdom, you can look at creation...everything from the macrocosm of the universe to the microcosm of the minutiae of life and you can see wisdom. It's absolutely incredible how wise God is. Can you imagine how God puts an entire universe together, the component parts of which run beyond the capacity of numbers, and that every single thing functions in harmony with every other thing to bring about exactly the thing which God intends? God can put together every piece of an infinite universe to come out to the end result that He desires. And every result along the way is perfectly fulfilling His wisdom. God's creation is a monument to His wisdom. Psalm 104:24 says. "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, in wisdom Thou hast made them all."

  Everything works together according to Ephesians 1:11.  Redemption is an act of wisdom. God took the ones who weren't mighty and weren't noble and weren't smart and made of them His people. And then God takes the church, according to Ephesians 3:10, puts them on display before angels that the angels might see how wise He is. The wisdom of God, my friends, is seen in the redemption of us who are His church.  God is wise. God knows everything.

  What are the practical lessons of this for a Christian? It's a great comfort to me to know that He knows everything. It's good to know He knows me. He'd have to just about know everything to know me, I'm not that significant in the universe. Have you ever thought, " I wonder if He really knows I'm around? I don't make a lot of noise or anything."

  There were some people like that in Malachi's time.  God was really breathing down judgment on the people and Malachi the prophet was really flailing away. And there were a group of little folks that got together and they got kind of shaky. And they were saying, "We might get drowned in all this judgment. God might forget and just start whacking everybody."  Malachi 3:16 it says: "Then they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another." They were doing a lot of talking. "Boy, you know, this is getting pretty bad...I wonder if God knows we're here." "And the Lord hearkened and heard it and the book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and thought on His name, and they shall be Mine, said the Lord, on the day when I make up My jewels and I'll spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him."

  God's got a book, my friends, and He doesn't forget who belongs in it. I'm glad He knows everything. He knows John MacArthur and He knows that I know Jesus Christ, and so He knows I belong in the book. In fact, He knew that so long ago He wrote me down before the world began. It's a comfort to me to know God knows everything...to know there is absolutely nothing outside of the knowledge of God. He knows me and He knows that I belong to Him. That's a comfort.

  In Psalm 56:8 "Thou numberest my wanderings; put Thou my tears into Thy bottle?" It could be a statement rather than a question. You put my tears in your bottle. You know, in the Orient when the mourners would come, that was a pretty customary thing, everybody cries. Some of the mourners would catch their tears in a bottle. You paid the mourners. I suppose it was one way to prove you did your job...hand over a bottle of tears...take your money. But they had mourners who came and mourned. And they would catch their tears in a bottle and they would leave them as a little token.

  David says, "God catches his tears in His bottle." God remembers my tears. God not only knows me but He knows my tears. Is that good to know? Is it comforting for you to know that God knows every trial that you ever go through? That God catches your tears in His bottle? He must have a very big bottle. Maybe He just fills the ocean with them and that's why it's salty, I don't know. God catches your tears in His bottle. That means to me that God cares about me. I'm glad to know that.

  In Matthew 6, not only does God know my anxieties and my pain, not only does He know who I am, but He knows all my needs. In Matthew 6:25, He says: "Don't be anxious for your life, what you eat, what you drink, what you wear on your body, the life is more than food and the body than raiment, look at the birds of the air, they don't sow neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them, aren't you better than they?" You're better than birds. "Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to your stature?" No sense in worrying, you can't help yourself with it anyway. "And why are you worried about your clothes? Look at the lilies of the field how they grow. They toil not neither do they spin and yet I say even Solomon in all his glory wasn't arrayed like one of these. If God's going to clothe the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe ye, O ye of little faith? Don't be anxious saying what shall we eat, what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? These are what the heathens seek, your Father knows you have need of these things, you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added.

  My Father knows me and my name is in His book. My Father knows my tears. And my Father knows my needs and He takes care of them all. I'm better than a bird. I'm more important than a lily. Lilies are nice and birds are okay. And I'm better than the grass that's here today and gone tomorrow, cause God takes care of me. It's a comfort, people, to know that God knows everything. He knows me, my anxieties, my trials, my tears, my needs. And listen, in the midst of all of that He never ever ever makes a mistake.  If God has an infinite amount of attributes and an infinite knowledge and you don't understand something don't say God made a mistake, just realize you don't know very much. Don't chalk it up to God's stupidity, chalk it up to yours. God doesn't make mistakes.

