Attributes of Greatness (4)

Okay, I want to clean up a little untidyness from last week. Sometimes when we get in these great discussions, I go home thinking as I indicated to you, I probably would last week, I go home thinking, you know, I'm not sure I said that quite right. You know, when you're dealing with these very difficult issues, you have to be careful how you say things. And so I want to further respond and explain to an issue that you've probably long forgotten, and we'll wonder why I'm bringing it up. To clear my own conscience and satisfy my own mind, I guess, but at any rate, the question was asked last week, can an unsaved person do any good? Can an unsaved person do anything good? And I was trying to find a good biblical balance and not sure I responded quite correctly. There are two kinds of good that are talked about in the Bible, and it depends on which one you're talking about as to how you answer that question. And last week I answered it yes and no, and that seemed kind of wishy-washy, but really that is the correct answer. In Romans chapter 3, Paul makes the point very clearly that no one does any good. He says, there is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God, all have turned away, they have together become worthless, there is no one who does good, not even one. So the Bible does make it clear that no one does any good, but you have to understand what Paul's talking about in the context here. It's talking about no one does any good as far as gaining merit in the sight of God, because Paul in the context is setting up the table for explaining how we get justified, how we get declared righteous in the sight of God. So he's saying nobody can do any good spiritually, nobody can do any good that merits God's favor, that earns our way into heaven, that pleases God. God says, you know that was good enough to where I think you've got a few points with me now, that's the sense in which Paul saying no one can do any good, because he goes right on to say, verse 20, therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law. That's his conclusion. He's made this point, nobody can do any good and his conclusion, his real point that he's driving at, is you can't be justified that way. You cannot be saved by doing good things and he goes on to talk about that in verse 21. He says, I'm going to tell you about another kind of righteousness that is not gained or earned by good works, good deeds. It is a righteousness apart from the law. It's a righteousness of God comes down from God and it is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe in verse 22. So can anyone do any good, can an unsafe person do any good? No. In the sense that an unsafe person can never do anything that will gain the favor of God or will move them one inch toward being justified or declared righteous in God's sight. In that sense Paul saying no no one can do any good, but can an unsafe person perform a morally good action or think a good thought or even speak a word of truth or wisdom? Yes. And in that sense an unsafe person can do good and there's a tremendous example of that in the book of Acts. I mentioned him last week, but didn't expand on it any. And that is Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. I want you to notice I'm going to read a few of the verses. I want you to notice how he's described in Acts chapter 10. First of all, in verses 1 and 2 Cornelius is the Gentile unbeliever that Peter is sent to with the gospel and kind of breaks down that barrier between Jew and Gentile. Here's how he's described it. Cessaria Acts 10, 1 and 2. There was a man named Cornelius, a centurion and what is known as the Italian regiment. He and always family were devout and God fearing. Now to be God fearing in the Bible, particularly in the sense of Jew and Gentile relationships, to be a God fearer was one who feared God who might be a Jewish proselyt. And in other words, might have come to the Jewish faith, but not necessarily. In Cornelius's case, probably not. But he was one who did recognize there was a God. He did not know the Lord yet, but he did at least recognize there was a God and he feared God. And then it says he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. So he gave generously to those in need. Is that a good action? Is that a good deed? Certainly it is. And it's recognized as such. It's recognized even as being a good deed later on, verse 22. The men who have come looking for Peter who are going to take him back to Cornelius say this about Cornelius. We have come from Cornelius to Centurion. He is a righteous and God fearing man who is respected by all the Jewish people. Wait a second. Paul just said in Romans 3, there is none righteous. And this guy who is an unbeliever who doesn't know the Lord yet is called righteous. Ah, but yes, he was called that by other unbelievers, right? Looked at it, verse 34. Then Peter began to speak after he gets to Cornelius's household. I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. Now, he's Peter saying that because this is a good man and he does good things, he does what is right, giving generously the poor, that God's going to save him because he's good. No, no, no, that's not at all what Peter is saying. What Peter is saying is that here is an unbeliever who is a good moral man, but he's still in the theological sense. Romans 3, apart from God, can do no good in the sense of merit in God's favor. And so he is just as much in need of God's grace as the most despicable sinner who's ever lived, who's ever done anything, you know, who does all kinds of bad things. Okay, he's just as much in need of the grace of God. So, theologically, as far as our position before God, there's none righteous, no not one. You can't do a good thing, but there are unsafe people who can speak words of truth, who can do good things to help other people and even do that with a good motive. But it does not gain them any merit before God. So in that sense, they're not righteous, they're unrighteous. Okay, so I think that's the biblical balance that was trying to find last week and was