Summary What do you think of when somebody refers to God, or when you just hear it casually mentioned that God said this, or God did that? How do you think of God or see God when you get down on your knees and begin to pray? What's in your thoughts? What feelings toward our spiritual Father and our spiritual elder brother are in our hearts and in our minds as we come before God? Do you tremble before God knowing that He is a both a consuming fire and a God of Love? Download Link Right click and "Save as..." to Download

 

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Well, every Sabbath day we come before God in a church service. During the seventh month of the year, which we are now in, we come into God's presence as a group more than any other time. We not only have the weekly Sabbaths but also the Day of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, seven full days of the Feast of Tabernacles, plus the Last Great Day of the feast.

This today, is the third time in eight days that we've been together in formal services before God. Now of course, we come formally before God personally, in a sense, every day before God in prayer, Bible study and so forth, and we know that we are in God's presence, and God is watching over us at all times. But in the seventh month, this very special month that God has set aside, He has commanded us to come before him in special worship services over and over and over with physical feasting accompanying that as well as even spiritual feasting, we might call it, and the fasting on the Day of Atonement.

So, clearly, he wants us to focus our attention on what He is doing, what He is showing us, what He wants us to learn. He wants to have certain lessons imbedded in our mind; stamped on us indelibly so that we remember who He is, what He's doing and what His plan is for us and all of mankind.

Now I'm not going to rehearse those holy days today. That's normally done in some form on the holy days themselves, and I'm speaking without benefit of actually knowing what has been covered in the past several days. I didn't have a chance to look at that, but nevertheless I think we're not going to talk today about the holy days of God; we're going to talk about God Himself.

How do you see God? What do you think of when somebody refers to God, or when you just hear it casually mentioned that God said this, or God did that? How do you think of God or see God when you get down on your knees and begin to pray, as the song said?

Now, what we think about seeing Jesus Christ is different than what we think we will see when we see Jesus Christ, if I can put it that way. It may be better said, "It's a different question to ask what do you see when you think of Jesus Christ? And what will you think when you see Jesus Christ? Those are two different questions, but they're related because our expectations probably will not be met. Our expectations will be so vastly exceeded we won't even begin to know how to respond except that God, of course, will show us how to respond.

So how real is God to us day by day? When we come before the Godhead, the Father and Jesus Christ, the Savior, at His right hand, in a service what characteristics of the God family as we sit here this morning; what characteristics of the God family are running through our mind? What's in our thoughts? What feelings toward our spiritual Father and our spiritual elder brother are in our hearts and in our minds as we come before God?

God reveals a great deal about Himself. The Bible is filled with information about God. And yet I am continually amazed that after forty-five years of trying to learn about God I still don't seem to know nearly as much as I would like to know and I still find things that I didn't understand or didn't see, and someone said to me just in the service in Las Vegas the other day. "I'd never seen that before."

And you think, "That's true." We just suddenly, our minds open up to something that was clear, maybe it was clear to other people, and it just wasn't clear to me, but God is continually revealing Himself.

Let's first take a quick look at what we don't know about what we don't know. In the gospel of John 1, Jesus Christ makes a statement that is fundamental to understanding several other statements in the Bible. John:1:18No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him., this is actually the Apostle John making a statement about God and Christ.

John:1:18No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. - "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." So, he says nobody's actually seen God. Now that's repeated by Jesus Christ in John:6:46Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.. You don't need to turn there necessarily; I'll read it very quickly.

John:6:46Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. - "Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father." So, right away we know that man can't see God; doesn't see God; doesn't know God in the sense that we know other human beings. We're not capable of seeing and grasping spiritual entities. Now spiritual entities can, of course, manifest themselves. Christ did, angels have, even demons have, but normally we don't see spirit beings. In I John:4:12Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? it's repeated again.

I John:4:12Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? - "No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us." Now that's just a little hint. There's a lot more in this chapter that I'm not going to read right now. But that's a little hint at the way we actually see God. We see God in God's work. We see God in God's results. We see God in other people; as it says here. We see God's love perfected in people, and so we see what God is capable of. ...just back to I John:3:1There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:. Let's look at verse 2, actually -

Verse 2 - "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." The way I read that, the Apostle John is saying, "I just said, I don't really see God yet. He says, "...when He is revealed,..." Then we'll know what we're going to look like because we're gonna look like Him. So the very logic of the verse is, "I can't see what I'm going to be like because I don't know what God is like, but once I see what God is like, then I know what I'm going to be like." That's the logic as I understand it here; that we do not know exactly what God looks like. We don't know exactly what we will be, but we know that we're going to become part of the God family and be like Him. And then it says, "...we shall see Him as He is."