  To the Christian omniscience means confidence. John 21 is helpful here.  Peter kept trying to convince the Lord he loved Him.   Lord, I'm telling You, I love You. And the Lord kept asking him and asking....finally, he says,"Lord, look, You know all things, You know that I love You." He appealed to omniscience.  Do you know that if it weren't for omniscience there are some days when God wouldn't even know you loved Him because it isn't obvious? And if He didn't know everything He wouldn't even know you cared. I suppose in my life there are plenty of days when I am indistinguishable from one of the world's people. Would agree for that for your life? How does He know I care? He has to know a lot. He has to know everything. He has to know my heart. Oh, that gives me confidence that even when I blow it, my love is still secured because He knows my heart.

  A third thought is correction.  If you knew that God didn't know everything what would you do that you don't do now? God is one teacher who never leaves the room. And yet it's always with love, isn't it?  He knows everything. If you knew, and think about this, if you want to know where you really hurt, if you want to know your sins, if you want to know where you're the rottenest just imagine what you would do if you knew He wouldn't know...and you'll find yourself there. But He does know. And as I told you last time, because He's everywhere every sin you ever commit is if you crawled up into the throne room of God, walked up to the foot of the throne and did it right in His face.

  The New Testament tells us that all the things that we've done in the body are going to be accounted for, II Corinthians 5, and it also tells us in I Corinthians 4:5 that that day is going to bring to light the hidden things of darkness.  Everything God knows...all our ways, thoughts, attitudes, everything. For the Christian that's correction, boy. If He knows it, I don't want to do it...I don't want to affront Him...I don't want to dishonor Him...that's correction.

  What does the doctrine of omniscience mean the non-Christian?  It ought to reveal to you the stupidity of hypocrisy.  If you think you can play a game and get by, you're wrong. God knows everything. Don't think for a minute that God buys your act. He doesn't. He doesn't buy it. Your hypocrisy is absolutely unmasked. When Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount took off after Israel, He just stripped them naked, didn't He? He just tore the masks right off of them. "You hypocrites!" And they were running for cover, believe me, by the time He got done with them.

  Ecclesiastes 12:14 "For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or it be evil."  Man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. He reads you loud and clear.  Listen, my friend, if you don't know Christ you might as well realize, to begin with, that you don't know God and whatever games you're playing to try to appear to be good before God doesn't make it. The stupidity of hypocrisy if God knows everything He knows a lot more than you're thinking He knows.

  Second thing that I would say to an unbeliever, or to one who doesn't know God, is that there is the promise of accurate judgment. In Romans 2:2 Paul says, "God will judge according to truth." When it comes down to the final judgment and the lake of fire and who is sent to hell, believe me, that judgment will be a just judgment. God will judge on the basis of truth because He has absolute knowledge of truth, nobody but nobody fakes God out.

  In Jeremiah 16:17 the prophet said: "Their iniquities are not hid from Mine eyes." No hiding.  I Samuel 16:7 "Man looks on the outward appearance, God sees the heart." Judgment will be according to truth and there is no way to hide it from God. He knows if you're a sinner. He knows if you're unforgiven.  He knows if you're churchianity was all you had. He knows if your good deeds were all you had chalked up. He knows whether your name is in the book. He knows whether you've repented and come to Christ. He knows. He knows everything. And your games don't fool Him, neither do mine.

  To know that God knows everything ought to point up to you the folly of human wisdom. God knows everything so if you want to really be wise you ought to get in on His knowledge. As Solomon told his son, "Seek knowledge." Seek knowledge, he says it over and over again, particularly chapter 8, just repeats it from verse 1 right to verse 36 Get knowledge, get knowledge. And knowledge is the knowledge of God. A foolish man pursues the knowledge of the world. First Corinthians 1:19, "I will destroy the knowledge of the world. I will destroy the wise," he says. "The wisdom of the wise shall come to nothing." There's folly in hypocrisy...God is going to judge you according to truth...don't trust human wisdom. God knows everything. That's a comfort to us and it ought to be a stern warning to others. God is unchanging.  God is everywhere. God is all powerful. God is all‑knowing.

  I want to talk to you fifth about God's holiness. I feel that this is the most significant of all of His attributes. This. to me, is the sparkling jewel on the...on the regal crown of His head...this is the ultimate. God is holy. When the angels sang they didn't say, "Eternal...eternal eternal." They didn't say, " Faithful...faithful...faithful." They didn't say, "Wise...wise...wise.....Mighty...mighty...mighty." What did they say? "Holy...holy...holy, Lord God Almighty." This is the crown of all that He is. He's holy.