kind of hitting all around it and wasn't stating it very clearly. We're not even at our study yet, but any questions about that? Any questions or comments? Okay, we're looking at the attributes of God and we've looked at several already. We've already looked at the fact that God is self-existent. He is eternal. He's unchangeable. These are attributes of God that we do not share. They are ascribed in the Bible only to God. They are attributes of greatness, attributes that he does not share with us. The fourth one that we looked at, we began last week, was the fact that God is omnipresent. God is everywhere present at the same time. We looked at what omnipresent means last week. We saw that it means he is not subject to the limitations of space. There is no place where he is not found. And it's not that he is diffused throughout the universe, like a part of him is here and a part of him is there, but every part of God is in every place. God is holy present in every part of the universe. In fact, the Bible way to describe it as he fills heaven and earth. So we found that that's what it means. Then we started looking at the biblical teaching. We looked at 1 Kings 8, 27 last week. That's where Solomon is built the temple and he said, you know, God cannot be contained in this house. In fact, heaven and earth cannot contain you, he says. So he's admitting the fact that unlike all the other false religions that he would be familiar with who contain their God in their temples, God cannot be contained in this temple. He cannot be contained in any way. He is bigger than that. He is omnipresent. Okay, let's look at the second passage in Psalm 113. Psalm 113. Verses 4 through 6. We're just going to look at these biblical descriptions of the fact that God is everywhere present at the same time. I'm not present. Psalm 113. Verse 4. Now notice this next expression. Who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth. Now you talk about the greatness of God. Here is God who is exalted above all things. And the expression the Psalmist uses is so picturesque. He has to stoop down to even find the heavens and the earth. That's the idea. He stoops down as though he were looking for it. That's how big he is. And it's just another way of saying that God is, he fills heaven and earth. He has to stoop down to find it. Okay, look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Psalm 139. That's how big he is. And it's just another way of saying that God is, is, he fills heaven and earth. He has to stoop down to find it. Okay, look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Now, I'm familiar passage about the greatness of God. We'll be looking at it a little bit later if we get this far when we talk about the fact that God is omniscient. He knows all things too. But speaking of his omnipresence, Psalm 139. Verse 7. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you may have a translation that says, if I make my bed in hell, it's the Hebrew word, sheol, which means the grave or the place of departed spirits, it was considered the lowest place. Heaven is considered the highest place. So basically in the Hebrew mindset, he's talking about the highest place in the universe, the lowest place in the universe. He's talking about the two extremes in the universe. That's the way the Hebrew mindset saw that. So he's basically saying no matter how far I go in the universe, you're there. You're there. Verse 9. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me. And he says in verses 11 and 12, even the darkness cannot hide you. You are everywhere. Basically, it's what he's saying. There's nowhere I can go in the universe as high as the mind can conceive or as low as the mind can conceive that you are not there. You're there. So again, stressing the fact that God is everywhere present at the same time. Okay, any question about those passages before we look at two more that just add to this. Any question about those? Okay, Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23. Verses 23 and 24. God says, am I only a God nearby declares the Lord and not a God far away? Who can hide in secret places that I cannot see them declares the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth? Declares the Lord. Now, it's interesting. I mean, it's always necessary to look at a text in its surrounding verses to understand what it really means in the context here. God is talking about false prophets. False prophets, false prophets who have said, you know, the nation's fine. Everything's going to be okay. You know, we're the people of God. We're not going to go into captivity. Jeremiah had been proclaiming they would go into captivity and there were false prophets saying, no, no, don't listen to him. And God is saying in the context of denouncing those false prophets. Am I a God that's only nearby and not a God far away? Who can hide in secret places? In fact, I know where you are. You false prophets. I know where you are. I know what you're doing. I know what you're thinking because I feel heaven and earth. I feel heaven and earth. Amazing, amazing statement about God. Lying prophets cannot fool God because he is everywhere, no matter where they are, what they're thinking, what they're doing. He knows because he's there. One other passage, Acts 17, where Paul is speaking in the philosophy capital of the world in Athens, Greece. And he knows he's not going to be able to whip out his Old Testament scrolls and just start there because these people don't have any background in the Bible and the Old Testament and would not recognize that anyway. And so Paul starts at a different place. He's going to take them to the gospel message, but he starts from a different place. And he starts by talking about all the idols that he has seen in Athens. And he says, you know, I've noticed one that you have here that you ascribe to the unknown God. Let me tell you about him. And so Paul peaks their curiosity because they've got all these idols and just so that they didn't forget any God and offend some God, which was very much in the Greek and Roman mindset. Just so they didn't