The Essence of God

RV202-01

Truth

It is a truth that high voltage electricity will kill a person. Now if one believes this truth, one will save himself from death, and be free to live his life. If one rejects this truth, for whatever reason, he will die, and consequently, lose his freedom to live. So, it is thus axiomatic, I would think, that we should never be unwilling to believe the truth. That is a simple statement. Probably all of you would nod: "Yes, that's true." We should not be afraid to believe the truth. Yet we are. We are inclined to be unwilling to believe the truth when it counters our beliefs, or when it condemns our ambitions. We find it very easy then to go negative to truth.

We may react to some unwelcome truth by simply refusing to listen to it at all. This is an example of intellectual cowardice. That's why some people aren't sitting in this auditorium today. Their intellectual cowardice causes them to say, "No, I won't listen. I won't listen. What you're saying is upsetting me. It's countering me. It's distressing me." But if what we are saying is the Word of God, then those who are really intelligent people are going to say, "Give me the Word. Let me hear it. I can always reject it. I can turn back upon it. But don't leave me uninformed."

Pontius Pilot, of course, is the classic example of one who walked away from the truth to his eternal sorrow and his eternal loss. Boy, does Pontius Pilate now wish he could live that moment again when Jesus stood before him, and he was interrogating the Lord. In John 18:36, Jesus explained to Pilate that the religious leaders of Israel wanted to execute Jesus because Jesus claimed to have a kingdom over them. John 18:36: "Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world yet. If My kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews. But as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.'"

The Jewish leaders did not want Jesus, who was becoming increasingly popular with the people, to be their king. So, they wanted Him dead. But Jesus pointed out to Pilate that His kingdom was not like the Kingdom of Rome, which was part of Satan's world system. If it were, Jesus would have had military forces rallying to His cause to establish Him as King. Jesus was trying to make it clear to Pilate that he (Pilate) as a representative and an agent of Rome had nothing to fear from Him when he claimed to be a king. For He was king of a different kind of a kingdom. It was the kingdom of God, and not a kingdom of man.

Pilate then asked Jesus pointblank if He was claiming to be a king. John 18:37: "Pilate therefore said to Him, 'So, you are a king?'" Jesus answered, 'You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.'" Jesus responded to the question of Pilate by confirming the fact that indeed He was a king, and that He had come into the world to make that fact known, because it was the truth, along with all that it connoted to individuals and to people in general.

Jesus then said to Pilate, "Anyone who is on the side of truth, will listen to Him (Jesus), and will believe His message of truth." Then Pilate responded with that question that has resounded down through the centuries. In Verse 38, Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" In these religious matters, or in anything else, Pilate wanted to know where one finds the truth: What is the authority? What is truth? "And having ask that question, when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, 'I find no guilt in Him.'"

Now when Pilate asked this question (What is truth?), he may have been expressing cynicism: Who could know anything? He may have been expressing his own indifference to abstract thoughts. He was somewhat irritated by the debate on religious matters among the Jews, and he was probably irritated by Jesus' confident words about knowing such a thing as true. Whatever the reason was, unfortunately, Pilate did not wait for an answer. But he walked off from Jesus; went outside; face the Jews; and, declared the innocence of Christ.

Now, what do you think Jesus would have said to Pilate in response to his question, had he waited for an answer? What is truth? Jesus recorded the answer in John 17:18. We refer to this as the high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ. It was uttered in the Garden of Gethsemane the night He was taken for crucifixion. In John 17:17, as He prays for us who are going to be in His family, that we be set apart and sanctified to the purposes of God. Jesus says in verse 17, "Sanctify them in the truth. (Set them apart in the truth.) Your Word is truth." There is the answer, Pilate. What is truth? The truth begins with the absolute Word of God – with the absolute inerrant authority of the Bible. Because the Lord Jesus Christ taught what was in Scripture, He was teaching what is the truth, and consequently, He could, in fact, claim Himself to be the truth, as he did in John 14:6 when he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