  Exodus 15:11, "Who is like unto Thee? Who is like Thee," it says, "glorious in holiness, fearful in praise, doing wonders?"  Who is like Thee? Glorious in holiness? Nobody. Do you know that that's His name? Psalm 111:9 says, "Holy and reverend is His name." Holy is His name. Job 6:10 calls Him the Holy One.  Isaiah heard them say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory." Revelation 4:8, the living creatures, "Holy, holy, holy." First Samuel chapter 2, verse 2 talks about His holiness and that there is none other that is as holy as He.

  God is holy and I don't know of any other way to get to the holiness of God than by comparing it with sin. I would say that the most revealing passage regarding the holiness of God is the sixth chapter of Isaiah.  Isaiah says, "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up and His train filled the temple." He had a vision of God and he said, "Around God were the seraphims, and they had six wings, with twain they covered their feet, with twain they covered their faces and with twain they did fly." And one of those angels, you remember, took his tongs and took a coal from off the altar and touched the tongue of Isaiah, but before all of that what really is the issue in that passage? Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord and I cried out, Woe is me for I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King." He was absolutely shattered to the very core of his being. He shook fiercely. He violently was being shattered. Why? Because he had seen the holiness of God and in seeing the holiness of God he was rattled to the very base of his being by his own sinfulness.   It's not until you understand your own sin that you'll ever know the holiness of God. The two go together. You can't know your sin until you know His holiness and you can't know His holiness until you see your sin. Isaiah saw God lifted up and then he saw himself and he just poured his inner heart out...Oh, woe is me...I am undone. Between you and God there is an absolute gulf of holiness and unholiness. You are unholy. He is holy. And you ought to be, and I ought to be, just absolutely shaken to the very roots of our being when we see ourselves in comparison to Him. God is holy.

  God doesn't conform to a holy standard. He is the standard. He's absolutely holy. He never does anything wrong. He never errs. He never makes a misjudgment. He never makes a mistake. He never makes something happen in your life that isn't the right thing to happen in your life, or it doesn't have a right end in mind. Always He does right. And there are no degrees to His holiness...He is absolutely infinitely holy. God is holy, that's His condition for anybody who wants to exist in His presence. When the angels sinned, God immediately threw them out and prepared a place for them separated from His presence. When men choose not to come to God, when they choose to reject Jesus Christ, what happens to them ultimately? They're sent to the same place prepared for the devil and His angels, out of the presence of God. Why? Because to be in God's presence, in His universe you must be holy.

  How in the world can I be holy? You can be by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, it is through Christ that God gives us Christ's holiness and sees us holy...positionally. God made us holy in Christ. To the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said, "Now are you holy.  Now are you sanctified....in Christ." Further, thinking about this, the only way to understand God's holiness is in contrast. We have to see His hatred of sin. We can't just understand His holiness independently of His hatred of sin cause we have to take it from the sin side cause that's what we understand so well. God despises sin...just hates it.

  In Habakkuk 1:13 it says: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot look on evil." God can't tolerate sin.  He can't tolerate evil. He's totally removed from it. It cannot enter His presence. It cannot abide with Him. When the sinfulness of Sennacherib was exaggerated, you remember, the Holy Spirit said, "You have lifted up your eyes on high, even against the Lord the Holy One..of Israel." You see, the sin of Sennacherib was evident because of God's holiness.

  When the evil Egyptians were drowned, in Exodus 15, do you know what drowned them? Some people say the power of God. No.  Not really. Listen to Exodus l5, "The sea covered them, they sank as lead in the waters," then this, "who is like unto Thee, O Lord, glorious in holiness." Do you know why they drowned?  Not by the power of God but by the holiness of God, He couldn't tolerate their evil. God's holiness is best seen in His hatred of sin.

  In Amos 5, some strong words, "I hate, I despise your feast days. I will not take delight in your solemn assemblies, though you offer Me burnt offerings and meal offerings I'll not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, I will not hear the melody of your harps." God loves all those things cause He instituted all of them, but when those kind of deeds, even though those deeds were right, come out of impure hearts, God hates them. God doesn't want people doing right things with wrong attitudes. God says ‑ I hate it all....stop it. Sin is the object of His displeasure. God loves holiness.

  In Psalm 11, verse 7, it says this, "For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness." What a beautiful statement. God loves holiness.

  God's holiness we've seen from a negative standpoint, His hatred of sin. The amazing thing here, though, and you have to interject it, is God's love. Even though He's holy and absolutely hates sin and even though as I just mentioned to you earlier, He is omniscient and knows everything, isn't it amazing that He redeemed you? It's amazing that He knows me and He despises my sin and yet He loved me. That's where love comes in, you see. God's holiness, God's omniscience and God's love all act in the same. What a fantastic realization. God knew everything about me and God hated every bit of sin in me and still He loved me.

