The Doctrine of God

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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September 11, 2020

00:00: Well, hello everyone.
00:02: Y'all look so excited to be in class today and want to remind you of what we're doing because it's important that we understand this is an ongoing class and it is a rotating class, meaning we are right now in week two.
00:22: We go to week 12.
00:24: It's a 12-week course and then we start over again at week one, so it's a rotating theology course.
00:32: This is the first time that we have done it, so it's the first time that many of you or any of you have ever been in this class.
00:40: However, if you stay past three months, you may be taking this again and it may rotate because the whole idea is you should hear these things more than once.
00:51: You should be exposed to these things.
00:53: You'll learn even if you take the same class a second time.
00:57: I won't be giving it the same exact way because there's always nuances and changes in that regard.
01:04: And for those of you who don't know, I'm Keith.
01:06: I am the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church and I'm also the professor at Sovereign Grace Academy, which is our Bible teaching ministry that we have, which is a seminary at our church.
01:20: This is my son JJ.
01:22: He is our mascot for the class and if he acts up, then I'm going to have one of you guys take him out and give him the business.
01:30: So hopefully he'll know to not act up.
01:33: He'll act right throughout the class.
01:35: Ain't that right, JJ? JJ's a good guy, right? Good.
01:41: Okay.
01:41: He's going to be good.
01:43: Now last week, we began with the doctrine of revelation.
01:49: If you were not here, the doctrine of revelation is not about the book of revelation, but rather about how God has revealed Himself to man.
02:01: We talked about general revelation, that God has revealed Himself generally to all men, and we talked about special revelation, where God has revealed Himself in a specific way through the Bible and particularly through Jesus Christ.
02:19: Today we're going to be looking at something called theology proper.
02:24: The word theology means the study of God.
02:28: It comes from the Greek word theos and logos.
02:31: Logos means a word or a study and theos means God and therefore anytime you see ology at the end of something, that usually means a science or a study of that thing.
02:43: Anthropology, biology, all those things.
02:46: Well, theology is the study of God.
02:49: Well, when we talk about God in His nature and we talk about God in His existence and we talk about God in regard to His attributes, then we are talking about not theology as a whole, but we're talking about a specific subset of theology and we call that theology proper.
03:11: So that is what today is about.
03:13: We're going to discuss why we believe that God exists.
03:17: We're going to talk about what the Bible says about the God who does exist, particularly in regard to His attributes.
03:26: If you would, open your Bible.
03:28: We're going to begin in Romans chapter 1 looking at God's existence.
03:37: Romans chapter 1 is I would say one of the most important passages regarding the existence of God in the entire Bible.
03:47: The Bible assumes that God exists.
03:51: The very first page does not say we believe that God exists because X, Y, and Z.
03:58: The very first page of the Bible says in the beginning God.
04:02: It just assumes His existence.
04:04: It does not argue for His existence.
04:07: It assumes that He exists.
04:10: In the book of Romans chapter 1, Paul tells us why we can make that assumption, why we can know that that is true.
04:20: In Romans chapter 1, verse 18, it says this, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
04:39: For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
04:45: For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
04:56: So they are without excuse.
05:00: For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
05:10: Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
05:22: We'll end there at verse 23.
05:26: Now, have you ever heard someone say, or maybe you have said it yourself, I don't believe God exists.
05:34: You've heard people say that? You've heard that? Maybe again, maybe you've said it yourself.
05:40: We normally refer to a person who says God does not exist as an atheist.
05:51: However, there are other categories that are important to recognize.
05:56: There is the category known as agnostic, and the word agnostic comes from the word gnosis, which means knowledge.
06:10: And when you put the alpha primitive at the beginning of something, you make it the opposite.
06:16: So alpha primitive is an A.
06:18: If you put an A at the beginning of a word, you're making it the opposite.
06:22: So a theist is a person who believes in God.
06:27: An atheist is a person who doesn't believe in God.
06:31: Gnosis is knowledge, right? So agnostic means no knowledge.
06:39: It's ignorant, and not ignorant in a way that you might call someone ignorant in a slight or, you know, like if I said you're so ignorant, that might be ugly and mean.
06:52: No, ignorant in the sense they're saying I don't know if God exists.
06:56: Right? That's the two categories.
07:00: There's also a third category, which is often not talked about, but I like to bring it up.
07:12: Misotheist.
07:14: Misotheist is different than atheist and agnostic, a misotheist from the prefix miso, which means hatred.
07:26: And so there are those who don't believe God exists.
07:29: There are those who don't know if God exists, and there are those who hate the existence of God, the idea of God.
07:36: People say, I hate the idea that there's a God who's watching me.
07:40: I hate the idea that I can never go anywhere where he's not looking at me.
07:44: I hate the idea that I can never have any private time.
07:49: Right? And so the idea of hatred of God is also false within this category.
07:55: Now, I want to very quickly make a few points about these three categories.
08:01: When we talk about these three categories of atheist, agnostic, and misotheist, we're talking about someone who is, according to Romans 1, denying something that they know in their heart is true.