So there's some things we simply don't yet know about God. Yet we know vast information about God. A lot of what we know about God is discovered even through His creation as He said. He describes Himself over and over. "I am the creator of the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that's in them." That's repeated many different places in the Bible. I didn't look up the number of them today.

But we know some things about our universe now that man didn't know years ago. Perhaps we knew them back when Christ was particularly, personally instructing them, but he doesn't know them now. I'm sorry he didn't know what we know now a few hundred years ago. It's been scientific information coming toward us.

For example: the sun, the center of our solar system is kind of hot. Now you chuckle, and rightly so. Kind of hot. Do you know what the temperature is at the surface of the sun? Some of you scientific students will know. It's about ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It's about ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit. At the core it's said to be perhaps almost three times as hot. Now, I don't think we would be too concerned about the core because we're going to have a real hard time getting past the surface to drill down into there; but it is a huge, flaming mass largely of gases, of course, and it's constantly converting hydrogen to helium I believe is the way it goes. I don't have all that information but it is one of more than one hundred billion - this is an estimate of course, nobody's counted - this is one of more than one hundred billion stars in our galaxy. And of course it is many, many, many, many, times the size of all the other planets in our solar system to the point that it actually takes up about ninety-nine per cent of the mass of the entire system. So, the Earth and Venus and Mars and Pluto and all the rest; well, I guess you don't count Pluto anymore. He died. But you count all the planets up together and they only equal about one per cent of the mass in our solar system because the sun takes up all the rest of it. And it's boiling and flaming at a ten thousand degree temperature.

And, do you know what sun spots are? They talk about sun spots. Now I never really studied sun spots but I recently discovered that sun spots are cool regions on the sun. They're cool regions. They're about a third of the temperature less; maybe a quarter of the temperature less than the rest of the surface of the sun. So when the portions of the sun cool down they become sun spots. They become like little shadows. I actually have a picture here on my notes that came off the internet in which they show these dark spots that look almost like craters, and they're sun spots. That's because they're cooler than the rest of the fire flaming around. Now that was very helpful to me, and I'll explain why in a moment.

Of course science does not understand that creation. They consider the sun to be four and a half billion years old or so and because of the rate at which it's transferring hydrogen and helium it is expected to only last another five billion years. And when that happens it will kind of burn itself out.

Now, could God have created it to do that? Of course, but interesting is the conclusions to which science must come. It will then be forced into radical changes which, though commonplace by stellar standards; it happens all the time in the stars, will result in the total destruction of the earth and probably the creation of lots of other nebulae and so forth.

So, science looks at it and says, "Here's this boiling pot up there in the middle of our galaxy and our solar system, it is the center, and it's all going to just meltdown, and everything's going to be destroyed, including the earth."

So we really have no place to go with that except to say, "I'm glad I'm not going to be around five billion years from now, right? Because when it all comes apart I don't want to be there." Well, of course, that isn't the intent that God has in mind for the Earth so none of that's relevant in terms of what our future is.

Let's put that together with some statements - Nehemiah 9, not someplace we usually go but very well said here in Nehemiah, and so I chose this particular verse out of many we could go to. (Now if I could just get my Bible to go there.) Nehemiah 9, the Levites say in the middle of verse 5 -

Nehemiah:9:5Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. - ..."Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever! Blessed be Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise!"

Verse 6 - You alone are the Lord; You have made the heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You. The host of heaven worships You. Everything worships God. Everything is under God's control. Everything is under God's creation. God made it all. God controls it all. God instructs it all, and the entire thing gives praise to God in a sense.

"The heavens declare God's glory," we sing. It all gives praise and thanks to God, not verbally and physically and in prayer like we do, but in some manner it all represents and glorifies God. God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that's in them. And that's something we do know and maybe sometimes we relax a bit about and take for granted except when there's a crisis.

