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This is David Bay, Director of Old Paths Ministries.
And this is the Cutting Edge, a radio program dedicated to warning and informing God's people. We are committed to the study and exposition of the inerrant, inspired and authoritative Word of God. The views expressed belong to us, and are not necessarily shared by this station.
Our society is deteriorating, and Bible-believing Christians are ill-prepared to face that deterioration. This radio program is dedicated to preparing God's people to meet the challenges of the Day, and to encourage obedience to the Word of God in being separated from worldliness and false doctrine.
The moral bankruptcy of our society is well-documented.
Few people understand why we have become morally bankrupt. However, when we look at society through the eyes of God, through the Bible, we can easily see why we are facing the unprecedented troubles today. This study of America through the eyes of God is what we will always do try to here; stay with us for some eye-opening truths.
Now consider the following news brief:
News Brief: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week over-turned the murder conviction of a man because the prosecutor had read from the Bible in his closing remarks to the jurors. This murderer is now walking the streets a free man.
It is easy to get discouraged when we see these kinds of things happening in our society. Yet, God is still on the throne, and we do not need to fear what man can do to us. However, we do need to fear what God can do to man, once He is moved to judgment. Today, Americans are woefully ignorant of God's nature. Last week, we discussed that America, as a nation, has replaced our Christian foundation with a Satanic one. How did this happen? The major single cause is that we first moved away from the love of the One True God. Once we stopped giving God the honor and glory which He so richly deserves, we began to fall victim to Satan's lies. Today, most Americans are so ignorant of God's true nature that we do not know enough to properly be frightened by what we see occurring around us. Elvis Presley popularized this concept with a song, "Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread."
Today, we shall attempt to provide a Biblically-balanced view of God's nature, or His "Perfections". Satan has been very successful in re-introducing a counterfeit truth concerning God's nature: that God is all loving and could never send anyone to an eternal hell. This creates a false God who is One-Dimensional, ignoring all His other attributes. When God is solely a God of love, then no sin, of any magnitude, is sufficient to send anyone to Hell; therefore, all sin becomes acceptable, until it is no longer called sin, but, rather, "sexual preference" or a "woman's right to choose".
God's attributes, or perfections, are not characteris-tics which God possesses, but are who He is. This list is not intended to be an exhaustive study, but a survey to give us a perspective of the impact of God's perfections upon our world today. As we begin, remember that all God's perfections flow into one another reinforcing one another. None can be separated from the other. We can picture these perfections as flowing in a never-ending circle.
1. God Is Unchanging
a. Bible Teaching
b. Application
Each man appears for a little while to laugh and weep, to work, play and then die to make room for those who shall follow. Satan deceives the unsaved person at this point, convincing him that he will not really die. Some people then believe that they reincarnate endlessly, while many others just refuse to ever seriously think about their mortality.
Biblical writers faced their mortality in a spiritually healthy way, realizing that change works TO THE ETERNAL ADVANTAGE OF THE SAVED. As the Apostle Paul stated so eloquently, "We all, with open face beholding, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." Once we have been transported into eternity with God, we shall be made into a being which is just like Jesus. Praise God for eternity!!
However, God's unchanging nature works terribly against those who are not saved. Each unsaved person absolutely is terrified over death, and looks upon advancing age with dread. Most people, in their heart-of-hearts, can sense the impending doom as they advance in age.
2. God is Holy
a. Bible Teaching (Lev 19:2; Isaiah 1:4)
God's holiness is an absolute holiness that knows only the highest degree at all times. God does not conform to a standard; He is that standard.
b. Application
God has made holiness the moral condition necessary to the health of His universe. Whatever is holy is healthy; sin is a moral sickness which will end the life of God's creation. Since God's first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness, whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under His eternal displeasure. TO PRESERVE HIS CREATION, GOD MUST DESTROY WHATEVER WOULD DESTROY IT. When God arises to destroy sin and save the world from moral collapse, He is said to be exercising Judgment. EVERY WRATHFUL JUDGMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS BEEN A HOLY ACT OF PRESERVATION. His action in removing the sinful person or nation can be likened to a surgeon removing the cancerous tumor from the body of a beloved patient. The patient lives only because the tumor has been removed.
3. God is Infinite and Eternal
a. Bible Teaching
Infinity and Eternity are THE FOUNDATIONAL perfec-tions of God, ensuring that all other perfections are equally Infinite and Eternal.
b. Application
Since God lives in Eternity, we Christians possess this relaxing sense of the eternal in our hearts as the Holy Spirit dwells continuously. Not so with the unsaved. The know in their deepest heart the truth, but in their rebellion, they either turn to their manufactured pride, or to some false religion which Satan has so eagerly supplied. But, as God has said, the "wicked...cannot rest...There is no peace for the wicked." (Isaiah 57:20-21)
4. God is Omniscient
a. Bible Teaching (Isaiah 440:13-14; 1 Cor 1:24-25)
To say that God is omniscient is to say He possesses perfect knowledge. God never has to learn anything, nor does anything ever surprise Him. God knows every thought, action, and motive of every person who will ever live.
b. Application
At The Great White Throne Judgment, as recorded in Revelation 20:12-15, unsaved man will be judged according to their works here on earth. Each action that man does is recorded.
