Attributes of Greatness (3)

It's good to see you here tonight. We are in the midst of a study on what was referenced earlier is the doctrine of God and that truly is what we're talking about. We've entitled to study what the Bible teaches about God, but it is about the doctrine of God or as theologians call it theology proper. Theology comes from two words, Greek words meaning a word about God or the word about God. Theology, theology proper is the doctrine of God, what the Bible teaches about God. And we're looking at his attributes, the characteristics or qualities that describe God and that is a very tall task obviously to try to describe God. And so we really are focused up on what the Bible teaches, trying to understand what the Bible says as it describes God, as it portrays him in action and as the writers of Scripture describe who he is, what he does. And they were trying to understand that in terms that we can grasp and wrap our minds around at least somewhat. We're finding some difficulty all along the way in understanding these things, but we would expect that, wouldn't we? To try to wrap our finite minds around the person and nature and work of God is too much to expect and so we would expect that we would understand or misunderstand or struggle with some of these truths. And we were right in the middle of that when we left off last time. So we're going to start with the third attribute of God that we're looking at. God is unchangeable and we looked last week at what unchangeable means. We basically talked about three things that there is no quantitative change in God. He doesn't increase anything, doesn't decrease in anything. He remains constant. He there's no qualitative change in God. His nature doesn't change and then their his intentions and plans are always consistent because his will doesn't change. And so we talked about those dynamics of the unchangeable nature of God. We looked at what the Scriptures teach and the passages listed there for you on the screen and where we left off last week was in the problem in understanding this truth because the Bible does talk about the fact that God at least appears to change his mind at times. And there are a couple of times we looked at a couple of passages in 1 Samuel 15 and Jonah 3. You mentioned some others as well where the Bible, the King James Version uses actually uses the word repent. It repented God that he had made sulking. He were lented from the evil which he had proclaimed against the Ninevites and did not judge them. And so it appears that God is saying, oh I was going to do this but I'm going to change my mind. I don't think I'll do that. I think I'll do something else. And so we were grappling with how do we square that with the clear scriptures that say that God does not change. And we kind of hurried through these last weeks. So I'd like to mention them again, three possible solutions or ways of putting those two seemingly opposite truths together and understanding them together. One is this and then we'll pause for a few moments of discussion. See if you have any questions. One way to look at that is that those passages that seem to indicate God is changing his mind. Some of them are simply descriptions of God's actions or feelings in human terms. For instance, the two that we looked at about Saul being made king and Jonah, or Nineveh turning from their sin. Particularly the one with Saul. The word it repented God is a word, the Hebrew word for grieve or it troubled him. And so the idea is God was emotionally troubled by what Saul had done and it grieved him. And so in that sense, he was grieved or it repented him. It's not that he realized, oh, made a mistake when I made Saul king. And so I've got to do something different here. It's not that at all. It's describing God's emotional involvement in what was happening with Saul and his grieving over what Saul had done. So the circumstances change. There is a definite break with what's happened and it looks from our human standpoint that God has changed his mind when in reality that's not what that means. A second way to look at some of these passages that seem to indicate God changes is what we're seeing may be a new stage in the outworking of God's plan. A stage which was always in his mind and plan and he had determined from eternity past he would do, but because there is a new phase taking place, it looks like something's changed and we might interpret that that God has changed when in reality he hasn't. A good example of that is the change from dealing with Israel in the Old Testament to the church in the New Testament. Someone brought this up last week about Romans 11 and the olive branch, the place of God's blessing and God locked off the branches of Israel and grafted in the branches of the church and it looks like, oh, God's changing his plan, right? No, no. God's plan included that from eternity past. He knew that's exactly what he would do. Yeah, there's a new phase in what he's doing, but it doesn't mean that God has decided to do something differently than he purposed all along. So he has not changed in that sense. The third way we said we could look at these apparent changes in the Bible described of God. Some of them