Why Study God's Excellencies (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. Great to be here. I think we made an announcement earlier that we would be off WVNE, and probably many people were clapping, standing ovation, they�re probably doing the wave in their living room.

But I hate to tell you, those folks that were happy we were going off the air, we�re back! Well, actually, we never left. I just thought it was a better financial decision to go to iTunes, and then after some discussions with folks at WVNE, we decided to change, and so we�re back, we�re going to be on the air.

So those times that I said, �I think we�re done they were not pleased for money. They were not, �Hey, if you don�t do this, we�re off the air, Oral Roberts, God�s going to kill me unless you send me money.

I�ve seen a 900-foot Jesus. It�s like Depeche Mode, your own personal Jesus. He happens to be 900 feet tall, and he�s going to kill you. It�s from the unbelievable, strange but true, Ripley�s Believe It or Not.

So today on No Compromise Radio, we are glad to be on the station. I love WVNE and appreciate their ministry, with the exception of two shows. Get Rid of the People, the People Thing, the Bob George deal.

I think it�s at 4 .30, and then the Seventh-Day Adventism show, the Bible Questions Answered Now for Tofu Reasons, I don�t know whatever the name of it is, I can�t remember. But that was pretty good, though.

All the other shows I like, except those two, that�s pretty good average right there. No wonder at the end of our show, they tack on the line, �I don�t think they say this at the end of Grace to You. They don�t say this at the end of Insight for Living.

They don�t say this at the end of R .C. Sproul. I bet you they don�t even say it at the end of Lars� deal. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the WVNE station management, our ownership, our Bethlehem Bible Church.

We�re going to go to Greece, and you need to get your $200 in before November 30th, if you�d like to go with us to reserve a spot, it�s going to be great. Athens, Corinth, Thessaloniki, Berea, Philippi, then on over to Patmos and then into Turkey to see Ephesus, partly in the hotels, partly on the cruise ship.

Should be exciting. During spring break too, so come one, come all. I�m going to be curious to see how many people attend via No Compromise, and maybe we have some, none at all, who knows. So today on No Compromise Radio, what are we going to do?

Well, I want to tell you that we are going to talk a little bit about the attributes of God. Not necessarily the book, The Attributes of God. I don�t even really like the attributes as a name. Now, some people call the attributes of God, the perfections of God.

I like that, that�s pretty good. Attributes is, well, we�re attributing something to God when really He�s the one showing us who He is. And so, I get the word attributes, I use it all the time, it�s just default.

Maybe from 1 Peter chapter 2, it would be better if we called it the excellencies of God, because that�s the language that 1 Peter chapter 2 uses, or if I was in England, 1 Peter chapter 2, it says, �But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God�s people. Once you had not received mercy, but you have received mercy. And so there, Peter says in 1 Peter 2, 9, �Proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you.

So maybe that�d be a better way, as we�re trying to describe God, how He has described Himself in specific revelation between Genesis and Revelation, the books, than we would say the perfections of God, the excellencies of God.

What is God doing right now? I once asked Sinclair Ferguson the question. It was in Pasadena, 1996, Ligonier Conference, down in the garage, the parking garage, and somehow we got talking and I asked him, �What is God doing right now

God is simultaneously�I wish I could use His brogue�simultaneously exercising all of His attributes. That's what God's doing right now. He's simultaneously being holy, just, righteous, gracious, merciful, compassionate, and kind, patient, all the things that He is, and more.

That was a great answer. That was a great answer to the question. So years passed. I never forgot that. And then years passed. I think I've told you this story before, but since this is show 900, can I say it again?

We have new listeners, new Wretched Radio listeners. We've forced to listen through the free book program. I asked Sinclair Ferguson, �No, no, here's where it was. It was in the year 2000, and I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, with my wife and, at the time, three kids, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, grandma-in-law, and we went to St. George's Tron there in Glasgow.