08:16: Romans 1 says that all men know that God exists, that they suppress that truth because of their unrighteousness, and they replace the God who exists with an idol of some sort, whether it's the idol of self, whether it's the idol of drugs, alcohol, whatever.
08:36: Maybe it's the idol of, maybe it's an actual idol that they've carved out of wood, or they've made out of metal or gold.
08:43: Right? And so the idea of Romans 1 is all men know God exists.
08:47: They suppress that truth because they, as John tells us, they love the darkness rather than the light.
08:53: So they suppress the truth, and as a result, they become idolaters.
09:00: But for a moment, let us just consider the idea of atheism.
09:05: If someone says, I am an atheist because I know there is no God, I would say that is an impossibility.
09:17: You cannot know that there is no God because you do not have all knowledge, and to make a claim that is that precise and that all-encompassing, you would have to have all knowledge, and since you don't, the very best you can be is an agnostic.
09:38: The very best you can be is to say I don't know.
09:41: For instance, let's say someone said, there's no gold in China.
09:49: Let's just say someone said that statement.
09:51: What would you have to know to be able to know that statement is true? But what would you have to know to know there's no gold in China? You'd have to be able to see inside of every rock.
10:11: You'd have to be able to see inside of every mountain, inside of every stream.
10:14: You'd have to be able to see inside of every Chinese person's mouth to see that there's been no gold in a word.
10:21: You'd have to know everything to be able to say there is no gold in China.
10:28: So you really can't say that.
10:31: In fact, all it would take to prove you wrong was to show you one piece of gold in China and then you'd be completely made an error and shown to be an error.
10:39: So when I say what I'm about to say, understand what I'm saying.
10:43: I don't believe that atheists actually exist because I don't believe anyone can know that God doesn't exist.
10:50: You understand? When someone says I'm an atheist, I say, no, you're really an agnostic.
10:56: You just don't think you know.
11:01: But to say that God does not exist is to make an absolute claim that you don't have enough knowledge to make because you don't know what's in the entire universe.
11:09: You can't see really very far at all into the universe.
11:13: How could you make the claim that God does not exist? So atheism, right off the bat, I think should be tossed out as untenable.
11:21: You can't know that.
11:23: So now we get to the issue of agnostic.
11:26: And this takes us back to Romans 1.
11:28: Because Romans 1 says you're actually not agnostic either.
11:32: Because Romans 1 tells you there's enough information in the world around you and there's enough information in your heart within you that you know that God exists.
11:41: So your ability to say I don't know, look again with me very quickly.
11:47: Notice what it says in verse 8, excuse me, rather what it says in verse 21.
11:55: Verse 20.
11:56: I'm sorry, my numbers are really small and I'm not wearing my glasses.
11:58: So forgive me.
11:59: It says, For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse.
12:12: When you face God at judgment, you're not going to be able to say to him, I didn't know you were there.
12:18: Because he's going to say to you, I gave you all information to know that I was there.
12:23: I gave you a world to look at.
12:25: I gave you a conscience within you.
12:28: I gave you order and beauty and testimony to my existence.
12:32: You cannot say you didn't know.
12:35: So with that, agnostic is out.
12:39: So now we're left with the third.
12:42: And I think the third is actually the most common and people just don't want to admit it.
12:47: They know God exists, but they hate him.
12:51: In fact, that's the two things that I find most common among atheists.
12:56: They don't believe in God and they hate him.
12:59: They don't believe in him, but they hate him.
13:02: Yeah, he's not there, but he sure is a jerk.
13:07: And so really, it's not a matter of atheism or agnosticism.
13:11: It's a matter of misatheism.
13:13: It's a matter of a desire to not be under the thumb of a God, not be under the rule of a supreme being.
13:23: I don't want God to exist.
13:25: Therefore, I'll come up with reasons for not believing.
13:29: And I'll make those reasons sound very plausible to me.
13:36: Justified.
13:37: Thank you.
13:37: That's a better word.
13:38: So this leads us to some of the classical arguments for the existence of God, because we've looked now at the subject of what the Bible says.
13:49: The Bible says we know God exists.
13:51: But over the centuries.
13:54: Okay.
14:00: Now, I'm teaching you.
14:02: Yeah, I don't know what the smell is.
14:06: It's like curry.
14:08: Some kind of somebody cooking something.
14:11: Yeah.
14:12: Is that what it is? Curry? Okay.
14:15: All right.
14:15: You'll be all right.
14:16: You drink your apple juice.
14:17: All right.
14:18: So sorry about that.
14:20: All right.
14:20: Now, I want to share with you four of the classical arguments for the existence of God with this caveat.
14:30: I don't believe these arguments prove the existence of God because I don't think it has to be proven.
14:34: I think we know.
14:36: But what Christian philosophers have done down through the centuries is Christian philosophers have recognized these four arguments as being helpful for believers to affirm what we know is true.
14:54: So this isn't arguing.
14:56: This is affirming what we already know.
14:58: Okay.
14:59: And are they on your paper? Did I put them on your paper? The four arguments? Now, they're big words.
15:05: Please, please understand.
15:06: I don't throw out big words just because I'm just trying to come in and be confusing or try to look, you know, very heady and very weighty.