are simply a change in orientation because of man's change or because man has moved into a different relationship with God. This is where we ended last week with this picture. If you can remember this or if you weren't here, try to frame it for you again. Here's God and God is always displaying anger and wrath in this direction against sin. He is always displaying grace and mercy in this direction to the one who repents of sin, to the one who turns to him in faith. So God is always doing both at the same time. His nature, his actions are consistent with his nature and that never changes. Here is a sinner who is experiencing from this orientation, God's wrath and judgment and anger. That sinner trusts Christ as Savior and now begins to experience God's mercy and grace and in a very real way, experience that in his or her life. And it looks as though God has changed. At first, he was showing wrath and now he's showing mercy. God changed toward me, right? No. God was always showing both you changed in your orientation toward God. So you're seeing a different side of him, if you will, and it looks like he's changed. When in reality, he hasn't changed at all. It's your orientation to him that has changed and that's the case in the relationship of the Ninevites to God in Jonah chapter 3. So at least those are some of the ways of looking at that problem, trying to understand the truth a little better. Does God change? Well, in the sense that his actions are different than what they might used to be, yes, we could say yes. But in reality, he has not changed because his nature and will and plan has not been altered at all. He's carrying through on exactly what he wanted to do and plan to do all along. So from our perspective, in one way of using the word change, we might say, yeah, God has changed because circumstances, events, his actions toward us have changed. Obviously, he has answered prayer, but he has not changed because all of that is consistent with his eternal plan all along. So in one sense he has and one sense he hasn't just depends on how you're using the word change. One writer has said it this way and I kind of like the way this balances things. An unchangeable God must change in his dealings with changing men in order to be unchangeable, remain unchangeable in his character. Okay, to get that, an unchangeable God must change in his dealings with changeable man in order to remain unchangeable in his character. So God's nature character plan will purpose that never changes, but because we change in our relationship to him, God's dealings with us must change. Okay, and that's our view of things. That's how we perceive what's happened, but in reality God's purpose and plan has never changed. Okay, I've said way too much here and not giving you a chance to interact. So questions, comments, good, we'll move on. No, any questions seriously? Yes sir, Trevor? Yes. Yeah, it's a great question, Trevor, and it just really gets at the heart of who God is. Trevor's question is in case you didn't hear it maybe in the back. If God is all-knowing and he is, and it grieved him that he made Saul King, that he not foresee that, that he not know that was going to happen, yes, he did know that was going to happen, and the fact that he would still grieve about it says even more about how God loves us, and God is so involved with us on emotional level. The fact that God knows everything ahead of time does not make him, again, that that worrying computer just all clicks and noise and you know just spits out information and things move along. God is emotional and he is emotionally involved with everything we do, and when Saul failed him, even though he knew it would happen, he knew from eternity past what would happen. It's still grieved him, and when you think about it, in our best moments, we do the same thing with our children. You know, we may know if a child chooses a certain course, what that's going to mean for them, where it's going to lead, and we can see him heading that direction, and although we can't know for certainly like God does, we can see with a certain choice what that's going to do to our child, and so we know ahead of time. If they make that choice, this is what's going to happen, and when it happens, does it still hurt? Of course it does. You grieve deeply, and that's where God is as our Father, and I think it points out even more deeply and in a more amazing, awesome way, the personality of God, that he is not just a force and a being, he's a real person who feels, whether it's even though he knows all things. Amazing God. Amazing God. Yeah, that's one of the most difficult issues to really grasp, is how prayer enters into this. There's a sense in which when you begin to deal with prayer, you have to deal with two truths that kind of unparallel with each other, and you just believe in both. It's kind of the same thing as with God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. Does God know ahead of time, and is everything already planned in His plan? According to Ephesians 1, yes, it is. Well, then if you go take that to an extreme, that sounds like my prayer doesn't make any difference, right? But no, it does make a difference. The Bible is also