If there's some kind of crisis then we really begin to remember, particularly if the weather is a problem. We had a hurricane recently in Cincinnati. An earthquake happened, different kinds of events occur that we relate immediately to man not being able to deal with and we think, "Wow! Sure glad I know the Creator of the universe. Sure glad I know God, and sure glad I understand God's plan and God's purpose and sure glad I can get down on my knees and ask God to take care of whatever I'm concerned about today."

And so we see God as the Creator of the heavens and the earth; the sea and everything that's in them, but perhaps it's not a constant part of our meditation which we would hope that will become. I find myself thinking more and more about that probably as I get older, about what God is doing and about how God controls and deals with and instructs His universe.

Now we have an example of God interacting with man that is particularly pertinent here today, and that would be Moses back in Exodus:3:2And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.. You know this story well.

Exodus:3:2And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. - And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.

Verse 3 - Then Moses said, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn." He recognized that this was a suspension of normal physical law. This is a great sight. This is a miracle. Turn aside and see why the bush does not burn.

Verse 4 - When the Eternal (Lord) saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."

Verse 5 - Then He said, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground." The place where you stand is holy ground. It was in the presence of God, and God wanted Moses to understand that he was not dealing with another man. He was not dealing with just some phenomena of a burning bush. He was dealing with the God of the universe. He goes on to say,

Verse 6 - "...I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, (the God of) Isaac, and (the God of) Jacob etcetera..... And a little bit later - Creator of the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that's in them. He said, "I am the God who created the heavens and the sea and all that's in them. And so God identified Himself to Moses as not only the God of his fathers but as the Creator, and you'll find that again in the Sabbath command in Exodus 20; that He's the Creator of all things, and so God is in charge of all of this.God understands it all. God knows what's happening.

A little later the entire nation of Israel, Exodus:19:16And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. had a similar relationship with God.Exodus:19:16And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled., this, of course, is at the time of the giving of the law, Pentecost.

Exodus:19:16And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. - Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud,... You know, again, we read over these so much that maybe we don't stop to project ourselves into that environment. When you do that, you get a bit of a chill down your spine, or maybe your arms, or something because any one of these events would be enough to scare the fire out of you, as we say.

You know, I've been in some pretty major thunderstorms even at the very top of the Rockies, up around Leadville, Colorado, in the middle of the night trying to get back to my camp, and lightning and thunder, that lighted up the entire mountain range, and it brings chills to me even now as I describe it because it is so awesome. It is so unbelievable to see the entire sky light up, and to see those mountain ranges as far as you can see, and that little, tiny, narrow, crooked road in front of you, and think, "Am I ever going to get back to camp? And then when I get there, what am I going to do? I'm going to crawl into my tent and hope for the best."

So, you know, when you see any of these things, they are awesome! They're overwhelming! I put them all together; with thunderings, and lightnings, a thick cloud, and then the trumpet blast. And what must that have been like?

Verse 16 - "...so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. That's what it was like. They trembled.

Verse 17 - (And) Moses brought the people out (of the camp) to (meet) speak with God,...

Verse 18 - Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. That's pretty awesome. That's pretty amazing. That's pretty striking to the human nervous system to consider that kind of condition and put yourself into that place.

Most of us were called without quite that drama. Now many of us had dramatic happenings in our lives when we were called, but we didn't necessarily have all these physical phenomena blasting around us, did we?

How did that make them feel? Well, Paul says back in Hebrews, we can go there. Hebrews:12:21And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:), Paul's talking about the very thing we just described. Verses 18-20, and then -

Hebrews:12:21And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) - And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I am exceedingly afraid and trembling." Moses wrote it down that the people trembled. Paul said, "Moses himself was scared." Moses himself said, "I was exceedingly afraid and trembling, or I am." So, as you read on here, you begin to see what Paul is doing. I think he's doing a little bit of what I'm trying to help us do today, and that is see a little bit more about God and our relationship with Him.

Verse 22 - "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,

Verse 23 - "to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect," Paul says, "You've become part of something much bigger than you are; something that's been going on for a very long time.

Verse 24 - "to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Going on -

Verse 25 - "See that you do not refuse Him who speaks...." I thought of that when the sermonette was going on, and I'm knocking on the door. "See that you refuse not Him who speaks for if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven,

Verse 26 - "whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, 'Yet once more I shake not only (the) earth, but also heaven.'"

Verse 27 - Now this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. So in spite of this awesome universe to which we look as the handiwork of God; through which we worship and praise God, Paul says, "God can even shake that." Shake it up and change it so dramatically that only spiritual things perhaps remain.