15:13: I use big words because these words have meaning.
15:16: And I want to share with you what the meanings are.
15:19: And I think it's good to always raise the bar of thinking as much as we can.
15:24: You know, if we always stay in the shallow puddles, we're only going to get our feet wet.
15:29: Sometimes we've got to wade into the deep water and let the water come up and soak us, you know.
15:35: So that's why we do these things.
15:36: It's important.
15:37: Don't get bored.
15:38: I promise it's going to get, as we go, it'll get more exciting, I hope.
15:41: All right.
15:42: So we have four arguments.
15:43: The cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the anthropological argument, and the moral argument.
15:52: Those are the four.
15:54: Do not.
15:54: First is the cosmological argument.
16:00: What does the word cosmos mean? You may know.
16:03: Space, right? All right.
16:05: So the cosmos is everything.
16:09: It's the, in fact, the Greek word for cosmos is actually the word that's translated world.
16:15: John 3.16, for God so loved the world, the Greek word there is cosmos.
16:20: It's where we get the word cosmos.
16:22: It refers to everything.
16:23: The cosmos is all things.
16:26: And the distinction is between cosmos and chaos.
16:34: When we look around us, we see cosmos, an orderly arrangement of the world.
16:43: We see an orderly arrangement of the universe.
16:46: We do not see chaos.
16:48: Like for instance, this morning, when did the sun rise? Somewhere 7, 7.10, 7.15, something like that, right? When did it rise yesterday? About the same time.
17:00: When did it rise the day before that? About the same time, except for when that stupid time change happens every year and everything gets discombobulated.
17:11: But we know that we can make predictions about the world.
17:17: For instance, if I was a scientist, which I am not, if I was a scientist and I was doing a scientific experiment on the subject, you have to use the restroom.
17:30: You were really good last week.
17:34: You need to go to the bathroom.
17:36: It's right there.
17:36: Can he go in there? Go right there.
17:40: Quickly.
17:43: Okay.
17:44: So if I made a scientific experiment and I said water boils at what? 212.
17:55: 212 Fahrenheit, right? 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
17:59: I say water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit every time.
18:04: So if I boil water today at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, tomorrow I can expect that if I boil water, it's going to boil at 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
18:13: 100 years from now, if I boil water, it's going to boil at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, right? It's going to freeze at, what is it? 32 degrees Fahrenheit, right? And so I have expectation.
18:29: I have uniformity in nature and in the world around me.
18:35: And that is cosmos.
18:38: Chaos would be today it boils at 212, tomorrow it boils at 350, and the day after that it boils at 10.
18:45: It would be different all the time.
18:47: It would be chaos all the time.
18:49: And so the argument, the cosmological argument, cosmos not only means world, but it means orderly.
18:56: The idea is an orderly universe rather than a chaotic universe.
19:01: And so the cosmological argument says the cosmos, an orderly cosmos exists.
19:10: Therefore, an orderly intelligence or an orderly creator must exist.
19:18: You guys remember last week when I said, if you see a building, it tells you that the builder exists.
19:24: Remember, we said if you see a building, I don't have to see the builder.
19:28: I don't have to see the architect.
19:30: I don't have to see the plan.
19:31: I know the architect, the builder and the plans exist because the building exists.
19:35: The building is testimony to the builder.
19:38: And so when we talk about cosmological argument, we're saying the cosmos exists.
19:43: Therefore, a creator of the cosmos must exist.
19:47: This is a very simple inference.
19:51: And we are deducing based on the existence of the cosmos that a creator exists.
19:56: That's the cosmological argument.
19:59: The second argument is the teleological argument.
20:04: Now I'm going to erase this because I need to add some words.
20:12: The teleological argument comes from the Greek word telos.
20:19: Telos means purpose.
20:30: You see, the universe not only exists and the universe not only exists in an orderly way, but the universe exists for the purpose of sustaining our existence, our life.
20:58: The universe not only exists, but it exists for the purpose of sustaining our life.
21:08: Yeah, is there a sink in there? Go ahead.
21:12: Yes, sir.
21:14: Do you have a question? Oh, the sink is hot.
21:25: I'm so sorry, guys.
21:26: We're working.
21:27: We're working on it.
21:28: This is my opportunity to, you know, my kids are homeschooled.
21:32: So they're with my wife all day long every day.
21:35: This is my opportunity to try to help my boy.
21:40: Yeah.
21:43: All right.
21:43: So I want you to turn right now very quickly to Psalm 19.
21:47: We looked at this last week, I think, but I want to point out something to you in Psalm 19.
22:03: All right.
22:03: Sit down and be quiet.
22:11: Thank you, buddy.
22:12: Thank you so much.
22:14: All right.
22:14: So Psalm 19 says, The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
22:22: Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge.
22:25: There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard.
22:29: Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the earth.
22:33: And then He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving its chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
22:40: Its rising is from the end of the earth and its circuit to the end of them.
22:44: There's nothing hidden from its heat.
22:46: This passage reminds us that the world around us is put together in such a way that certain things happen for our benefit.
22:58: The sun comes out in the morning and it heats us all day long and it goes down at night.