We were in Edinburgh and then we went over to Glasgow, and we called the church, the people we stayed with, our cousins, called the church, you know, �Is Sinclair preaching tonight or today And they said, �Well, it was just an answer machine.

So we got the call back, and it was Sinclair, and he said, �Well, I'll be gone in the morning, but I'll be there at night. So we showed up at night, and there he was, and he walked up into the pulpit at night.

He had just taken over for Eric Alexander. So afterwards, he talked to us. I told him I was a seminary graduate, and I was a pastor now, preaching through the Gospel of Mark. How do I make it practical at the end?

I want to say something to the congregation. And he said, �What's wrong with showing the people the glories of Christ every Sunday In other words, don't take Jesus's temptation and then primarily teach it as, �This is how you overcome temptation.

When the passage talks about how, since we can't overcome temptation, since Adam didn't overcome temptation, since Israel didn't overcome temptation, we need another Adam, we need the last Adam, we need the second man who overcomes our temptations for us.

And in fact, Jesus was assaulted by Satan and overcame our temptations. Now if you would like to say, secondarily, use God's Word to overcome temptation, hey, that is great. Jesus used the Deuteronomy several times.

You should know your Bible well enough that you could use your Old Testament when you're overcoming temptation. But see, we're not there in the passage, and Jesus isn't, you know, we're not talking directly to Satan like Jesus was, and the list goes on.

And so Sinclair Ferguson spent his time with us, he's very gracious. I know what it's like to be a pastor with a congregation and needing to talk to them, but visitors are there, visitors that are never going to show up again.

And I said, �Dr. Ferguson, when I talked to you in 1996 and asked you the question, �What is God doing right now your answer was brilliant. I loved it, I've never forgotten it. And he said, �Well, what was that answer

And I said, �Dr. Ferguson, you said God is simultaneously exercising all of His attributes. And he said, �That's a good answer. Years later, I think it was 2009, 2010, right in there, I took a worship class from Sinclair down at Ligonier, doctorate program, and I told him the same story, he'd forgotten the answer twice.

And so how can I not forget that answer? But Sinclair Ferguson forgets the answer. So we're talking about perfections of God, attributes of God in general. And if you want to read Knowing God by J .I. Packer, that'd be a good book to read.

Attributes of God by Arthur Pink, great book, changed my life. Desert Island book, next to the Bible. I actually keep that in my Bible, not because I think it's biblical, but because it helps me understand the Bible so much.

Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer. Who else do I have for the attributes of God? I actually was writing a book on the attributes of God, got a couple chapters into it, and then on to other things, trying to pick a book that would actually somebody would buy.

You got to pick a book that somebody would buy or else you're spending all that time for what? I'll still probably do it sometime, but who knows? But just in general, I want you to know that the study of God is very important.

As much as you'd like to say to yourself, I want practical application, I need to know how to live my life now, I understand that, that's true, but I want you to have the right view of God and then your decisions that you'll make in light of who God is, that's the key.

Making decisions in light of who God is. And so for the time we have left today on No Compromise Radio, I want you to realize that the study of God, the attributes of God, His perfections, His excellencies would be important for you to know.

Who said this? What I want to achieve, what I have been striving and pining to achieve these 30 years is self-realization. To see God face-to-face, to attain moksha, which is spiritual deliverance.

I have not found Him yet, but I am seeking after Him, for it is an unbroken fortune to me that I am still so far from Him. I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him. Can you imagine one of the most religious people in the world for 30 years seeking after God, claiming to be religious, and they don't know God?

They don't know God. Now they've been looking in all the wrong places, certainly Jesus Christ has shown Himself in history and in the scriptures, but here, Gandhi, so sad. That's what I've been striving after for these 30 years, and I haven't even gotten there.

It's an unbroken fortune to me, very, very sad, Mahatma Gandhi, Autobiography, page 252. It's interesting though, when it comes to God's excellencies, the Apostle John said this, contrast this to Gandhi, these things, 1 John 5 .13, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

And you can remember what Jesus said in the Gospel of John, to know God is to have eternal life. You can know God, not just know about God, but intimately, relationally, you can know God. We know God because He first knows us.