forget about a God, some God out there and offend them. They built an altar to the unknown God. And you know, Paul was right on because they did not know the true God. And so he said, there is a God that you don't know who is unknown to you. Paul wasn't playing slight of hand here. He's being truthful. You've made an altar to the unknown God. I'm going to tell you about the God that you don't know. And he's a God who made heaven and earth. And he goes on to say about him in verse 24, the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. And now catch this and does not live in temples built by human hands. Now that was a mind blowing concept to Greeks and Romans. They thought God's lived in temples. And basically what Paul is saying is the same thing Solomon said when he dedicated the Jewish temple, no building can contain God because he made heaven and earth. You can't put him in a building. He goes on to say verse 25 and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Remember we looked at this passage when we looked at God's self existence. Rather he gives, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else from one man. He made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth. He marked out the appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him though he is not far. From any one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. And then he quotes one of their prophets. So basically saying same thing Solomon said God is too big to be contained in a temple. I'm going to tell you about the real God, the true God. You don't know him. I'm going to tell you about him. He's bigger than what you think. He made heaven and earth. So these passages and others like them describe the fact that God is everywhere present at the same time on my present. Questions or comments before we look at a difficulty in understanding this truth. Steve? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And most of the gods, they worshiped had something to do with some aspect of nature, the God of seas, the God of the wind, the God of whatever. And so he's saying, I'm going to tell you about the God who made all of that. It's not that he just controls it. He made all of it. So yeah, you're right. He's saying all that your worshiping is really encompassed in the one true God, the only God. Yes. Any other comment or question? John? Okay. Satan is a spirit being, which means he's invisible, but he is not omnipresent. Only God can be omnipresent. That's a characteristic of deity to be present in every location at once. Satan was a created being. So again, he's not, he's not like God. He's not eternal. He does not share any of those greatness characteristics that God has. So he can't be in more than one place at one time, but he has a lot of demons. And those demons are doing his bidding all over the world. So he's active all over the world all the time, but he himself is located only in one place at one time. And I think, you know, we talked about last week, the fact that we give ourselves to credit when we always think Satan's dealing with us as though I'm the most important person in the world for Satan to be occupied with. I would say the latter is probably more the case. It's part of their nature. You know, he's called the prince of the power of the air, which basically means he's, he oversees these spiritual beings that inhabit the air. They don't inhabit a particular place. You know, he seems to, he seems to sometimes focus on one area, revelation two, one of the seven churches. Jesus says you dwell in the place where Satan's thrown is. Doesn't necessarily mean he'd set up a literal throne there, but Satan's activity was concentrated in that particular part of the world at that time. Some people think Satan is in hell, and that's where he's that's where he sends out his demons. He is not. He is not in hell. The Bible says in 1 Peter 5, 8, he roams to and fro throughout the earth, seeking whom he made of our. So he's on the move. You know, he won't be cast into hell. Actually, he will never be cast into hell. He'll be cast into the lake of fire. It can be either or both. I mean, demons can influence us to do wrong. And ultimately, we can attribute that to Satan because they're just doing his bidding. So we can say that Satan is tempting us or Satan is, you know, in that way. But we also have our own simple nature that is enough of an enemy to deal with. And then we also have other alurements from the world system, of course, which is under control of Satan. So it all kind of fits together. I think I mentioned this to the Moffs group a couple of weeks ago. We could so go when I spoke to them. Forgive me if some of you were there. I was dealing with Ephesians 2 where it talks about we fulfill the cravings of our simple nature when we're unsaved and reminded of the little boy that got in the fight with his sister, kicker and pulled her hair. His mother said, why did you let the devil cause you to do that? And he said, well, the devil made me kicker, but pulling her hair was my idea. We can come up with a lot of bad ideas on our own. We don't necessarily need the devil to prompt us to do everything because we've got a simple nature. So it can be both and. I don't know that we can always identify is this coming from Satan? Is it coming from just the world system? Is it coming from a simple nature? You know, but all three are active against us. Billy? Okay, great question. Hell is a temporary place. Lake of Fire is the ultimate place. They're both the same in the sense that they are a place of fire where people who do not know Christ are punished. But hell is a place where people are sent now and then following the millennial kingdom of Christ, Revelation 20 talks about the fact that death and hell will be delivered up to stand before God. Hell will deliver up the souls of those who are there and they will be judged at the great white throne judgment, which is the judgment of all unbelievers. After that judgment, they are thrown into the lake of fire, which is the eternal abiding place of the lost. They both really are similar or the