23:04: Now, we understand the world's round and when it's down for us, it's up for China.
23:07: And when it's up for China, it's down for us.
23:09: You know, so we understand that this is using what's known as phenomenological language or the language of appearance.
23:15: So it's telling us what we see.
23:17: It comes out, goes across the sky and goes back down.
23:20: But it has a purpose.
23:22: Years ago I was canoeing and I was canoeing down the Suwannee River.
23:30: As I was going down the Suwannee River with some other friends and we're canoeing down the river, I look on the bank of the Suwannee River and I notice a park bench that someone had apparently brought and set on the beach.
23:47: You know, it's a sandy river bank and they had set it there apparently to sit and look at the water.
23:54: Now, it hadn't been used in a while.
23:58: Rain and water and sand had gotten onto it, but you could still make the shape of the sea.
24:06: You could see the little, the parts of the bench that were certainly a parked bench.
24:10: It had the slats and it had the bolts and it had all of those things.
24:16: So I looked at it and I had this epiphany.
24:19: I said, there is an example of the teleological argument.
24:25: Now that's not what I said, but in my mind what I said was, that was put there for a purpose.
24:33: That was put there by an intelligent person.
24:37: That didn't come about by wind and rain eroding rocks into a bench.
24:43: Now if I saw a rock that looked like a seat, I could say that happened by accident, but that's no mistake.
24:50: That's no accident when you see a bench that has bolts with rivets and the finely tuned wood and cut and all those things.
25:00: You look at that and you say, that is an example of purpose.
25:04: It was put there for a purpose by somebody who had a design in mind.
25:08: When you look at the human body, now take that example and look at the human body and look how just exquisite the architecture of the body is.
25:20: Think about how much is a part of just your makeup and you say there's purpose in this.
25:30: There's design in this.
25:32: There's a goal in this.
25:35: And that's the teleological argument.
25:37: This is the heart of the intelligent design movement.
25:41: The movement that would say, you cannot say that the world came from nothing and has no direction because there's too much evidence of design.
25:51: And so the teleological argument is an important argument.
25:56: The third argument is the anthropological argument.
25:59: Now, very quickly, you may know this.
26:09: The word anthropos means what? It's Greek.
26:15: It means what? Anthropology is the study of man.
26:24: So anthropos is the word for man.
26:26: So that means man.
26:29: All right.
26:30: So when we talk about the anthropological principle or the anthropological argument, what we are saying is that man is more than just the sum of his parts.
26:44: He is more than just a biological machine.
26:48: I've had a lot of discussions with unbelievers.
26:51: I've had a lot of discussions with people who do not believe in the Bible, who do not believe in Jesus.
26:59: Stop.
27:00: In fact, one man, I was sitting, I was having lunch with a Christian friend and his wife and my wife.
27:08: It was, I think it was after church on a Sunday.
27:10: So we just came from church.
27:11: We're, you know, we're moved by what we've learned in church.
27:16: And so we're sitting at the table and we're talking about God.
27:20: And we're being kind of loud because I don't know how to be any other way.
27:24: I'm only loud.
27:25: I don't really have a low switch.
27:27: And so my buddy, and he's loud too.
27:30: He's this big bodybuilder guy, you know, and he's just sitting there.
27:34: Yeah.
27:34: I love Jesus.
27:35: And I'm talking about this, whatever, whatever.
27:38: And this young man, I forget 20, 25 years old.
27:45: He walks over to our table and he says, sirs, I don't mean to bother you, but I can hear you talking from my table.
27:55: And I hear you talking about God.
27:59: Can you tell me why you believe in God? Because I don't believe in God.
28:07: And I want to know why you believe in God.
28:09: And I said, pull up a chair, man.
28:12: I'm excited.
28:14: Every day fish just jump on in the boat, sit down.
28:18: I mean, this is why we're here.
28:22: So we began to talk about the fact that the Bible says that all men know that God exists, that he does know in his heart that God exists.
28:32: He's suppressing that truth.
28:33: And I always start there.
28:34: I always start with Scripture.
28:36: People say, well, what if people don't believe the Bible? I don't care.
28:39: It doesn't, that didn't take away my authority.
28:41: If I'm talking to a scientist and he believes in evolution, he's not going to stop talking about evolution just because I don't believe in it.
28:48: Why should I stop talking about the Bible just because he doesn't believe it? You see, I understand from the foundation, I'm not going to let him steal my authority just because he doesn't believe it.
28:56: But that's where I began.
28:57: But here's the point that really, I think, got his attention.
29:00: I said, young man, I said, there's a young lady at your table.
29:08: Who is that? And he said, that's my girlfriend.
29:12: I said, do you love her? And he says, yes, I love her.
29:17: I said, why? And he said, well, she's this or that.
29:23: She's a good person, whatever.
29:25: I said, but if there is no God, then you're really just a big sack of stardust.
29:35: And she's really just a big sack of stardust.
29:38: And all of the emotions that you have all of the thoughts and desires and wishes and dreams that you have are really nothing more than the firing of synapses in your brain.
29:49: It's really nothing more than a chemical reaction happening within your body.