clear that God does respond to prayer. God answers prayer. In real time, God answers prayer. So how does that work if God has for ordained plan? Ephesians 1 says He works all things out, all things, in the whole universe, after the counsel of His own will. How does that, then how does my prayer change anything? Here's the only answer I know, and it's not satisfactory to my human logic, but it's the only thing I know biblically, and that is somehow in God's plan, in a way that I cannot fully grasp, He is great enough in His plan and purpose to include not only the end, what will happen, but also the means to the end, and that includes my prayers. And so in real time, He answers my prayers, but all along He knew in His plan and purpose that I would pray, and that He would respond in that way to my prayers. Again, God is just so great, so big. It's hard to wrap our mind around all that, that prayer does make a difference. Prayer does move the heart of God, but God also knows everything from the beginning, both are true. Well, certainly, one of the greatest, maybe the greatest benefits of prayer is what it does for us, in us drawing close to Him, in us bringing our will and submission to His will. Yeah, prayer is a part of our spiritual development. And so it's not like we can move God on our chessboard and make Him do what we want to do. Prayer really is the alignment of our will with His, and our growth and learning to be submissive to Him, and to see Him in His amazing providence, answer our prayers in ways that He knew from eternity past He would, but that the benefit really is for us. Yeah, that's that what you were going to say Linda. Yes, yes. Yeah, and and we can just, it's easy to go, there's so many directions I want to go here. It's easy to go too far on an extreme there too and just say, well, I'm just going to pray every day. Lord, your will be done. I don't have to pray for anything else. Do I? And I know you that's not what you're saying, Linda, or any of you, but you don't want to go to that extreme either praying in, in a chord with God's will, I believe goes something like this. It means that we continue to ask boldly, whatever is on our hearts. I want my neighbor to be saved. I'm going to pray that God saves them. I want someone to be healed. I'm going to pray that God heals them. At the same time, I'm praying, I am trusting God's sovereign will to be done. And whatever happens, I will bend to His will and accept His will. I'm going to still pray for healing, but if He sees fit not to do that, then I will trust Him with that. Trust. And that to me is submission to His will. It doesn't mean that we don't pray about stuff anymore. It means we pray like crazy, but we are submissive all the time to His will, as we pray. Yeah. Yes. And we do not know what we do. Right. You need to pray for us to be prayer to be really done. Yes. It does please Him that we come to Him, trusting Him is our Father. And again, the benefit is for us, isn't it? Yes. But if you don't feel the prayer to a man, it's not going the way I want to pray that he's helping to change the man's before His will. Yeah. Yeah. Accept His will. Yes. But you're exactly right, Jean. The, the, the, it pleases God for us to come to Him because we don't know what's going to happen. And when we come to Him and ask Him for His help and, and lay our requests before Him, it, it demonstrates our sense of dependence on Him. And that pleases Him. And that's good for us. And so it glorifies God. It's good for us. It's a, to use kind of a crash term. It's a win-win situation. The situation. I'm curious, gee? Mm-hmm. Great real quick. Yes, both are true. Yeah, yeah. Now, there are certain ways to wiggle around and explain it, to make it sound better. But in reality, I still like what Spurgeon said. And Spurgeon was, he was a strong believer in both. But he said, it's like two rails of a railroad track. If you try to bring those two things together, you're going to wreck the train. You're going to fall in the ditch on one side of the other. You'll either go too far with free will and God's not in control of anything. Or you'll go too far with predestination and God's sovereignty. And we have no say or choice at all. You don't want to go to either of those extremes. And so I think the best way to do it, like Spurgeon said, you know, you look at a... You can't see many of them around here because of the mountains. But in Indiana, you could see where railroad tracks go all the way down to the horizon. And then they would just disappear in the horizon. And on the horizon, it looks like they're coming together. And Spurgeon would say, when we get to heaven, it'll reconcile. We'll understand it. We may not understand it fully now, but both are true. God does know everything ahead of time. He knows exactly what we're going to do. And it's all a part of his purpose and plan. But we do have choice as well. And the only way I know how to reconcile those is that God in his sovereignty is big enough to include in his plan and purpose my will and my choices. And I do have choices. I do have a will to choose. And God is able to incorporate that into his plan. How all that works? I don't fully understand, but I have to