Verse 28 - Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, that's sure,let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

Verse 29 - For our God is a consuming fire. Now see, Paul started this story with a consuming fire on the mountain. He started this story with the discussion of Israel's trembling before God, and he comes down to the conclusion of why they had to tremble before God and why you and I tremble before God; that He is a consuming fire.

Now if God is a consuming fire, is it any wonder that we find back in Revelation 1, this description of Jesus Christ?

Revelation:1:14 - His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire;

Verse 15 - His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; maybea great, Niagara Falls type sound.

Verse 16 - He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. If God is a consuming fire, should it surprise us that the countenance of Christ is like the sun shining in its strength? In fact, if we looked ahead - we don't have time to do that, - we find in the new heavens and the new earth that Christ and the Father are the light of the city and there is no need of other light because God is a consuming fire. He is power; He is glory; He is beyond anything our physical minds can comprehend, including the sun.

Now I said earlier the sunspots were an education to me. I'll mention why here because it says here, and I've always wondered about this. I try not to picture God in any form when I'm praying because I don't want to make an image of God that's wrong, but I do try to remember the things that the scriptures say. The scriptures say that Christ's countenance is like the sun in its full strength and yet it says his eyes are like flames of fire.

Now I kind of wondered how you can have flames of fire and something as bright as the sun and have them show up like our eyes show up. Because, again, we try to put everything in a physical context. So how can His face be as bright as the sun and his eyes flames of fire? How do you see His eyes? They're just absorbed in fire. But obviously just as the sunspots are cooler than the sun, and I have a picture here of dark spots on the sun, so, it could be the other way, could it not? And again, I'm talking a physical analogy only, please. Could it not be the other way?

Even though His countenance shines as the sun at full strength, that His eyes are even brighter than that ten thousand degrees, if we were using the sun. Could there not be hotspots as well? Of course, in fact, I think they are. I didn't get to study that; but I think there are hotspots on the sun as well - hotter than the surface of the sun. So Christ shines as the sun in its strength and yet His eyes are like flames of fire within that countenance, and that is an amazing fact.

Now, how does He use that power? Stay with me, I want to show you some contrasts.Isaiah 11: Oh, we go to Isaiah 11, and we think we're going to talk about the good things that are going to come in the millennium, and they're here. But I want to read just a little excerpt out of verse 4.

Isaiah:11:4But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. - But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; that's justice, judgment; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. So even as we begin the millennium Christ is slaying the wicked with the breath of His lips. Incredible power, incredible capacity, incredible strength to not only judge righteous judgment but then to dispatch the wicked with the power of His lips.

Jeremiah 46, so one of the characteristics of God that we see there is that he's going to slay the wicked. It's said in the same context as judging the poor and being righteous toward those who are in need. Jeremiah:46:10For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates., we have a short description of a portion of the day of the Lord here.

Jeremiah:46:10For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. - For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Himself on His adversaries. The sword shall devour; it shall be satiated and made drunk with their blood; for the (Lord) Eternal God of hosts has a sacrifice in the north country by the River Euphrates.

God is going to intervene in powerful ways as we read, of course, more directly in places like the book of Joel and the book of Revelation. But it says here that He's going to avenge Himself; that He's going to use His power; and that power is going to bring great destruction on nations that resist God, and God is going to spill blood all over the place. And so, that's the impression we can have of God, and guess what? It's a right impression. It's just an incomplete impression. And much of the world only sees God one way or the other.

Much of the world sees God as this great, powerful, angry God who's going to blot everybody out. And a lot of the rest of the world sees God as just this sweet, loving, kind baby who's going to circle everybody in His arms and make them feel better. And the fact is the Biblereveals that God is the complete picture of power, and strength, and glory, and might along with tenderness, and mercy, and goodness, and grace, and comfort, and encouragement because God is much greater than any human being. God is much greater than any strength that any human yet has. And God is much greater than any goodness that a human being might have.

One uninitiated in the truth might look at these scriptures and get a very one-sided impression of God. He might consider that God could not be anything but terrible, and fearsome, and something to hide from. Remember, Israel said, "Moses, you go talk to Him. Don't let us; don't let Him talk to us. We don't want to go near. We don't want to get involved." But is God such a terrible figure or is there much more? And, again, the Bible is filled with this. I'm giving this in excerpt today. James 1, this is a very important and encouraging scripture for us when we do get down to pray.