29:54: It really has no more intrinsic value than me shaking up a can of diet soda and opening it and allowing all those chemicals to spew out.
30:03: What makes you more valuable than a can of soda? What makes the chemical processes in your brain that are making you feel love and joy and happiness any more special than what happens inside of a can of pop? You see, you know God exists.
30:25: God has put within you a knowledge of your own self-worth.
30:29: You know you were made in His image.
30:32: And there is something different between you and a can of pop.
30:38: And that's the anthropological argument that man is more than just a biological machine.
30:46: You are more than just bone and skin and electrical impulses.
30:54: You are a spirit, body and soul.
31:02: That's the anthropological argument.
31:04: The final argument is the moral argument.
31:07: Now we should know what the word moral means.
31:09: The word moral refers to right and wrong.
31:15: This is really I think one of the strongest arguments that we must put forward and that is the idea that all men understand by nature that there are some things that are right and there are some things that are wrong.
31:31: They don't always agree on what they are, but I can usually get the consensus of the group if I begin to dig far enough.
31:41: If I said, all right, everybody in this room, all of your mothers are going to get beaten tonight.
31:47: Everyone would get angry and upset because you don't believe that your mother deserves to be beaten tonight.
31:58: Maybe you do and I don't want to get into it if that's the case.
32:07: I always go to Romans 1.18, the same one we started with today.
32:11: Romans 1.18-23 is always where I start.
32:14: Anytime an unbeliever wants to talk, I always start there because it reminds us that all men know that God exists and that they are without excuse.
32:27: But getting back to the issue of the moral argument, the moral argument is not so much that men know that they are valuable, but that they know that there are things that are right and things that are wrong.
32:43: In a universe that has no creator, there is no standard.
32:51: If God does not exist, all things are permissible.
32:57: Well, we would not have the consciences that we do have, the consciences that there is a universal understanding that there is ought and ought not.
33:08: And that would be chaos.
33:10: Yeah, chaos of the mind.
33:13: In fact, we talked about this last week, how do we identify people who do not believe in right and wrong? Sociopathic or psychopathic, right? We say a person who has no ability to distinguish between right and wrong, there's something wrong with him.
33:27: And we identify that with the terms right and wrong.
33:30: We say there's something wrong.
33:34: The problem with the world right now, the biggest problem with the world right now, and you may have your own opinion as to what is the bigger sociological, economical, interpersonal problem, but the biggest problem in the world right now is just what the Bible says, we have flip-flopped right and wrong.
33:55: We say what's right is wrong and what's wrong is right.
33:59: And the Bible says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
34:05: And that's what we have done.
34:08: All right, so the Bible assumes God exists from the very first verse.
34:12: Man knows God exists according to what the Bible teaches, because God has revealed himself in such a way that no man has an excuse.
34:21: So that is the first half of today's lesson on the doctrine of God is God exists.
34:27: The second half is what do we know about God? If we know God exists, what can we know about him? And this brings us to the subject of God's attributes.
34:42: Now I want to say this before I even begin the second half.
34:51: The most controversial thing to teach on today in churches are the attributes of God.
34:58: You say why is that? Because most people do not have a biblical understanding of God and therefore when we begin to talk about the attributes of God, people who have been brought up with what I call a Christianity-like version of God, when they begin to hear what the Bible says about God and all those passages that they didn't want to deal with in Sunday school and all those passages that they didn't want to teach to their children, we get to those passages and we say, okay, this God is a lot more complex than we ever could have imagined.
35:39: And when we begin to do that, it can become offensive.
35:44: Paul Washer is one of my favorite preachers and he says this.
35:46: He says, I've had preachers ask me to come to their church and preach on the attributes of God and I said, I won't.
35:54: And he says, why not? He said, because if I come and preach on the attributes of God, it will split your church.
36:00: People will leave because they do not want to hear about how God truly is.
36:07: They want the God that is like Santa Claus who begs you to come sit on his lap.
36:13: They want the Jesus with the limp wrist who's always willing to bend over backwards to satisfy you.
36:21: They don't want the God who demands.
36:25: They don't want the God who is filled not only with love, but also wrath.
36:30: They do not want the God of the Bible.
36:33: This takes us back to Romans 1, because what do men do? They replace the God who exists with an idol.
36:40: And the greatest factory of idols, according to John Calvin, is the human mind.
36:44: The human mind is a factory of idols.
36:48: It's constantly making new gods to believe in.
36:52: I've told this story, but so many of y'all are new, you're going to hear it again.
36:56: I remember I walked into Kmart.
36:57: This tells you how long ago it was, because there ain't no Kmart no more.
37:00: But I walked into Kmart and there was a lady greeting at the door.
37:05: I handed her a gospel tract.
37:07: She took it from me and I walked on to go look at some tennis shoes.
37:10: Well, as I was looking at the tennis shoes, she walks up to me and she says, I don't want this.
37:18: Take it back.
37:20: So I took it back and I said, thank you.
37:23: I thanked her because most people just tear it up and throw it away.
37:27: So at least I got it back and give it to somebody else.
37:29: So she hands it to me.
37:30: I don't want it.
37:31: I said, thank you.
37:32: And I turned around and started looking at the shoes again.