We love God because He first loves us. You can know God, so much so that based on the work of the Son, you can call the first person of the Trinity, Father, Dad, Abba Father, Daddy. Now there's not much more intimate, you can't get much more intimate than that, can you?

Dad. Now kids who are on the street and playing games and running around, horsing around, riding bikes together, playing frisbee, throwing the football, I'm friends with him, but I'm Mr. Abendroth. Yeah, they want to call me Mike, but I'm Mr. Abendroth to you.

But to my kids, Dad, 30 some years, Gandhi, he doesn't know, and he could know. The Scriptures teach of Jesus Christ. When you think about an attribute, you should say to yourself, or an excellency or a perfection, this is something that God has revealed as true of Himself, something about Him that's revealed as true.

Tozer said this about attributes of God, if an attribute is something true of God, it is also something that we can conceive as being true of Him. God, being infinite, must possess attributes about which we can know nothing.

Must possess attributes, so you can know God, but you can't know everything there is to know about God, but don't let that stop you to know what is actually in the Word. Paul ends, said about attributes, defining them, those distinguishing characteristics of the divine nature, which are inseparable from the idea of God and which constitute the basis and ground for His various manifestations to His creatures.

Sounds like he's a theologian. Paul ends Moody Handbook of Theology. God's attributes are important for us, they've been revealed, and when you study them you can know God. So let me tell you a few reasons why I think it's important for you to study the attributes of God today.

The Humbling Effect of Studying God's Excellencies

Reason one, because they're humbling. When you study God and you realize who He is, it humbles us. We need to be humbled. We exalt ourselves and we ought not to. John Flavel said something that was very interesting, they that know God will be humble, and then he goes on to further say, and they that know themselves cannot be proud.

We have self-esteem, self-righteousness, what do we need? We need a fresh dose of the awesomeness of God. So our view of the Creator will increase and our view of ourselves will decrease. They that know God will be humble and they that know themselves cannot be proud.

Reminds me of the story of Charles Haffey, remember Charles Haffey, H-A-F-F-E-Y? He in 2002 legally changed his name. Now he wanted to change his name to God, but the judge said he couldn't do that.

Now that's kind of in a postmodern world, I don't know what the judge's problem is. What's your name? God. Shouldn't there be some judge in San Francisco in the Ninth Circuit Appeal or somebody, whoever that is, that liberal group.

Let him? If there's no such thing as God, why can't you just have the moniker God? So judge, can I change my name? Yes. What do you want to change it to? God. Who's the judge to say? The judge. So he said, all right, I have a second choice.

I'd like to be called I Am Who I Am. Now can you imagine? I have a few thoughts. One thought is the gall of the man to call himself the eternal God, the God who just always is, who always exists, a self-existent name of God, I Am.

That's pretty—there's a lot of gall regarding that, especially since he was born. Charles Haffey was once not, now he is, and then he will not be, no, he will be. But I also am impressed that he at least knows his Bible.

It's one thing to not know the Bible and be dumb. It's another thing to know the Bible and be dumb. And here you go before the judge and he says, I want to be called I Am Who I Am. At least he had a backup plan.

If you're going to get your name changed, kudos, have a backup plan. If you're going to bring a chicken into the pulpit with you, you better have a backup plan. Mooey. So the judge, though, was listening to all this stuff, and then he thought, well, I Am Who I Am.

I mean, what's the first name? What's the middle name? What's the first name? What's the last name? If there's five words, I am, that's two, three, who, four, I, five, am. I Am Who I Am. Now, some people we know, David Martin Lloyd-Jones, right, hyphenated Lloyd-Jones.

