How God Reveals Himself

Psalm 8:1-4, Job 38:1-7,33-37

The word "revelation" means revealing, God has revealed himself.    Something that you wouldn't have found out by your own methods, that is what revelation means.  The doctrine of revelation is the doctrine that tells us that God reveals himself.   This revelation of God is absolutely essential for without God revealing himself to us we would never come to know him.  Man by his own abilities can never find out God.  By our own mind or intellect, we could never know or discover God because God is not subject to our tests and our methods.  God does not put himself under our microscope to be investigated.  He is not an object to be inspected by great men, he is above and beyond us.   By nature an object to be inspected must be lower than the one inspecting it.  That is why you can inspect an ant but the ant can't inspect you.   Without God revealing himself to us in two main ways, we would be completely in the dark about God.  But Praise the Lord, he has condescended to reveal himself to humanity.   It is general revelation and special revelation.  Let us not forget that for God to reveal himself is needed  Isaiah 40:28 "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."  Man cannot come to understand God without revelation.  Job was asked in Job 11:7 "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfections?"  No.  Humans are completely shut in to what God reveals.  Everything we know about God we know because he has revealed it to us.

General Revelation:  God reveals himself generally, in a general way to everybody, to all mankind.  Externally and internally.  External revelation is this:  God has seen fit to leave his fingerprints upon the creation, like we do if we are making something of wood or metal.  The creation of the world, the planets, God has left his fingerprints in the creation.  The detail and complexity of the universe is amazing.  So complicated, man could not make a leaf because these things call for a designer.  God tells us that from the creation, the outward creation,  people can see that there is a God.  This is external revelation. Psalm 8:3-4 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?....."   When the psalmist studied the sun and the moon, it made him think naturally about God, when, not if.  It is taken for granted that God's people would be interested in his creation.  The heavens declare the glory of God, the earth shows his handiwork.  There is a creator, there is a designer.  There is no human being that has any excuse for not believing in God.  Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.."  Created beings fully and clearly see and understand that there is a God, and so they are without excuse. 

Internal revelation: man has built in religion, he is God conscious by nature, God has placed eternity in the heart of man.  Everybody knows that there is a God.   But it's not enough to lead us to a saving knowledge of the true God, because even man with his intellectual capacity cannot find the true God.  They need special revelation.  When Paul was preaching on Mar's hill (Acts 17:19-31) he spoke of the unknown God, the true God.  Human knowledge admits that there is a God, but true knowledge of God, has to be specially revealed.    

The Days of Noah: After the Flood, a Changed World

Genesis 8:14-22

On the 20th of July in 1969 the Eagle lunar landing module touched down upon the moon.  The spacecraft landed on th Sea of Tranquility.  Neil Armstrong stepped out and said "that is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.  This environment was strange to him, never before were any humans there.  There was just an eerie silence.

When Noah stepped out of the ark, after a year of judgment upon this earth, it was a different earth than what he had known before.  Once it had teemed with wildlife and people, once it had been abundantly rich with trees and vegetation.  But now it was an hostile environment.  Deeper oceans, higher mountains, harsher climate, cooler and stronger winds.  High on the sides of Mt. Ararat, Noah and his family surveyed their new home, but God spoke to Noah.  He and his family were not alone. God said to go forth, spread out, you and the animals replenish the earth.  Noah disembarked and the first thing he did was:

A sacrifice.  The first thing that Noah did was to build an altar, a place where man can meet God on God's terms of course.  Noah's first purpose was to renew fellowship with God.  Noah is giving visible evidence that he is putting God first.  Isn't it always a question of priorities?  Do we put God first?   The Lord Jesus said you are to love the LORD your God with all your mind, with all your strength, your heart, your soul, and your neighbour as yourself.  Put God first.  God is the Number 1 priority in our life or should be.  Noah put God's altar first because that was important to him.  But it also showed his gratitude to God.  God by grace had saved him.

Noah had a God-centered life.  He really trusted in God.  The secret of a good home lies in putting the Lord first.  God must come first before anybody else.  Is the place where you meet God most important?  We also notice that Noah offered a burnt sacrifice on the altar.  It wasn't an altar for show, it was for real worship not for formality.  It was for real worship.  Noah offered burnt offerings of the clean animals.  7 of every kind of clean animal came on board the ark.  This is the first reference in scripture where we read of the building of an altar, and also the first sacrifice.  The animal was totally consumed.  It was an offering for sin.  Noah not only knew the difference between clean and unclean, but he knew that the fellowship between  holy God and sinful man was only possible  through a propitiating sacrifice.  Blood had to be shed for sinful humans to have fellowship with a holy God.  Abel knew this, so did Noah.  God's law has always existed from the beginning in the hearts of the people of God.    The only way for us to have fellowhip with God is through sacrifice.  All of the old testament sacrifice pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the only sacrifice that God requires. 

An Introduction to the Book of Ephesians

The book of Ephesians is a most beautiful book, I know people who have memorized it in its entirety.    This post is the first of many based on notes I have made from sermons on this book by Paul Dowling of Whiteabbey Congregational (Reformed).  I hope that these posts will be a blessing.

Understanding Ephesians, Introduction

Acts 20:17-38

Ephesians 1:1-4 "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be  holy and without blame before him in love.:"

Ephesus was the most important city in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey.  In those days Ephesus had a population of over 600,000 people.  It had a harbor in which trade ships traveled.  Ephesus was the commercial center of the whole region, built on major trade routes.  Ephesus also boasted the temple of Diana, which is the Greek god Artemus, the huntress.  This was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.  The amphitheatre could seat 25,000 people with excellent acoustics.  In this city there was a Christian church, a body of believers and the first mention of Paul the apostle visiting the city is in Acts 18. They wanted him to come back again and he said that he would, God willing.

This church was founded or planted by the apostle Paul.  Acts 19:1 "And it came to pass, that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus:.."  He came and preached and lived in Ephesus for two years, Acts 19:10 "And this continued by the space of two years.." When he lived there he was their pastor and taught them sound doctrine.  That is why in the book of Ephesians you will not find Paul correcting any faulty doctrine that the Ephesians have because they were well instructed in the word of God.  They were a doctrinally sound church.  They also were saved from paganism, some of them from witchcraft.  When they were saved, they made a clean break with their worldly occultic practices in the past.  Acts 19:18-20 "And many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds.  Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.  So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." When they were saved they burned their magic books to a value of 50,000 pieces of silver.  They burned them because they were converted and the books were evil.  They would not sell them because they did not want to pass on that which was evil, they did not want to make financial profit.  They did not want other people to read it, they wanted other people to be saved.  What is more valuable to you, money or people's souls?  Evil and the promotion of evil must be destroyed to obey the bible.  Some modern professed Christians love money more than souls, but the Ephesians would not do that because they loved Christ so much.  They wouldn't promote anything contrary to Christ.