37:34: And I noticed she hasn't left.
37:38: She's standing there, tapping her foot, got her hands on her hip.
37:42: Don't you want to know why I don't want it? I said, I know why you don't want it.
37:49: It tells you about God and about His justice and His wrath.
37:55: And I'm sure you don't want to hear about those things.
37:57: And she said, I'll tell you why I don't want that piece of paper, because my goddess would not send anyone to hell.
38:07: I said, you're right.
38:10: I said, because your goddess does not exist.
38:13: You have created a God in your own mind.
38:16: You are an idolater and you worship a God that you've created because she satisfies what you want.
38:24: You've abandoned the God who exists for a God that you've made in your own mind.
38:30: She was stunned.
38:32: I've never heard anybody say that before.
38:34: And thankfully, we went on to have a very nice, long conversation.
38:38: She took the track back.
38:40: She took my name and number.
38:41: She never called me, unfortunately.
38:43: But by being honest with her, I was able to have more of a conversation.
38:47: I didn't just bow down, oh yes, your goddess, what? No, you're an idolater.
38:53: You're worshiping a God who doesn't exist.
38:55: You've made this God up in your own mind.
38:56: And you need to know that.
39:00: Well, hopefully by God's grace, yes.
39:03: So let's look at the issue of God's attributes.
39:07: Looking first at the first line on your paper, a prerequisite to this discussion is this.
39:14: We must recognize divine incomprehensibility.
39:17: Now that word simply means that God is so great that we cannot fully comprehend all that He is.
39:28: You can write this down.
39:29: Psalm 145, verse 3.
39:31: Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.
39:34: His greatness is unsearchable, meaning it cannot be found out completely.
39:41: God's greatness is unimaginable.
39:43: It's so incomprehensible.
39:46: But just because it's incomprehensible does not mean it's unknowable.
39:49: It just means it can't be fully known.
39:52: It's like this.
39:53: I can know that the Atlantic Ocean is wet, but I can't know the fullness of the water in the Atlantic Ocean.
40:02: I can't even comprehend the water.
40:04: And even more so, I couldn't take all of the Atlantic Ocean and put it in a bucket and take it home.
40:11: So I can know things about God, but I cannot fully take those things in and pretend as if I have it all figured out.
40:20: And so that is what we talk about is divine incomprehensibility.
40:24: Now, we're going to limit ourselves to 10 attributes.
40:29: And I'm going to give these in sort of a rapid fire because of time.
40:33: We're at 40 minutes now.
40:34: I try to make this, you know, 50 minutes.
40:38: So that leaves me with only about a minute per attribute.
40:43: The most important one is number one, the holiness of God.
40:47: Let me ask you this.
40:49: And you may know this because you may have done this lesson before.
40:52: Who in here can give a definition for holiness? Sir? Set apart.
41:02: Okay, that's good.
41:03: Anything else? The likeness of God.
41:12: Like if we're holy, we're reflecting God.
41:16: Okay, that's in our regard.
41:17: But we're talking about God's holiness now.
41:19: What does holiness mean when we say God is holy? Perfect.
41:26: You said what now? Almighty.
41:29: Almighty.
41:30: Okay.
41:34: All of these are good.
41:35: Quiet.
41:36: We're almost done.
41:37: Stop.
41:37: Right now.
41:38: I don't care what that tongue stuck out on.
41:40: That bothered me.
41:41: All right, now listen.
41:45: When we talk about the holiness of God, one of the things you need to understand about that term is the holiness of God is the only attribute of God that God is described with three times in a row, holy, holy, holy.
42:06: It's in Isaiah chapter six.
42:09: The Bible says that the angels who surround the throne of God are constantly saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord.
42:20: So there's something, because the Bible doesn't say God is love, love, love.
42:24: It doesn't say He's justice, justice, justice or mercy, mercy, mercy.
42:28: It says He is holy, holy, holy.
42:32: So there is something particular about His holiness that we need to understand.
42:39: And while the textbook definition, and you're right, what's your name? Zach.
42:45: Set apart is when we make something holy, we set it apart.
42:48: That is true.
42:49: But when we're talking about God, we're talking about the ultimate sense of being set apart, because what holiness is saying is there's none like Him.
42:59: That's the idea.
43:01: Holiness is the idea of being absolutely different.
43:07: In fact, my favorite word is a word Dr.
43:09: R.C.
43:09: Sproul used, the word otherness.
43:13: What is God like? Nothing else.
43:15: He is other.
43:16: He is absolutely different than everything else.
43:19: He is completely and utterly unique.
43:23: And I think that holy in that regard is equivalent, D.A.
43:28: Carson said this, equivalent to His Godhood, because there's no other God.
43:33: So to say God is holy is to say God is God.
43:38: It's particularly referring to the fact that there's none like Him.
43:43: God is holy.
43:45: And this is His key attribute.
43:50: You remember, and maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you guys do a lot of Bible reading, Leviticus chapter 10.
43:58: Two men, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, they offer up a strange fire before the Lord.
44:07: They offer this fire up.
44:10: God consumes them with the fire and burns them to death.
44:16: Now this is the sons of Aaron.