  Where do you see God's holiness revealed? God never wills sin. He wills to allow you to sin if you choose to but He doesn't will the sin.  God never tempts anybody to sin. God doesn't celebrate in anybody's sin. God never tempts a man to sin, James 1:13-14, "God tempts no man."

  But God's holiness is seen in some very positive things. For example, His holiness is seen in creation, to begin with. In Ecclesiastes 7:29, "God has made man upright but they have sought out many devices." God made man upright. When God made man he was holy. God's holiness is seen in creation. 

  God's holiness is seen in the moral law. The moral law that still pervades though man has tried to mess it up and try to wipe it out, the moral law that still pervades in the world shows God to be holy. Romans 7:12, Paul said, "The law is holy, the commandment is holy, just and good."  God's moral law shows that God's a holy God. When God laid down a righteous moral law He proved Himself to be a righteous moral holy being.

  I see God's holiness in His sacrificial law. When I see God laying out all those animals as a sacrifice I see God saying that death is the result of sin and I want you to see that and I want you to see it good. And every time those people made a sacrifice they saw the deadliness of sin. And that proved the morality and the holiness of God.

  God's holiness is also seen in judgment on sin. When you study the Bible and you see, for example, in II Thessalonians chapter l, Jesus coming in flaming fire and taking vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the gospel, when you see in Jude 4 those ungodly who are damned and condemned for their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly done against God you see how God hates sin and His judgment on sin is a reflection of His holiness, He must punish it.

  The holiness of God is seen in the cross.  God was so holy that He paid the absolutely supreme price that was necessary to satisfy His holiness. Hebrews 9:26, "For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world."  In other words, if it was a sacrificial system Christ would have had to die again and again. But, listen, "Now once in the end of the ages has He appeared." Listen, God Himself showed up.  God Himself appeared, "To put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." God's holiness was so infinite that He had to pay the supreme price of dying Himself, bearing sin because the price had to be paid even if it cost Him His own life. That's holiness.  His holiness is seen in the death of Christ. God's holiness required payment even if He had to pay it Himself. He is holy...holy.

  What are the practical lessons of holiness? For the non‑ Christian, just this: the holiness of God demands holiness in your life and it's only through Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 4 it talks about putting on the new man renewed in holiness. God wants you holy and the only way you'll ever be holy is to be in Christ and have His righteousness given to you. On the other hand, if you're not a Christian and you reject the holiness of God offered you in Jesus Christ then another attribute of God goes to work and that attribute is called justice.  If you reject God then you will receive what you deserve. That's justice and God is just. And for the impenitent, His holiness demands justice.

  What does holiness mean to a Christian?  I Peter  chapter 1:15, "As He who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of life because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy." If God is holy what does He want out of us? Holiness. He made us holy positionally in Christ, but He wants our practical lives to match our position. He wants us to live holy. Not just be holy positionally, but live holy lives because when we are holy that distinguishes us from the world. That lets the world know there's a difference. II Timothy 2:19 "Let all that name the name depart from iniquity." If you're going to name the name ‑ then live the life. Let the world know there's a difference.

  Holiness in your life gives you boldness before God. If you're a Christian and you're living a holy life, you're dealing with sin, you're doing godly things and holy things, you're living an upright life then you're going to have a boldness before God. Listen to this beautiful illustration out of Job 22 and I'm just going to read it to you, listen: "If you return to the Almighty you will be built up.  Thou shalt put away iniquity very far from thy tents." Listen, you're going to go back to God and get things straightened out, the first thing you're going to do before you get back there is put sin away. Verse 28, listen, "Then shall you have delight in the Almighty and shall lift up thy face unto God." You can't go to God and lift your face and delight in Him when there's sin in your life. Have you ever experienced that? Did you find out in...in your life what I found out, that whenever there's sin in my life I have a tough time praying? Job 22 says, "Take care of your sin, you'll be able to lift your face up into the face of God." No guilt.

  Holiness distinguishes us from the world. Holiness gives us boldness. Holiness gives us peace. There's no peace to the wicked, Isaiah 57:21 says, Holiness....God wants us holy even if He has to chastise us, according to Hebrews 12:10, He'll chastise us to make us holy. What should a Christian do? What David did in Psalm 51. Be sure you pray for a clean heart. And then according to Proverbs 13:20, ‑ Walk around with clean people.  "Be holy as I am holy."

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