The Bereans

Turn to Acts 17:11-12. We should be open to the truth. We should be willing to believe the truth. Here's an example that we should emulate. Paul has been chased out of Thessalonica, and he is fleeing for his life. He moves on to the next preaching station, which is in the city of Berea in Greece. Paul is speaking of the people who listened to him in the congregation at Berea, the Jewish people who listened to him at the synagogue: "These were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the Word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." The Jews in Berea were eagerly willing to give a hearing to the teachings of Paul which he claimed were spiritual truth. They then took what Paul said, and they evaluated it by comparing it to the Old Testament Scriptures. They didn't just listen to Paul. They should have done that, and they did, and that was important. They had to have the information. They had the intellectual courage, rather than cowardice, to give a hearing to the speaker. Then they said, "Let's see if you're right," and matched it up against the Scripture. And when they found that the Bible confirmed Paul's teachings, they believed it, and they changed their minds on their errors about Jesus Christ and about salvation, and this was redounded to their eternal blessing.

Verse 12 says, "Many of them therefore believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men." It was not only the Jews who sat there listening, but even gentiles who sat and listened and who, because they were open to the truth, were willing to respond when they had confirmed it by Scripture.

During World War II, the Nazis had a custom of putting a sign across the top of their concentration camps. Mrs. Danish and I saw one as we walked under this arch into the camp at Auschwitz in Poland, and it said, "Work makes one free." It was a great lie, but as these poor people were brought into the camps, they would look up there, and it was a way of saying, "If you break your necks and backs in our behalf working for us, you will get your freedom out of this imprisonment." It was not true. And as most of them found, the only freedom they got was the freedom to die.

However, when God speaks, that is true truth. And I think that we should all count it an act of God's grace when he brings you into a knowledge of true truth. I have a hard time understanding why anybody would be upset to listen to the exposition of true truth. I have found a speaker on television at 8 o'clock since I've been, in the past few months, having early morning television sessions on Sundays. ... I've run into one man who is just informative. I turned him on this morning at 8 o'clock, and he was speaking about feminism the feminist movement. He has an amazing understanding of the truth, and he speaks with the Word of God in his hand, and he exalts the Word of God. And it's a pleasure to listen to him. And I get sharpened on ideas, and I learn a few things, and new little nuances and approaches. He's informative.

Every now and then he slips into something that is not quite right, and that doesn't upset me. He did it this morning, and if it wasn't for my walking incapacity, would I have stormed up to that TV and turned it off? Will I not listen to what upsets me? No, I can hear it, and I can filter it out. But all the other good stuff came through loud and clear.

This idea is dumb. And some of these chairs are empty today because people could not love the truth, and eliminate what they didn't think was the truth. That's known as the privacy of the priesthood of the believer. So, do not refuse to give a hearing to information just because it counters your opinions, or your ambitions, or your suspicions, or whatever. Do not respond to unwelcome truth by covering your ears and fleeing from the instruction. Negative volition to spiritual truth, and its implications, is only going to make you a slave to the patterns of your old sin nature. Don't make it necessary for God to jerk your chain in order to get your attention.

The psalmist put it very well in Psalm 32:9 when he laid forth that principle, when he said, "Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check. Otherwise, they will not come near to you." Boy, do we ever have the horses and the mulish believers, and the world in general, such that God has to jerk their chain. And He will. If there's anything we have learned from the book of the Revelation, we should have learned this – that the punishment and the pressure has been ratcheted down gradually. First got hits one-third of the vegetation, and one-third of the bodies of the luminaries out in space to get you to say respond to the question: "Do you want to change your mind now before it gets any worse?" Then He pulls the ratchet all the way down, and He hits the whole thing.

God is a God of grace. He gives great opportunity as He tugs on your chain before He jerks it hard. And sooner or later He will. It should be clear to all of us that the church services at Berean Church are devoted to the proclaiming of god's biblical doctrinal truths. That's what we're here for.