James:1:17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. - Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. And that leads right in to the fact that,

Verse 18 - Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. So the Father of lights, no shadow of turning. He's never looking the other way when you need Him. He's never deaf in the ear to which you're talking.

Now my wife and I've gotten to the point where we go into a restaurant or whatever, we have to sit in the correct place or we don't hear each other or anybody else, you know. It depends, you have to choose, who do I hear? Who am I going to talk to because I've got to get my good ear on the side where the person that's going to talk to me, that I need to hear. Now if one person has a strong voice and the other person has a really light voice then we try to position ourselves accordingly because you can hear the strong voice.

God isn't like that. God isn't saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there; didn't see you coming."

God is very much aware and alert, and He is constantly available, and the light, we think of it as the sun, you know? When our power went out, some of you may still be out. I hope you're not. When the power went out a few days we missed the light. The sun goes down and stays behind those clouds in the winter for a few days and we get really miserable and dreary and we're waiting for the sun to come back out. What if the sun were shut off? Of course, Christ says it's going to be for a period of time in the day of the Lord, but what if God were shut off? Now what if we were cut off to the point that we did not have that access to that light. He is the Father of lights and there's no shadow of turning. He's not going to not be present when we need Him. He's always going to be there when we call. He's going to hear when we ask Him for help and guidance.

Is He a terrible God? Is he a figure to be only feared and fled from? Let's look at Psalm 86.As we come into the presence of God in this seventh month repeatedly, we want to have a fuller picture of who this God is that commanded us to come before Him, and worship Him, and serve Him, and learn from Him, and offer our sacrifices to Him.

Psalm:86:15But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. - But You, O (Lord) Eternal, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.

Verse 16 - Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me! Give Your strength to Your servant, and save the son of Your maidservant. This is David, of course, talking about saving the child that was about to die.

Verse 17 - Show me a sign for good, that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, because You, (Lord) Eternal, have helped me and comforted me. ...helped me and comforted me. You are a God of compassion, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in mercy and in truth.

Now there are those who would read that passage and that would be their entire picture of God. They wouldn't see the justice. They wouldn't see the judgment. They wouldn't see the punishment. They wouldn't see the destruction that has to be wrought in order to bring about construction and peace and happiness and joy. But David saw it and he said, "Please look down upon me and hear me because You are this way. You're compassionate and gracious and merciful."

You and I have tasted of that mercy many times but specifically, according to the Apostle Paul, when we were first called to the truth. Romans 2, Paul chiding Christians a bit in this context, but nevertheless making a very positive statement.

Romans:2:4Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? - "Or do you despise the riches of His goodness,..." So we need to be remembering and thinking on the goodness of God. He goes on to say, "...forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing ..." Do you fail to realize, he says?" Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" God's goodness led us to repentance so that He could be a Light to us and give us every good and perfect gift. God is filled with goodness. God's goodness is unfathomable, if I can say that word, which is kind of hard to do.

Let's go back to the Psalms again. Psalm 103 this time. When we know God's power, when we know God's glory, when we know God's goodness, when we know God's mercy, His kindness, His graciousness, His forbearance and longsufferings, then Psalm:103:1Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. tells us what we ought to do.

Psalm:103:1Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. - Bless the (Lord) Eternal, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Eternal. Praise in a worshipful, praising attitude. Recognize the source of every good thing.

Verse 2 - Bless the (Lord) Eternal, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:

Verse 3 - Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,

Verse 4 - Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

Verse 5 - Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. You see, he covers the spiritual and the physical needs, and the benefits that God pours out upon His people here. The whole Psalm is a wonderful expression of God's character. Let's drop down a bit here to verse 19.

Verse 19 - The (Lord) Eternal has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.

Verse 20 - Bless the (Lord) Eternal, you His angels, who excel in strength, and who do His word, heeding the voice of His word.

 

Verse 21 - Bless the (Lord) Eternal, all you His hosts, You ministers of His, who do His pleasure. Speaking to the angels specifically -

Verse 22 - Bless the (Lord) Eternal, all His works, in all places of His dominion. Bless the (Lord) Eternal, O my soul! Many of these latter Psalms are written in constant praise and glorification of God, and as we come before God in this Holy Day season we want to be doing like these men who have gone before us; men and women after God's own heart who gave themselves fully to service to God.