44:19: Imagine for a moment you have two sons following in the family business.
44:26: The family business in this regard just happens to be the business of being a priest.
44:31: The two sons offer up a strange fire, which means a fire that God had not commanded.
44:39: And so God, in response to their blasphemy, burns them to death in front of you.
44:55: What do you think would be your guttural reaction? Anger? Sadness? Brokenness? Moses, Aaron's brother, he's there too.
45:16: And he says to Aaron, God has said that those who draw near to me must treat me as holy.
45:30: By those who draw near to me, I will be seen as holy.
45:37: And the Bible says Aaron held his peace.
45:45: You see, the two boys, and there weren't boys, there were men.
45:48: These two young men, they were flirting with the holiness of God.
45:54: They were perverting the holiness of God.
45:57: They were not recognizing God's nature as God.
46:01: And God said, I'm not going to allow that.
46:06: This will not be.
46:08: From the ministers who draw near to me, this will not be.
46:14: It's one of the reminders of how serious God takes His own holiness.
46:21: So holiness is key.
46:23: And I will say this, all the other attributes fall under this category.
46:26: Love is holy love.
46:29: Wisdom is holy wisdom.
46:32: Justice is holy justice.
46:34: Wrath is holy wrath.
46:37: So holiness is not just an attribute of God.
46:40: I would say it's the attribute of God.
46:43: And everything else categorizes itself underneath the attribute of holiness.
46:50: Now the second attribute we have here is the attribute of love.
46:54: The Bible says God is love.
46:56: 1 John 4.8.
46:59: But how do we define love? The world defines love in a very, a very, I would say, shallow way.
47:09: I love you because you satisfy a need.
47:11: I love you because you satisfy my desires.
47:14: I love you because you look good, you smell good, whatever.
47:18: God's love, and the word love, there's three words for love in the Greek, agape, eros, and phileo.
47:26: Eros is not in the Bible, but agape and phileos are.
47:32: And agape is the word most generally associated with God's love, and it refers to a love that is self sacrificial.
47:44: Like for instance, I love my son regardless of what he does.
47:52: I love my son in a way, and I don't like this word, but it's the only word I can think of at the moment.
48:00: I love my son unconditionally.
48:03: When he was born, I looked at his face, and I said, that's my son, and I love him.
48:11: Right? And so that is an example of the type of love that does not require anything on behalf of the person being loved.
48:19: See, phileo is more the idea of a friendship love where there's a reciprocation of love.
48:25: I love you, and you love me, and we have a friendship, a reciprocal relationship.
48:30: Right? It can still be unconditional, but it's still reciprocal.
48:35: You see, God loved Israel even when Israel was not doing what was right.
48:42: That's why God sent a Savior.
48:45: God loved me.
48:46: What does the Bible say? This is how the love of God is made manifest, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
48:54: And you see, love is a verb.
48:56: It's an action.
48:56: What was the greatest way to show love? Jesus died.
49:00: The Bible says, greater love hath no man than this, that he give his life for his friends.
49:08: You see, the holiness of God is true, and so is the love of God, and God's love is a holy love, and God's love is a powerful love.
49:20: But we have the third thing, and please don't miss this because this is important.
49:26: God also hates.
49:28: Notice the third one.
49:31: An attribute of God is the hatred of God.
49:34: You say, I didn't know God hated anything.
49:36: Proverbs 6, 16 to 19.
49:39: There are six things God hates, yea, seven are an abomination to Him, a proud look, a lying tongue, and He goes on down the list.
49:49: You say, well, how can God hate if God is love? It's because God is love that He hates.
49:55: If you love life, then you hate murder.
49:58: If you love your children, then you hate anything that would harm them.
50:03: If you love the Bible, then you hate those who would come attack the Bible.
50:08: You hate their attack.
50:10: You see, love and hate are not mutually exclusive, because I love my wife, and therefore I would hate anything that would attack and hurt her.
50:22: You see, there is a relationship, be quiet, now.
50:27: There is a relationship between love and hate, and I do think it's important.
50:33: I remember a young man in my youth group, I used to be youth director years and years ago, and I said, God hates whatever it was.
50:42: And he said, I didn't know God hated anything.
50:45: I thought God was all love.
50:47: I said, if God is all love, then He must hate.
50:54: Now, number four is righteousness.
50:57: What is righteousness? Simply put, goodness.
51:05: Goodness.
51:06: God is all good.
51:07: You ever heard the song, God is good, all the time? Right? You see, you have to understand, though, I'll say this, the scariest attribute of God, the most frightening attribute of God, is not His wrath.
51:25: The most frightening attribute of God is His goodness, because it is the goodness of God, the righteousness of God, that demands that He bring justice on unrighteousness.
51:45: What do you say about a judge who lets criminals go free with no punishment? He's unrighteous.
51:53: What do you say about a judge who judges fairly and with righteousness? You say, He is good.
52:00: He's a good judge.
52:01: He's a righteous judge.
52:03: And the Bible says, God of heaven is the righteous judge of the universe.
52:10: When you face God, you will face God as one who has broken His law.