A couple of Sundays ago, a first-time visitor came up and said, "I can't believe how much I've learned in this service." And he started reiterating the things he had heard: "I didn't know this. I didn't know this. I didn't know this." This is a church-attender. But I said, "Yeah, we're kind of an academic classroom situation." He said, "Oh, boy, I can see that. You really give people a chance to learn something." Well, that was encouraging to me because that's the business we're in. We're in the business of propagating the truth of God. And if you don't get it in church, where on earth are you going to get it? These Sunday morning and Sunday evening services should be the highlights of your week. It is your grand and great opportunity to come into touch with the mind of God. Our goal in all of this, of course, is to make us free: for the truth to make us free from the domination of our old sin nature. The old sin nature man is so arrogant that it arrogantly assumes that it already knows the truth by human reason. So, it ends up being enslaved to all kinds of evil.

We don't know the truth on our own, and our human reason will not lead us to the truth. That was the great mistake that was made in the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas, one of the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, made the mistake of assuming that the mind of man had not been corrupted by the fall, and that man could reason himself into salvation, and into the truth. The result has been the Roman Catholic Church with the teaching authority of the church which has reasoned itself into nothing but downright paganism. We should all take comfort from the fact that all of you, in one way or another, are in the position of being the depositories and the purveyors of truth. You get the gaff, but one day, we who proclaim god's truth will be vindicated, I guarantee you, and we will be rewarded. But those who will not hear us will be judged and they will be punished.

John 10:35: "If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken)." Notice that little phrase "and the Scriptures cannot be broken." The Lord Jesus Christ has made it very clear that the Bible is the truth, and it cannot be broken. While it can be ignored and twisted and distorted, God's Word is truth. And those who will not hear it will do so to their own great and eternal loss.

In Matthew 24:35, Jesus says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away." And please notice in John 10:35, when it says, The Scriptures cannot be broken," that you have there one of the most effective testimonies to the inerrancy of Scripture. Did you notice that? The Scriptures cannot be broken. Why? Because the Scriptures are absolutely true. If there were error in the Scriptures, they could be broken. Don't miss that.

Jesus says that His Word, the Bible, is going to last after everything else has passed off the scene. We are in the business here at Berean Church of teaching truth. If you think that's important, you should be supporting it with your presence, your talents, and your treasures as never before. We're on the last lap of the race of the church age. You will be vindicated, and you will have all eternity to rejoice in that.

In the tribulation period of human history, people will reach a high level (or perhaps I should say a low level) of the rejection of God's truth, as is proclaimed by God's witnesses at that time. What we see starting today in contempt for the Word of God will rise enormously. What is God going to do? He's going to respond by abandoning those people of the tribulation to believe the lies that are being propagated by the false prophet and the antichrist, and to suffer their own destruction.

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 points out this principle: "And then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth (the antichrist), and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming. The antichrist is brought to an end by the Second Coming of Christ.

Verse 9: "That is the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all powers and signs and false wonders (Satan, the great miracle worker), and with all the deception of wickedness of those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved." I'm telling you, folks, when you fall in love with the truth, and especially the truth of the Word of God, you will not abandon it. You will not have your feelings hurt. You'll not arch your back in indignation, and cut yourself off from the truth. Not all churches are equal, and don't make any mistake about it. If there's one thing I've learned by my television watching, it is that the bigger they are, and the more powerful they are, the more ignorant they are in spiritual things, and the more shallow they must be to keep that gang of people happy, and coming and tolerating them. And that also is truth.

Verse 11: "For this reason, God will send upon them a diluting influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness." That sends a cold chill through me. Can you imagine Almighty God putting you in a position where He drives you, because of your choice, to believe what is false, and all the consequences that that is going to bring to you when you decide that you're not going to listen to the truth? That's the only alternative. If you won't listen to the truth, find. God says, "Then I'll give you all kinds of inducements to listen to what is false." We've got to be careful about believing what is false, and being unresponsive to the truth. And the younger you are, the more you better pay attention to this.