Is God a terrible figure? Yes. Is God a frightful presence? Yes, for us human beings. But is He completely tender, and loving, and kind, and generous, and good, and comforting, and encouraging? Yes. Can He be all of those things at the same time? Yes. We tend to limit God by our own human experience.

The bully down the street when we were growing up probably didn't have strong characteristics on both sides. He probably had strong characteristics on, "The bully, I'm in charge. Get out of my way; I'm going to beat you to a pulp" kind of an attitude. The person who was kind, and gentle, and generous probably didn't look a thing or act a thing like the bully.

In fact, in my era it would have been a girl. Well, I mean not always, but you know what I'm saying. You had to kind of act tough even if you weren't. But you found very generous, kind, encouraging traits in people who were not bullies whether they were male or female. "I'm kind of kidding; I hope you understand that." But whether they were male or female you found those characteristics in somebody who was not a bully. Somebody you were not afraid was going to punch you in the nose when you walked up to them and said, "Hello," because we don't tend to think of all of these characteristics being melded together in one perfect character. And yet that's what God is. He's not a bully. Don't misunderstand me. He's not going to punch you in the nose, but He has the power to destroy. He has the power to obliterate, to blot out.  And He has the power to build, to create, to encourage, to restore, to comfort; the power to lift us up when we're down, and take care of us when we have desperate needs that nobody else can take care of. This terrible figure, in fact, is described by the Apostle John back in I John 4 in a little different way than many people might think.

I John:4:8(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) - He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. He does not know God because God is love. Once you know God, and you are attached to God then that love flows through us, as we've already seen in some of these other scriptures. God is love. So now, this individual that's appearing to be terrible, and frightful, and dangerous beyond comprehension is pictured as pure love. The source of love, perfect love.

Mr. Griffith always asks us for a title for sermons and titles can be either helpful or confusing. I'm not sure where this one ended up, but I gave him a title called, "Love in a Consuming Fire" because that's what I would really like for us to recognize today; that God is love in a consuming fire, or in the form of a consuming fire, if you will. That God has all of the characteristics needed to carry out His will and His purpose, and to carry out whatever successes He wants to give us in life, and He wants us to become His children. He wants us to be born into His family as we probably heard something about on the day of Trumpets.

Sometimes we think we'd like to see God. Depends on which scripture we're reading, I suppose. If we're reading God is love, His tender mercy and compassion; and how Christ said, "I wanted to take you under my wings like a hen does her chickens, and comfort you."

And we think, "Yeah, that's what I want. I want to know that God." And then maybe we read the other scripture and we say, "I'm kind of like the Israelites and Moses. I fear and tremble. I don't think today's a good day for me to go knocking on that door." And yet, you know, and I've come to the place sometimes where I had to really make myself go pray because I felt so bad because of my relationship with God. But you get through that, and God picks you up and lifts you up and helps you, and you succeed.

Well, Moses, coming back to the trembler, Moses, back in Exodus 33 made an interesting request of God.

Exodus:33:12And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. - Then Moses said to the (Lord) Eternal, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this people.' But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.'" Moses was a little confused here. He said, "You're telling me that I'm special; you're telling me that I have special favor with you. You're telling me that you have a huge job for me to do, and yet I don't have any conviction here or commitment that You're gonna send somebody with me to make it possible. Who are You going to send?"

Verse 13 - "Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people."

Verse 14 - And He said, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."

Verse 15 - Then he said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here." That's kind of, "If You're not going, I don't want to go. Don't send me by myself, whatever You do."

Verse 16 - "For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth."

Verse 17 - So the Lord said to Moses, "I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name."

Verse 18 - And he said, "Please, show me Your glory." Moses decided he wanted to see God. He wanted to know God a little bit deeper. He had this human need to be able to see His form or to reach out and touch Him or to somehow feel His presence beside this constant power and this voice that was coming to him. And so he said, "Show me Your glory."

Verse 19 - Then He said, this is God speaking, Christ, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, (and) I will proclaim the name of the (Lord) Eternal before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

Verse 20 - But He said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." So He puts him in the rock, in the cleft in the rock in verse 21, and so forth.

Verse 23 - Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face you shall not (be seen) see." Drop down quickly to verse 34:6.