Some people have a couple middle names. My wife never had a middle name. When she was born, she wasn't given a middle name. It was Kimberly, and she had no middle name. And so our two kids that came along, kid three and kid four, we, it was mainly her, it was Kim's idea.

I'm going to have Kim on No Compromise Radio, by the way. And I might actually have her host the show one time for ladies, and she can interview Tuesday Gal, Steve's wife, Janet. Wouldn't that be fun?

Mike and Steve, Kim and Janet, Hither and Thither, Pell and Mel, Flotsam and Jetsam. I mean, George Jetsam. So back to the point, I Am Who I Am. So the judge was smart enough to ask, what do you want for your first name?

Well, my first name, of course, George Haffey said, would be I Am. Now, obviously, I'm joking about it, but that's appalling behavior, especially when you think, even though he had the nerve to say it, there are a lot of people who think secretly the way Haffey acted, pridefully, with arrogance.

That's why it's important to study the attributes of God. Spurgeon said, the proper study of the Christian is the Godhead, the highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the doings, and the existence of the great God, which he calls his Father.

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the divinity. That's important. Let me stop for a second so you listen. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the divinity.

When you think about God, you'll begin to resemble the communicable attributes of God. That is to say, when you worship the God of entertainment, it's going to affect you. When you worship the God of sex, it's going to affect you.

When you worship the God of money, it's going to affect you. But when you worship the real God, if I can use just vulgar terms, some of that will rub off on you. You're thinking about God as he works through his word for the Christian.

I know that, conformed to the image of Christ, Romans chapter 8. But you'll start to become like the one you worship, pagan or divine. It is, Spurgeon goes on to say, a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity.

Other subjects we can comprehend and grapple with. In them we feel a kind of self-content and go on our way with the thought, behold, I'm wise. But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, I am but of yesterday and know nothing.

No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than thoughts of God. Spurgeon.". Isn't that true? When you study God, how could we be prideful? I struggle with pride, I'm sure you struggle with pride.

How do we say no to pride? Well, in Scripture we say, here's how we think of sanctification, it's put on, put off. Put off pride by putting on, you could say, oh, the Lord Jesus Christ. Stop doing one thing and do another.

Stop focusing on self and focus on God. There we go. We've been made in God's image and likeness so we can have communion with him, not so that we can worship and bow down to these other idols. We know God through the Scriptures, and when we really know God in ourselves, see Calvin at the very beginning of his Institutes, the only thing we could end up doing is boasting about God.

If we really knew ourselves, like the Scripture teaches, and we think about how much sin is even in the heart of a believer, and the damage we do with sin, and how sin is even worse for the believer than the unbeliever, unbeliever just sins because of his nature.

Now we have a different nature but still sin, that's even worse knowing what Jesus did on the cross and we still sin. Then Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, aptly, thus says the Lord, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might.

Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and, what, knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth.

For I delight in these things, declares the Lord, Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. Let's stop focusing on ourselves, which is only going to cause us anxiety, pride, depression. The answer to life's problems is not found in ourselves.

It's outside of us, extra nos, outside of us. When you go to psychotherapists and psychologists and they tell you to look inside yourselves, that's wrong. They're telling the people to look in the wrong direction.

Look up. Remember, Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 20, 12, O our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

There you go. This is my church? How dare I say that? This is my life? How dare I say that? These are my children? I know in one sense they are, but I'm a steward. I'm a steward of all these things, because God is great and I'm nothing, and I'm worse than nothing, I'm sinful.

God created me to worship Him and to live in light of Him and to live for Him and to know Him. Well, my name is Mike Abenroth. This is No Compromise Radio, and today we're just starting to talk about why attributes are important.

We'll pick it up next week as well as we discuss the attributes of God and its significance, the perfections of God, the excellencies of God. But I want to encourage you, I think you can even get it online for free.

Type in the attributes of God, AWPink, Arthur Pink. I forgot W, what that W is, but I used to know. AW Tozer, different words. And type in attributes of God, and I think you'll pull some up for free. Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio.

You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.