If you have a life that is non-scarred and uncontaminated, then you need to be absorbing the truth left and right like a sponge, so that you can stand up and know what you're talking about, and resist the evils that are around you.

The Seven Bowls of Wrath

The Essence of God

The Lord God

The next thing that we have observed about God was in Revelation 16:6-7: "I heard the altar saying, 'Yes, Lord God, the Almighty.'" Now the voices are moving up the praise of God. The Greek word looks like this "pantokrator." This word means "all-powerful." In the New Testament, God the Holy Spirit has put this word on special reserve. It is only used of the true God. It is never used of any false deity. For example, 2 Corinthians 6:18: "'And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,' says, the Lord Almighty." It is always used only of the true God. This word was never used by the writers of classical Greek times in reference to their gods because they had no deity who was omnipotent. Only the true God is omnipotent. Nothing, and no one, therefore, can overcome the will of God. His decrees are inevitable.

What are we saying? We're saying that God is all-powerful, and there is no limit on His ability or His authority. Notice in Job 42:2. Job, in the midst of his suffering, knows something about God that a lot of people perhaps have not yet learned: "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." That's great comfort: "No purpose of Yours can be thwarted. You can do all things."

Psalm 135:6: "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas, and in all the deeps. God is Almighty."

In the New Testament, in Matthew 19:26, the same principle is set forth: "And looking upon them, Jesus said to them, 'With men, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.'" God the Son upholds all things by the Word of His power.

In Hebrews 1:3, this is indicated to us. Because Jesus is divine, He is omnipotent: "And He (Jesus) is the radiance of His glory (God's glory), and the exact representation of His nature (God's nature), and upholds all things by the Word of His power." He upholds everything by His power.

Then we have the dramatic verse in Colossians 1:15-17, which explains why atomic particles hold together: "He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." He is God. He is omnipotent: "For by Him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities, all things have been created by Him and for Him." Jesus Christ was the Creator of the material universe and of rational creatures.

Then verse 17 says, "And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." He is the holding force.

God Saves Sinners

Hebrews 7:25, however, tells us: "Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." Those who draw near to God through Jesus Christ is the only way you can be saved. Once you're saved, Jesus Christ makes intercession for you forever. You can never be lost again. Whatever sin you may commit, He proves that He has already covered it. He is making intercession forever for each of us, so he has the power to save us.

So, now what's the next problem you have in your life? Once you get the appreciation of the terrible problem of being able to take you as a human being into heaven instead of into the agonies of hell, and that got has solved that. Furthermore, He has done it. When you trusted Christ, He did it. I don't care what else comes into your life. There's nothing worse. You've already experienced the worst, and it has been solved. Everything under that is secondary, and in one way or another, you can take it in stride.

God Keeps us Saved

God can Raise the Dead

God uses his power not only to raise us, but I'm happy to tell you that He's going to use it every hour of the day in the week before you. Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me?"

The man who is my spiritual father and a great influence upon me spiritually said that this was his life verse. He always fell back upon this in his ministry in whatever he did: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." What does that say? It is saying that the Almighty God is there all the way down the line, meeting every single need you have. Now that is powerful good news.

Then, in order to make it clear that we do not misunderstand about this action of God, the voice from the altar says, "Not only is He almighty, but it adds one more thing. It says that "This God is true." The Greek word looks like this: "alethinos." Now we're back to where we started with a matter of truth. This word means conforming to reality so that it is genuine – the way things are, rather than the way things are revised to fit unreality, in order to be a lie.

God himself is absolute truthfulness. So, He's never in error, and He is never guilty of falsifying the facts. God is true. And those who follow Him are told repeatedly that we must be careful to imitate God in this great quality of being true to the facts. We do not lie. 2 Samuel 7:28: "Now, O Lord God, You are God, and Your Words are truth. You have promised this good thing to Your servant." God speaks what is true. He will keep His Word. Because He is almighty, He can carry through.