Exodus:34:6And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, - And the (Lord) Eternal passed before him and proclaimed, "The (Lord) Eternal, the (Lord) Eternal God, merciful and gracious,... This is what Moses saw. How did he proclaim this? It doesn't say. ...the (Lord) Eternal passed before him and proclaimed, "The (Lord) Eternal, the (Lord) Eternal God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth. And what Moses saw was not necessarily the fearful, powerfuldestroyer that man sometimes sees, but rather abounding in goodness and truth.

Verse 7 - keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and by no means clearing the guilty,... there's the destruction part.  He's going to wipe out the wicked at some point. ...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and (the) fourth generation." This is what God revealed Himself to be to His friend, Moses.

Verse 8 - So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.

Verse 9 - Then, he said, "If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance." For Moses saw that God had the capacity to do what he was concerned about; to get them to where they needed to go; to accomplish the purpose that He had told Moses He was going to fulfill.

Now, we've gone through sort of extremes here, but they're all there, aren't they? The power of God, the creative power and glory of God, the capacity of God to judge, righteous judgment, the capacity of God to blot out the wicked (slay the wicked), the capacity of God to bring us into His family, to make us His own children that we might see Him as He is. It's all a part of the character and nature of the God we serve; not the God that mankind might sometimes think that he understands and he often foists upon us by his constant discussions.

I saw a couple of things this week in various things regarding the debates and other issues in which, you know, people are talking about the old issue of evangelicals and their role in the election or about religion and its role; or about conservatives versus liberals on issues like abortion and other things that cause all these great risks, and everybody sort of has a perspective on what they think religion is and then, of course, what role religion plays which, in turn, the religionists have their perception of what God is and who He is and what He's doing. And you look at the whole mess and you say, "It is really true that man is completely ignorant of God, and of God's purpose, and of God's will. He's completely incapable of knowing anything about these issues because God hasn't opened his mind and revealed them to him."

It's amazing sometimes how God's people, you and I, can sit and listen to such arguments and judgments and cut right through it all because, well, the answers are here. And God has, there they are, right there, they're no longer there, they fell out of my Bible. (laughter) No, they're here in God's word and God has opened our minds and revealed them to us so that we have some understanding that the world doesn't have. Now does that mean that we can instantly answer every question? Could we go into the debate and just rattle off all the right answers? Well, maybe if we only rattled off God's answers, but the children of this world are wiser than the children of light in some places and we wouldn't last very long in a political debate.

But in a discussion of truth and what life is about and what the hope and the future of mankind is we can hold our own extremely well because the other folks wouldn't know what we're talking about, and they wouldn't know what they're talking about. Revelation:19:4,breaking in here. This is, of course, at the destruction of Babylon; the return of Christ has taken place.

Revelation:19:4 - And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne, saying, "Amen! Alleluia!"

Verse 5 - Then a voice came from the throne, saying, "Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both small and great."

Verse 6 - And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thundering, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!" You see, here's an effusive act of praise. Praising, and worship, hallelujah, Amen, God reigns! There's a great rejoicing here at the intervention of God and the establishment of Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords to rule over the nations.

Verse 7 - "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." (Referring, of course, to the Church.) What I want us to notice here is the attitude, though, of worship and praise.God is worthy of worship and praise. His glory, and His power, and His goodness, and His mercy extended to us is worthy of constant, and regular, and generous praise, and thanksgiving, and rejoicing before God.

Now, we're told to come to the Feast of Tabernacles in a few days to rejoice. It hit me kind of hard when I got Jim's e-mail a couple of days ago that said, I guess it was yesterday, said "Gone to the feast." And somehow this year I guess it's just been harder to anticipate and get ready for the feast. In fact, my wife and I find ourselves completely behind in terms of being ready to get on an airplane in a few days. First we have to drive to Atlanta, but get on an airplane and fly to Jamaica and say, "Well, did we get everything? What do we need? And really in reality, all you need is you. Just get there and appear before God in some decent form, and you will be okay. But you know how we are; we tend to want everything right, and all the preparation, and all the right clothing, and you know, and all the right gimmicks that we need to take.

But God tells us to come before Him and rejoice and when we come before Him to rejoice we come with an attitude of thanksgiving and praise. Let's go to Psalm 100; sort of sums up the approach and attitude with which God expects us to come before Him.