Such knowledge naturally throws the heart of the unsaved into deep turmoil; however, this same knowledge is very sweet to those of us who have come humbly before Jesus to acknowledge His deity, His sacrifice for our sins, and who have genuinely asked Him to cleanse us from all sin. For us, there is the sweet knowledge that God has destroyed the very record of our sin and will not remember it eternally.
God's wisdom is a logical part of His Omniscience, allowing Him to devise perfect means by which to achieve perfect ends. God created our universe through His Omniscience and His Plan of Salvation through His Wisdom. Praise God for all eternity!!
5. God is Love
a. Bible Teaching (1 John 4:8b; John 17)
Because God is eternal, His Love had no beginning, nor will it have an end. Because God is Infinite, His love knows no boundaries. "His Love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence." (A.W. Tozer, "The Knowledge Of The Holy")
b. Application
Love also is an emotional identification. Love considers nothing its own, but give all freely to the object of its affection. Love is active on the part of those to whom it gives its affection, giving again and again with no thought to its own welfare. God's Love is also extended to individual people, and to those people God has provided for Mercy and Grace, infinite parts of the Divine Nature which assures that God will be actively compassionate. Wherever and whenever God deals with men, He is merciful as well as just. God has always dealt in mercy with man, and will "always deal in JUSTICE only when His MERCY IS DESPISED.
John 17 -- Christian unity is not based upon feeling, but upon Truth. The only source of this Truth is Jesus Christ, in His Person and His Word.
6. God is Just
a. Bible Teaching (Amos 5:21-24; Isaiah 5:16)
God's attribute of Justice always goes hand in hand with His Holiness and Righteousness. God only acts in Judgment when man has consistently acted in rebellion to His commandments, and in the face of repeated warnings. God is very precise when He is finally moved to Judgment; no one will ever accidently receive punishment that he did not deserve. Remember, God's Perfections operate in conjunction with one another. His Compassion flows from His Goodness, but Goodness without Justice is not Goodness. God simply could not be good if He were not Just.
b. News Brief
Dateline: The Boston Globe, November 9, "A Middlesex Superior Court judge yesterday ordered a wealthy businessman to state prison for 7-10 years for the near fatal stabbing of his girlfriend's 8-year old daughter. He then suspended all but three years of the sentence and released Carlos Gomez on $50,000 bail, pending appeal."
c. Application
Everyday, we read reports such as this which demonstrate man's inability to provide judgment for sin according to His commandments. At this point, we need to state two critical Biblical principles:
(1). Collective individual actions quickly adds up to
a National condition in God's eyes.
(2). When the leaders of a nation consistently refuse
to carry out God's prescribed commandments for
specific sins, what must God do to remain true to
His total Nature? At His own time, God must carry out His prescribed punishments upon the nation. God enunciated this in two passages:
Proverbs 29:1, "He who, being often reproved, hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."
Jeremiah 12:17, "If any nation will not hear and obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, says the Lord."
Remember, God's hatred of rebellion is just as perfect as His attribute of LOVE.
7. God is Sovereign, Omnipotent, and Self-Existent
a. Bible Teaching (Genesis 18:14; Matthew 19:26; Job
42:2; Isaiah 46:10)
Again quoting from A.W. Tozer, "Sovereignty and Omnipotence must go together...to reign, God must have power and to reign sovereignly, He must have all power". God is the source of all power in this universe. The Bible is filled with God's authority. Only a Sovereign Ruler, who felt absolutely no challenge to his authority, could create human beings with great capacity to think, reason, solve problems and mysteries, and exercise free will. The very fact that God allows man to exercise rebellion against Him shows God's absolute sovereignty. The key issue is that men are allowed to make their own choice during the time frame which God has allowed. Thus, at the end of time, God has the right to hold every person accountable for the choices which they have made.
b. Application
The second greatest lie Satan has persuaded men to believe is that man possesses the authority and power to decide to re-write God's Commandments in such a way as to accommodate their own rebellion. Only when it is too late, on Judgment Day for the unsaved, will tens of millions of people discover that man had no such authority and/or power. This tragedy could be averted if man would only come now to recognize God's revealed authority, humbly coming to Him for forgiveness for sins. The Bible teaches that, just before individuals are cast into Hell forever, they will be forced to "bend their knee" to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, Savior, and Almighty God.(Philippians 2:10-11) Tragically, this forced recognition will not produce salvation. How much better it would be if men would just humbly give Jesus this recognition now, while it is still the "Day of Salvation".
How about you? Are you stubbornly refusing to give up some sin in your life? What is keeping you from giving Jesus Christ your heart, mind, and soul, and asking Him for that sweet forgiveness of sin, thus ensuring your eternal salvation?
If you are truly born-again, perhaps you are allowing some sin in your life. Remember Jesus' words in Revelation 18:4, Come out of [the wicked system] so that you may not share in her sins, neither participate in her plagues.
"If you are living a life which is not in obedience to Biblical commandments, come out from that lifestyle."
"If you are a member of a church which is reversing long-held Biblical views, come out from that church. "
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