Psalm 31:5 is the verse that Jesus quoted as He died on the cross: "Into Your hands I commit My Spirit. You have transformed Me, O Lord God of truth." Isn't that interesting that Jesus is running this verse through His mind at just the final seconds before He gives up His life? He's falling back on doctrine at that point to carry Him through – the great doctrine of the fact that God is truth. Is that important to Him at that point? You bet it is, because the human Jesus is about to die, and God the Father has promised to raise Him up three days hence.

What if God is a liar? What a disappointment! But God is not a liar. God is truth. Jesus says, "You have ransomed Me. You have made provision for Me. You're going to raise Me up again, and I am now committing my life into your hands. I'm now going to make the final payment for the sins of all mankind with My death.

Please notice Isaiah 65:16 concerning the truthfulness of God: "Because he who is blessed in the earth shall be blessed by the God of truth. And He who swears in the earth, shall swear by the God of truth." Do you see why you take an oath in a court of law on the basis of the Bible: "So, help you God?" Because God is truth. It is a serious crime to perjure yourself when you say, "On the basis of the character of God, I am going to speak in this courtroom," because that means you're going to tell the truth: "Because the former troubles are forgotten, because they are hidden from my sight. God is the God of truth.

For this reason, Titus 1:2 puts it very succinctly. God cannot lie: "In the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ago." So, there should be no doubt in our mind about the eternal life. We're going to get it. It's a sure thing. God's veracity has provided mankind with the absolute truth of doctrine. That's why doctrine is important. It is the absolute truth of God. It is an expression of His character.

Hebrews 4:12: "Therefore, for the Word of God is living an active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Why? Because God's Word is truth.

Notice Psalm 119:89. God has given us doctrinal truth: "Forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven." You see it on the front of our communion table. What does that mean? It means it's a sure thing because it is true. Psalm 119:160 says, "The sum of Your Word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting."

One more in the New Testament: John 17:17 that we read earlier summarizes the statement again: "Sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth."

Then the voices from the altar recognize one thing more that should clarify that what God is doing is proper and right with these bowl judgments. And that is that it says that He's not only Almighty, and He's not only true, but that: "He is righteous." We've already looked at the subject of the absolute righteousness of God.

It means, as Psalm 145:17 says, "God never does anything wrong." He is always true to His character, and that is the standard of righteousness." God cannot do anything which is evil.

So, here's the picture. He pours out the bowl into the rivers, and all the freshwater underground springs and all the water supply turns to the congealed blood of a human corpse. All the lakes and surface areas of freshwater turn into congealed blood. And all the marine life in the freshwater areas now die. I mean, this is the third bowl. After three things, people are suffering. They don't feel well. They have these sores on them. The sea area has turned to blood. This has been traumatic. The news every night is shocking. The very water that they have to drink, that they must have to survive physically, is suddenly snatched away from them in the same way. People say that this is cruel; this is mean; and, this is terrible. How could a God of love do these things and interrupts?

Then the Holy Spirit interrupts the record and says, "I'll tell you how. The angel of the waters himself speaks forth for God – he angel who is in charge of this water operation. God is righteous and absolute. You who are and who was – God the eternal one, O Holy One. God is the one who is absolute righteousness and perfect justice. You are always fair because You did judge these things. For they poured out the blood of saints and of prophets. You have given them blood to drink. They deserve it. And I heard the altar saying." These are probably the voices of those under the altar, the martyrs: "Yes." They are confirming: "O Lord God, deity and Supreme Being, the Almighty, the omnipotent one, the one of absolute truth and righteousness are Your judgments."

Judgment

Here we are associated with God, as the supreme judge of the universe, passing the sentence on the guilt of tribulation humanity. And the divine judgments of the bowls is certainly fitting and right, because it's all compatible with the character of God.

Now, if this wasn't bad enough, God now reaches up and pulls the ratchet down one more notch. In the next session, we look at one of the astounding things that is going to happen to the sun. When you learn how the sun is constructed, and how it operates, and how this star works in relationship to the earth, you're going to be able to get a little feel of what a terrible thing this will be to live under the fourth bowl judgment. Please join us.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1992

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