believe both of them. Billy? So the way I can see it, I'm introducing my opinion, but human beings are slow creatures. And the only way that we learn from anything is to truth. God allows them to live for us to make mistakes so that we can actually learn what his true will is and to keep it. I think it's a great way to look at it. I hope you got that. One of the ways we learn and grow is through experience and through difficulty and through making mistakes. And bad choices sometimes are wrong decisions. And so God has incorporated all that into his plan and purpose to allow us to make choices so that we grow, so that we learn, so that we do make some mistakes, but we grow and learn from those. And all that's a part of God's purpose and plan. We cannot go to either extreme. You cannot see God's purpose and plan as some kind of predeterminism or fate that we are helpless against. And have no choice. You can't do that or you're no better than, you know, the Eastern religions that teach karma. You know, it's really not much different. But on the other hand, you can't rob God of his omnipotence and his omniscience and his power and his sovereign to either. So you have to hold those truths in tension. And that's a difficult thing to do. We always want to say, well, I think I can make them go together easily. You'll probably wreck the train. And there was no stronger person on the sovereignty of God than Charles Haddon's Virgin in the middle 1800s. But he kind of pictured it that way. Okay. That's a tough one, Jean. It's a difficult one to come to a satisfactory conclusion that logically it all seems to fit together nice little package. I think you have to take both truths and say, I believe them both. I don't completely understand how they fit together, but I do believe them both. And the best way I know to put them together is that God and his sovereignty is big enough to include my choice, my will. And that does exist. I do have a choice. I have a will. Okay. So you say that, then, what is free will? If we're in the same state, we can only do it. We'll get it done before we have it done. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of kind of, kind of yeah. I don't know if you heard that or not. The question is one of the most difficult ones in trying to harmonize all this is, is our will really free? Can we make any choice apart from divine enablement that is a good choice? Let me say this. I know the scriptures teach that we are Romans three. We are all centers. We have a sin nature that paints everything we do, say or think. There's none righteous, no not one. And he describes everything that we do from our speech to our actions to our thoughts. Everything is evil. So I understand that part of it. I will say this. Jeff, back there smiling. Jeff and I were discussing this before the service. I do believe in total depravity in the sense that we cannot do anything to save ourselves. And we cannot even make any move toward God apart from his enablement and grace. And we said that. You also have to recognize there are people in the Bible who are lost, who are, it is said they have done good things. Cornelius, for instance, the Roman centurion, for instance. Now it can be argued they could not have done any of those good things without the common grace of God. But I guess that could be said about anything. We are depraved in the sense that we are totally sinful. And again, depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we could be. It does mean that every part of our nature is affected by sin. And we cannot do anything to save ourselves. Okay. Maybe that is where I should stop. Okay. Now again, I have read all the arguments both sides. I know people talk about where we are dead in sin, right? And dead is dead. And some people take that to an extreme of, okay, if you are dead you cannot respond at all. So God has to give you new life before you can even believe. And I don't think that is what spiritual death is talking about. It is obvious that we can respond to God's grace. See what many people do who are hyper-Calvidence is they interpret spiritual death like we do physical death. And spiritual death is a metaphor. It is not equivalent to physical death. It means that we are separated from God and that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot do one thing to make ourselves acceptable to God. But we can respond to the spirit of God as He convicts us. Okay. But to some people that is here I see. But I think that is a biblical balance. Okay. We have gotten far afield from the fact that God is unchangeable. But I am ready to move back if you are ready to go a little further with this line of discussion if you are wanting to. Okay. You ready? Application. We always have to come to that. The application of this truth. What does it mean in your heart and life? How does it bless you that God is unchangeable? What does that mean to you? Makes you feel secure? Yes. Trust Him. Knowing He will never change. We can trust Him. You can always trust Him to be faithful to His promises. Right? What God promises He will accomplish. He will do. We can trust Him. We can trust Him. We can trust Him. We can trust Him. Yes. If we look to anything in this world to