52:15: And the righteous judge of the universe, if He gives you what you deserve, it will be punishment.
52:23: The only way to escape that punishment is to have your punishment paid by another.
52:29: To have your punishment substituted by another, and that person is Jesus Christ.
52:35: You see, that's where the love of God and the goodness of God go together.
52:38: The goodness of God demands that you be punished.
52:41: The holiness of God demands that His righteousness be rectified.
52:49: But the love of God sends forth His Son to be the propitiation, to be the sacrifice.
52:57: God has wrath, and He satisfies Himself on our behalf.
53:04: So God's goodness should frighten us, because we are not good.
53:08: The Bible says, there is none good, no not one.
53:14: Number five is His aseity.
53:17: I'll make it simple.
53:18: The word aseity means self-existence.
53:23: And you know this one.
53:25: In Exodus chapter 3, when God speaks to Moses, how does He identify Himself? I am.
53:34: He doesn't say, I was, and He doesn't say, I will be.
53:39: He says, I am.
53:41: And He doesn't qualify.
53:43: If I say I am, which means I exist, I have to say I am because I have enough air.
53:51: I am because I have enough food, or I have enough water.
53:54: I am because I have all of the things necessary to allow for my existence.
53:59: What does God say? I am, period.
54:04: That's it.
54:05: I exist.
54:07: I am absolutely independent.
54:10: You are all dependent.
54:12: You're dependent on God.
54:14: You're dependent on the atmosphere.
54:15: You're dependent on food, water, shelter, all those things.
54:19: But God is completely self-existent.
54:24: That's why when your child asks you, if God made everything, who made God? It's a good question actually.
54:30: Don't ever laugh when your child asks that because that's a very important theological question.
54:36: The answer is God exists and has the power of existence in Himself.
54:41: No one had to create Him because He is the ultimate being who is in Himself self-existent.
54:54: Now the last ones I'll go through rather quickly.
54:56: Number seven, eternality.
54:58: God exists forever.
55:00: He exists outside of time.
55:02: Time is a construct that is part of this created universe.
55:06: It is not a part of the existence in which God is.
55:13: So, eternality, the simple answer, without beginning or ending.
55:17: And next week we're going to see, actually in two weeks when we talk about Jesus, we're going to see Jesus Himself is also eternal.
55:24: Yes? Oh, thank you, thank you.
55:29: Immutability means unchanging.
55:31: To be mutable is to be changeable.
55:35: And so immutability means to be without change.
55:39: The Bible says in Numbers 23.19 and in Malachi 3.6 that God does not change.
55:45: He is perfect.
55:47: Therefore, He does not change.
55:48: If God were to change for the better, that would mean He wasn't perfect.
55:52: If He were to change for the worse, that would mean He quit being perfect.
55:55: And if He made a lateral change, neither good or bad, that would indicate a need for change and therefore would question His perfection.
56:02: God's perfection gives rise to the doctrine of His immutability.
56:06: And in Numbers and Malachi, He says, I do not change.
56:11: Eternality, we've already said.
56:13: And then the three omnis.
56:16: Omnipotence means all power.
56:19: You've heard the phrase impotent.
56:22: Impotent means lacking strength.
56:27: Omnipotent means all strength.
56:31: Omniscience, it's spelled omniscience, and it is from the word knowledge.
56:36: The word science means knowledge.
56:38: Omniscience means all knowledge.
56:42: Think about this.
56:43: Take this one back to your study tonight as you think about the existence of God.
56:49: God has never learned anything because He knows everything.
56:55: God's never learned anything.
56:57: He knows all.
56:59: And lastly, omnipresence.
57:03: God is everywhere.
57:04: Psalm 139, 7, and 8.
57:07: God is everywhere and He sees everything.
57:12: In the Islamic faith, some Muslims believe that you can go to a place in the Middle East.
57:22: It's called Bahrain.
57:23: You've heard of Bahrain? And if you've ever been to Bahrain, Bahrain is sort of like a Las Vegas area.
57:29: They have places for gambling and prostitution and stuff.
57:34: And the reason why is because the traditional belief is that Bahrain is too small and Allah does not see it.
57:42: So what you do in Bahrain is not on God's radar.
57:47: Sort of like what you've heard, what's done in Vegas stays in Vegas.
57:52: And the whole idea of Bahrain is what's done there is off of the radar.
57:56: And the Bible says there's no place.
57:57: It says you can go into heaven, and God is there.
58:00: You can go down to hell, and God is there.
58:04: Oh, by the way, that's why when people say hell is separation from God, no it's not.
58:12: Hell is the full weight of God's wrath.
58:17: It's not that God isn't there.
58:19: It's that His grace and mercy are not there.
58:23: You live right now, whether you're a believer or not, you live under the common grace of God.
58:29: And in hell there will be no grace.
58:32: So this ends this lesson on the doctrine of the Trinity.
58:41: We're going to explain what that means and what the Bible says about the doctrine of the Trinity.
58:46: Let's pray.
58:47: Father, I thank You for this time of study.
58:49: I pray that it's been useful and encouraging to these men.
58:52: May You use it to glorify Yourself and to encourage them.
58:55: In Christ's name, Amen.