Psalm:100:1Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. - Make a joyful shout to the (Lord) Eternal, all you lands! Can't you see all the nations shouting at once, and what a noise that would be? To human beings it would be overwhelming. Since God says the nations are a drop in the bucket I guess it might not be all that shocking to Him, but it is an act of praise in this case, and worship.

Verse 2 - Serve the (Lord) Eternal with gladness; come before His presence with singing.

Verse 3 - Know (that the Lord) the Eternal, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Verse 4 - Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.... I mentioned at the beginning, we come in Sabbath after Sabbath, and it's a routine, and it's right and proper. It's good to come before God week in and week out. In the seventh month we have many opportunities to come before God. We don't want to take them for granted. Nor do we want to approach them as "Well, here we go to the feast again. I'm going to this special place, and I'm gonna have all this fun with all of my friends and eat and drink all these things, and I'm gonna have this great feast." Well, God wants you to do that but He wants us to rejoice in the midst of that and make a joyful sound to God and ...enter (into) His gates with thanksgiving and enter into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

Verse 5 - For the (Lord) Eternal is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. God has given us an opportunity to be his people, to come before Him and rejoice; to enjoy the good things that He's provided, to sing praises to Him.

One of the beautiful things at the feast, of course, in most cases we have quite a few more people, and we start singing those hymns in some of the major sites. I know what it'll be like in Panama City Beach with fifteen, seventeen hundred people in one room. The rest are in the overflow, but you start singing and it just kind of runs chills down your spine, and that's because it's praise to God, and it's giving God glory. It's being thankful to God for what He has done to bring us into His family. It's a wonderful and marvelous opportunity. Psalm 150 -many of the things that we do as we come before God are interpreted by God as praise.Psalm 148, Psalm 149, Psalm 150 if you want to read something about praise and rejoicing before God today, I would read those three.

Psalm:150:1Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. - Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in (the) His mighty firmament! Way above and beyond what we know, that is the physical firmament.

Verse 2 - Praise Him for His mighty acts; praise Him according to His excellent greatness!

Verse 3 - Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; praise Him with the lute and harp!

Verse 4 - Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!

Verse 5 - Praise Him with loud cymbals; praise Him with clashing cymbals!

Verse 6 - Let everything that has breath praise the (Lord) Eternal. Praise the (Lord) Eternal!

We have a wonderful opportunity during this seventh month to come before God; to come before His presence with singing, with rejoicing, with feasting, with fellowship, with prayer and study, and service to God in whatever way the opportunity arises. And it is a wonderful, wonderful time of the year to draw close to God; but we need to know God. We need to know who He is and how He thinks, and as I said, "His word is filled with that."

As we study His word and talk about God and what He does and what He's done in our lives; what He does for us and many times the feast becomes a time when we can share for our stories of conversion. We can share our stories of miracles and interventions of various kinds. We can share our stories of blessings and times when God's picked us up and taken us out of hardships and we have an opportunity to share our lives with brethren of like mind.

Well, as we physically prepare for the holy days and feasts just ahead of us; let's also gird up our minds and carefully reflect on the nature of God, and Who it is that we're coming before, and how He expects us to serve Him. Perhaps we should consider even as we come into the door of God's house, whether it be the weekly Sabbath or the annual holy day or the Feast of Tabernacles in particular, perhaps, as we come up, symbolically at least, metaphorically God's house and God's tabernacle, that we approach it as most Jews were asked to do when God appeared to Him and spoke to him at least from the burning bush. And He said, "Don't come here without taking off your shoes because you're standing in a holy place."

We are given the opportunity to stand in the presence of God with our shoes off as an act of worship, and humility, and recognition that God is our God. He is our King. He's a kind, and generous, and loving God who wants to give us every good gift. He's the father of lights in whom there's no shadow of turning. Great, and mighty, and terrible, yes; and to the wicked that is a fearful thing. But to the righteous, the Comforter, the King of Righteousness, the Righteous Judge - we sang it in the song. "Righteous Judge From Foes Defend Me." He's going to judge with equity for the meek of the earth and He's going to bring peace and happiness and joy to mankind.

We'll be hearing a lot of that in the days to come and the Feast of Tabernacles, but let's go to the feast and the holy days and rejoice before the great God of the universe. Our God is love. He's a consuming fire. He's love in a consuming fire.