give us that kind of security and peace. We can trust Him. Yes. I ask you this. Is it possible for God to love you any less? If you really mess up, if you sin, if you... Is it possible for God to love you less? won't. Romans 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing in all creation, he says, can separate us from the love of God. He can never love you less and sometimes I think we have a twisted view of God based upon our human relationships and because our human relationships can change and people can cool in their enthusiasm toward us or their feeling toward us or their friendship toward us because that can happen sometimes we view God through those lenses and God cannot we viewed through those lenses. He will never change in his affections toward you, his faithfulness to you, his love to you, his promises you will never change. He can't love us anymore either. No. No, can't love us anymore. No. No. Crowns. Crowns are not a reflection of his love or you know the answer to that too Jean. I know you're just I was gonna say you'll probably get the six and I'll get the two that's probably what will happen but no no obviously Crowns are given as a result of rewards for faithful service to him and it is out of God's grace and love that he gives us those think about it God gives us the enablement to do whatever we do for him and then he rewards us for it and again it's just an evidence of his love that he would do that. Yeah but no God's not playing favorites if he gives if he gives one more reward the rewards are based upon faithfulness and our service to him. Okay. Wow this is one of those lessons where I'll go home this evening and spend an hour thinking I should have said it this way I should have explained that I should have gone to that scripture. This is deep stuff okay you're ready to move on yes sir. Yes Jacob have I loved East all have I hated Malachi one yeah how do you how do you reckon that and and here's the way I think that should be seen in Hebrew thought love or hatred reflected a choice and so when God said Jacob I love the East all have I hated he wasn't saying I have emotional feelings of hatred for East all he was quite clearly saying in Malachi what the historical record in Genesis bears out in Genesis 25 that he chose Jacob and did not choose Esau to be the line through which the promise would come now certainly we could look back and say you know Esau was pretty rotten guy but God doesn't make his choices based on what our response is going to be our responses may confirm his choice but God chose Jacob and did not choose Esau that's what that means doesn't mean you had feelings of hatred for him okay good question okay Q&A done we move on to the next one I love I love that don't want to squelch it all but at least and introduced the idea that God is Omni present God is Omni present now with each one of these we're going to find new areas where our mind is stretched and where it's difficult for us to grasp all of the truth involved what does Omni mean Omni what does that mean everywhere well I'm the present but just the word omni means all. It's the Latin word for all or every, really all. And so when we talk about God being omnipresent, exactly what Lance said, he is everywhere present at the same time. And that's the best way to say it. He is everywhere present at the same time. Okay? Now let me flesh that out a little bit more. The meaning of it is this. Three things I want to say to kind of explain that basic definition. God is everywhere present at the same time. First thing is this, God is not subject to the limitations of space. In other words, you can't put him in a particular space like we are. We are finite objects. We can only be in one place at one time, right? One place at a time. Now I know most of you try to be in more than one place at a time, but it doesn't work very well. Does it? Just doesn't work very well because we are limited because of our physical nature to one place at a time. That doesn't apply to God. God created space. He existed before it. And as we'll see from the scriptures, if not tonight next week, he fills it all. He fills the universe. Okay? So he cannot be restricted to one place. So that's part of what God's omnipresent means. Second thing is this. There is no place where God is not found. There's no place where God is not found. We'll see that in one of the scriptures very clearly in Psalm 139. Now that's a wonderful truth because he is accessible wherever you are, but it's also a sobering truth because you cannot hide from him. So he is there is there's no place where he is not found. Okay. The third way to explain this is this and this is a very important kind of qualifier. When you think of the omnipresence of God, it is not we are not saying that God is diffused throughout the whole universe. If you could put him in bodily terms, we are not saying that okay, God's arm is over here on planet earth and his leg is over here at Mars. And then another part of him is in this part of the universe. We're not saying that God is diffused throughout the universe. What we are saying with the omnipresence of God is that his whole being is in every place in the universe is on my present. It's not that