Knowing God (Pt. 2)

Knowing God (Pt. 2)

In the last message I stated “…they go on rejecting God by exchanging the truth of God for a lie, the lie of their mind.” The mind is not bad, we are called to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind (Mark 12:30), but when the mind is in control of both heart and soul, then there is a problem. This is something that I struggle with, I love to learn, but when my heart and my head disconnect then there is only judgment in what I say, and I do not do it for the glory of God, but to merely when an argument. This is sin. This is pride. So do not commit intellectual suicide by saying the mind is bad, it is necessary that you may spread the gospel to thinkers as well as to the spiritually ignorant. But do not forget your heart, or only sin will be found (pride).
Now to continue on, “The Mountains and the hills do not willingly worship (Piper).” They were made to worship! They know nothing else! They do not do it willingly because that is their soul purpose! But we close our ears, and worship the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). The wrath of God is revealed against mankind because of their acceptance of this lie, because of their suppression of the truth that all of creation screams out. The wrath of God is the first doctrinal thing we must learn. “So we will recognize our deep spiritual need and be prepared to receive the knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior…(Boice).” We must come to God humbly with a contrite spirit (Isaiah 66:2) else we come boasting of our knowledge of spiritual matters, for in this He would reject us.
God’s wrath against mankind is perfectly just. For example, if I were to commit a crime against another man, then I would be judged according to that crime, and against the man I wronged. But since the crime is against a temporal man then my sentence will not be for eternity. However God is eternal, and since our sins are committed against the Eternal Being of God then it is perfectly just for us to be punished forever. Here are the words of Jonathan Edwards on this matter from his sermons "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners:"

“Every crime or fault deserves a greater or less punishment, in proportion as the crime itself is greater or less. If any fault deserves punishment, then so much the greater the fault, so much the greater is the punishment deserved. The faulty nature of any thing is the formal ground and reason of its desert of punishment; and therefore the more any thing hath of this nature, the more punishment it deserves. And therefore the terribleness of the degree of punishment, let it be never be so terrible, is no argument against the justice of it, if the proportion does but hold between the heinousness of the crime and the dreadfulness of the punishment; so that if there be any such thing as a fault infinitely heinous, it will follow that it is just to inflict a punishment for it that is infinitely dreadful.
… Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being, is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority; for that is the very meaning of the words. When we say any one is very lovely, it is the same as to say, that he is one very much to be loved. Or if we say such a one is more honorable than another, the meaning of the words is, that he is one that we are more obliged to honor. If we say any one has great authority over us, it is the same as to say, that he has great right to our subjection and obedience.

But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty. To have infinite excellency and beauty, is the same thing as to have infinite loveliness. He is a being of infinite greatness, majesty, and glory; and therefore he is infinitely honorable. He is infinitely exalted above the greatest potentates of the earth, and highest angels in heaven; and therefore he is infinitely more honorable than they. His authority over us is infinite; and the ground of his right to our obedience is infinitely strong; for he is infinitely worthy to be obeyed himself, and we have an absolute, universal, and infinite dependence upon him.

So that sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving of infinite punishment.- Nothing is more agreeable to the common sense of mankind, than that sins committed against any one, must be proportionably heinous to the dignity of the being offended and abused; as it is also agreeable to the word of God, I Samuel 2:25. "If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him;" (i.e. shall judge him, and inflict a finite punishment, such as finite judges can inflict;) "but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?"

The infinitely punishable act is that of sin, disobedience, pride, etc. And because it is a crime against God’s infinite glory than the lowest term of sentencing is eternity. Due to it being an infinitely heinous act then the least amount of punishment is that of Hell (dreadful). So you see that God is perfectly just in His sentencing and in the punishment itself. We must learn this to be able to come to Him humbly to receive the gift of eternity with Him, because the price has been paid, and we are free in Christ, if we are Christian.

Just for fun

I know that I usually write about pretty hard/heavy issues. So here is a little bit-o-fun just to make you laugh.




WOOF!

Knowing God (Pt. 1)

I have been sending these messages for the past couple weeks now, and I have yet to tell you why I send them. It is quite simple really, I send them because I love God, and I am unashamed of the work He is doing. I also feel that a revival is soon coming and that this generation is the one to lead it, so by sending these letters I pray that God is using me to kindle a fire within you to speak boldly of who Christ is and what He has done; that the world might know the One true God, and that He is greatly to be praised. Thus having clearly stated that I would like to begin a series of messages on God, His attributes, His Creation, His word…etc. so that we all may better know the God we worship.

Knowing God (Part 1)

“Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” This is the opening line of John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” and it states the main problem. Who really knows himself and God? Is there anyone that has ever lived that has truly known himself? That has known every sin that lies within all the deep folds of their heart and mind, is it even possible? I can only speak from my experience, and that is it is impossible to completely know yourself. If you are completely honest you do not know all the sins that you have committed. However it goes far beyond that, we are born sinful, before we take our first breath we are consumed by sin. The reason being for not completely knowing ourselves is that we do not completely know God; we have failed to know God.
Before we go and blame it on God, we must first look at one of His attributes, which is His omnipotence. He is all-powerful. Since the fault is ours we can take comfort in the fact it can be corrected. He can do anything; He can intervene. But if (and more comfortably) the fault is God’s than nothing can be done to correct the problem. “The Bible declares that the problem is not God’s but ours. Therefore the problem is solvable. It is solvable because God can take, and actually has taken steps to reveal Himself to us, thereby providing us with the missing key to knowledge. (James Boice)”
However men and women do not naturally obey or worship this God, although they do have an awareness of Him, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. (Romans 1:20)” From this we can see that man has willingly rejected God. Man can see his attributes in all of creation, but they turn away. Their heart screams, “Yes, there is a God!” But their mind yells, “There cannot be!” Thus they go on rejecting God by exchanging the truth of God for a lie, the lie of their mind.