same in punishment, but one is temporary, the other is eternal. Yes, both of them provide literal physical suffering, torment to the lost and Luke 16, Jesus talks about the rich man who was in hell, lifted up his eyes in hell and he was in torment, physically suffering in flame. The lake of fire is just the eternal place where everyone is sent after the great white throne judgment. No, can people be in hell on earth? We use that expression for times of great trial or difficulty. We use that expression, but it's not a biblical one. There is no experience on earth that can literally be hell on earth. Hell is a place of indescribable torment and punishment that is a literal place of fire. Trevor? Well, is hell and shield the same as the question? Kind of. Shield is the Old Testament. It's the Hebrew word for the place of departed spirits. In the Hebrew mindset, that's where everyone went who died. They went to shield. It was sometimes called the grave, sometimes called the pit, sometimes the place of departed spirits. Hell is a New Testament term. It's not an Old Testament term, it's a New Testament term. Some translations will translate the Hebrew word shield with the word hell, but that's not literally what it means. Hell is a New Testament term which describes the place of punishment where unsaved people go. Shield would include hell, but it would also include the place where believers went when they died. It was just the place of departed spirits. People when they died, their spirits went to shield. You have to understand that in the Old Testament, the truths are not as fully developed as they are in the New Testament. It's called progressive revelation. God revealed more of His truth as time went along. Some truths were very sketchy in the Old Testament, including the afterlife. It was sketchy in the Old Testament. The Old Testament gave enough information to know that people continued to exist after they died, but not specific information about where they went. It was just called shield. In the New Testament, there's more information. It's kind of like the Trinity. The Trinity, there are a few faint glimpses of it, and we'll see this later in our study of what the Bible teaches about God. Few faint glimpses of it in the Old Testament. The truth is really developed in the New Testament. That's the reason for the difference there. Okay. Want to get back to the doctrine of God now? Great questions. I love it. But let's move back to a difficulty in understanding this truth of the omnipresence of God. There are passages which seem to place God in a particular location. Let me give you a couple of them. First of all, Genesis 11. Genesis 11. Let's look at this one. Genesis 11. This is the Tower of Babel Incident, where people are uniting together to build a great dynasty and direct contradiction to what God said after the flood. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, the people were building. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, the people were building. The Lord came down. Does that mean he moved from one place to the other? He was localized in one place, and now he's going to come down and he will be localized in another place at the Tower of Babel. What do you think this means? Does it contradict the omnipresence of God? Okay. The focus on this area, God is focusing on this particular area. Okay. He is everywhere, but now he's focusing on this area of mankind and the problem that's arisen here. What do you think? Does that sound good? Anything else? Do you want to throw into the mix here? It seems to be. Yeah. Okay. Great. Right. Yeah. It's not like God was visible as he came down, stood beside the tower of Babel and everybody saw him. Yeah. I don't think that's indicated here. Okay. It could be that what this is referring to is that God sometimes does manifest his presence. And it could be the fact that God concentrates his attention on this one place in time and manifests his presence there. But this also could be just a figure of speech to indicate that God never judges without knowing all the facts. You see, sometimes the actions of God that are described in the Bible are for our benefit so that we understand, for instance, I believe in this case, that God never judges rashly, he knows all the facts, he investigates, he knows everything before he does anything. And this may be just a way of describing that in ways that we can understand. You say, well, wait a second. Figure of speech. Remember, we talked about that earlier when we were talking about the fact that God has no body. But the Bible speaks of the arm of the Lord, the mouth of the Lord, the eyes of the Lord. So if God doesn't have a mouth, eyes, or arm, whatever. But that's just a way of describing how God acts in the only way we can understand. The only way we can understand that being actually acting in time is with a bodily presence. And so the Bible writers describe it that way, although God does not have literal eyes, well, it may be something like that. It may be just assuring us that God investigates before he moves. We know that he does everything justly and righteously. It's not that God was located in one place and moved to another location and was isolated to that one location. Could be either way. Could be the fact that God actually did manifest his presence in some way, which sometimes he does, or it could just be a figure of speech to show and prove to us that God never acts rashly or without all the information. We can't see what's going on down there. God doesn't need to move from one place to the other to know what's going on. In fact, first of all, he has all knowledge and he cannot be contained in one place. So there's another passage. I'll just mention this one for sake of time. The disciples prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples to pray, Matthew 6.9, our father in heaven. Oh, does that mean God is localized in heaven that he manifests a presence in one place in heaven? Yes, or true? Okay. In a sense, the heavens are everything above us. But when the Bible speaks of heaven where God is, it's speaking of a particular place, not the Starry universe. That's the second heaven. The third heaven is the abode of God. So does God actually live in a place? Right. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah, we do. We have a tendency to think of him in that location because the Bible talks about him being there and an eternity future, Revelation 22. He will be in heaven. It is possible that God, that is the place where God actually manifests his presence. Again, God is everywhere present at the same time, but He can also manifest his presence in a particular location if He chooses to. And still be everywhere present at the same time. That's how big God is. I can't do that. You can't do that. But since He's a spirit being, He can do that. Okay. And since He's God. So it may be that that's what it is. There are other theologians who treat this a little differently. I'm not sure I subscribe to it, but at least it's their way of trying to harmonize these two things. There are some theologians that say God does dwell in heaven. That is His abode, that is the place where He stays. And omnipresence should be seen in this way that everything is in the presence of God at the same time. Not that God is everywhere present at the same time and every part of the universe, but that all of the universe is before Him. And so He is omnipresent in that sense. That's one way that some choose to describe it. I wouldn't start a new denomination on that, but it's an interesting way to put it. Okay, time's about up real quick, Steve. Yeah. Exactly. And that's part of what we struggle with our finite mind trying to grasp concepts of infinity, of perfection, of someone who can be in every place in the universe at the same time, and even fill heaven and earth. But at the same time manifest His presence in a particular place. I can't fully wrap my mind around that, but I do believe that both happen. Okay, real quick, we've got about a minute or two. I want to finish this up if we can. Application of this truth. What does the truth of God's omnipresence mean to you? How does that speak to you? What can you draw from that that's a blessing to you? Robin? I'm not understanding why it's like this, but I'm glad that you're here. Exactly. Yes. Yeah, exactly right. Even if we can't grasp it all, we can know that God is there wherever we are or family members are. That's a tremendous encouragement. And I think that's something we can all take with us from this. Paul says it this way in Philippians 4 verse 5, this verse came to mind. Let your gentleness be evident to all the Lord is near. The Lord is near. And he's not talking about his coming. He's talking about his omnipresence. The Lord is always near. No matter where you are, he's near. He is accessible to you, no matter where you are. And he has no trouble responding to his people at any point in the world at the same time. You know, at this very moment, as we call out to the Lord for people on our prayer list, there are people across the world doing the same thing. And God is with them as well. And he is near to them as well. It's not like, well, maybe God's too busy over in Philippians right now to be concerned about my need. No. He is very active in the Philippines right now doing his work to heal, restore, comfort, but he's also right here at the same time. That's a tremendous comfort, I think, should be to us as believers. Let me just real quickly summarize a couple of other things. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to think that God is more present in some locations than others. Maybe a place that's been special to us, a particular church, a particular place where we had special times with the Lord. And we think of that's really where the presence of God is really strong. And that's not true. It may feel that way sometimes, but it's not true. Don't ever fool yourself into thinking that way. Because if you do think that way, then in those lonely times and desolate times and hard times, you'll think of yourself in a place where God is not as real. And the enemy will use that to defeat you. Because God is always near. He's always near. There is no place where his presence is more real than somewhere else. And you have to go to that place to get close to God. It's just not true. It's just not true. So don't ever let the enemy deceive you into thinking that. One other thing that we probably should say, and that is there's also a warning here, you cannot hide from him. Remember, that's one of the things that Psalm 139 said, you cannot hide from God. No matter where you go, you cannot hide from him. We have a tendency to think that we can do certain things at certain times or in certain places that God may not notice. Isn't it interesting that people, more sin happens at night than any other time under the cover of darkness? And there's something in our psyche that says, I'm hiding. Darkness is a cloak. And that's why the Psalmist says in Psalm 139, if I go into the darkness, even the darkness is not hidden from you. So there's a warning here as well. And that is that nothing can hide us. We cannot hide from God either. He is everywhere present at the same time. So great comfort to be gained from that truth, great encouragement, peace and blessing, but also don't forget the warning side of it either. Don't think that you can sneak off to such and such a place and God won't notice. You can't hide from him either. Okay, sobering, sobering truth. And that clock is also very sobering. So we need to finish up. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the fact that you are everywhere present all the time. Thank you for the great comfort that can bring us. And may we always remember that. That you are always near, no matter where we are, no matter what we're going through, no matter whether we feel your presence or not, you're always near. So help us to rest in your arms even when we can't feel them. Help us to know that you're watching us even when we can't feel your presence or sense you. Help us to believe you that you are near and call out to you no matter where we are in Jesus name. Amen.