way you can get a little bit of God over here and a little bit of God over there. No God's whole being is in every place in the universe. I'm not present. Okay. Any questions about the concept before we look at the verses that teach this? Yes, do I? Yeah, Satan is a spirit being, but Satan can only be in one place at one time, even as a spirit being, because he's like he is an angel, a created being. He is not God, so he does not share the same qualities as God. So although Satan is a spirit being and he can move from one place to another very quickly, he can only be in one place at one time, which means that we're probably thinking too highly of ourselves if we think he's always on us. He does spend a little time with other people too, but again, Satan has a lot of demons that carry out his bidding as well. So he may be leaving me alone. He's got two or three of his demons on my tail. I don't know. But even though he is a spirit being, can only be in one place at one time because he's an angel. He's a created being. Good question. Any other questions about the concept itself? Okay, we'll look at least at one of the passages. Maybe a couple of them. First Kings, chapter 8, first Kings 8, and have you turned there? We've not put in the verses on the screen, so that you do actually get to use your Bible some. I want you to be able to look these up. First Kings, chapter 8, this is where Solomon has finished building the temple. He is dedicating the temple and he begins his prayer in verse 23. He says, Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below. You who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way, talks about how he's kept his promise with David to build this house. And verse 26, and now God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David, my father come true. Now look at verse 27. But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built? Now that's a very important concept, particularly as it relates to the other religions in the world in Solomon's time and before then and since then. Most religions contain their God to their temple or to some physical structure. And you remember even the Israelites got messed up on that at times when they thought that God resided in the ark of the covenant. And if we take the ark of the covenant with us in the battle, then we'll win. Remember in verse 5, where they attacked the Philistines thinking, we'll surely win because we got the ark of the covenant with us. And the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant. So did they lose their God? See Israel was prone to that same kind of thinking. But Solomon knew better. Solomon knew the heavens can't even contain you. Not even the highest heaven. And we'll deal with that a little bit later when we deal with some of the difficulty in understanding this truth. But Solomon knew that not even the heavens can contain you. Lord, we recognize as he praised this prayer, we recognize we're not confining you to this building. We can't confine you. You're bigger than that. The heavens can't even contain you. Yes. The Shchikana glory, the Shchikana glory, the Shchikana glory, in Ezekiel saw it leaving the temple and he did. The Shchikana glory, the Shchikana glory, staged in stages to show that he was abandoning his temple to the judgment of the Babylonians, the invasion of the Babylonians. We will deal with that a little bit, not necessarily that passage. So I want to go ahead and deal with that. But we will deal with that concept of passages that seem to localize God, seem to put him in a particular place. And I think the best way to understand that when and others like it is that the Shchikana glory was one way that God manifested his presence among his people. In other words, he demonstrated to them that he was with them in a visible form that they could see. And that was a bright shining light, his glory being manifested in that way. It doesn't mean that he was contained there. He was still everywhere present in the whole universe, but he demonstrated in a very specific way his presence with them in the temple in that way. And there are other passages like that that we'll get to a little bit later, but that's where I think you have to go with that. Okay, time is up and we'll have to look at the other passages next week. So come back and we'll give it another run at this. Okay, it's pray. Father, we are in all of who you are. We do not take you lightly. We dare not take you lightly. We're looking at characteristics of your greatness and we are once again awed by your greatness. We cannot fully comprehend it who you are. But thank you that we know enough of you to know that you, in all of your greatness, you love us and you love us enough to want us to spend eternity with you and made provision for that through the death of your son to pay for our sin. Thank you for that great love. And Lord, even though there are some things about you that we may not fully grasp may not fully be able to wrap our finite minds around. We thank you that we can know for sure that we know you personally that we are your children that will spend an eternity with you. We thank you that through Christ we can know that for sure. Thank you in Jesus' name, amen.