May we begin with a word of prayer.
Lord, we are a vapor, just a blink of the eye. But Thou art the Almighty. Thou art forever, Lord. Somehow, we find, Lord, that though our earthly life is but a vapor, we have found eternal life in Jesus Christ, Your Son.
Lord, we want to come today and honor Thee. Thou art God Almighty. You are the Majesty on high. You’re the One who sits on the throne, and all will bow down—Lord, not just bow, but to the knees in recognition of the Almighty.
Lord, we come before Thee this day. We would ask that Your Holy Spirit would bless us with an anointing that we might hear Your Word, we might receive Your Word, and we might do Your Word. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Good morning, everyone. It’s a beautiful morning, sun shining. But you know, the sun’s always shining whether it’s cloudy or not. It always reminds me of the Lord. He’s always there, even when our lives have clouds in them. The Lord is always there. He’s always shining.
Let’s begin by reading a few scriptures this morning. The very first one is Genesis 1:1. That should be easy to find. Just read part of that verse.
In the beginning, God.
In the beginning, God.
Then read Romans. Go to Romans, chapter 1, verse 19.
Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Philippians 3:10, theme verse for the conference, or part of the theme for the conference.
That I may know Him.
That I may know Him.
And John 17:3.
And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.
And this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
The title to today’s message is really twofold: Discovering God. Discovering God. But as I thought about this, this is from man’s point of view. The other title might be more appropriate: God Reveals Himself.
Because man cannot discover God unless God chooses to reveal Himself. So my message today is actually a preparatory message. It’s on my heart to go through the Bible, to go through it from cover to cover, discovering God. And we will see how that plays out in future days, Lord willing. That’s what is on my heart.
So I think it’s only appropriate that we begin with that little verse: “In the beginning, God.” God.
You know, today a lot of people say they do not believe in God. A lot of people will say, “Yes, I believe in a god, but there are many ways to find God.”
Is it possible to know God? God is a mystery. He is Spirit. Is it possible to know God?
If there’s anyone in this room that still is not certain about the reality of God, I think it’s important that you search for Him, that you really know, because life and death is in the balance. Heaven and hell is in the balance. Our future lies in the balance of knowing God.
How do we know God? Is it really possible to know God? What do you know of God if you know God? How much is there to know about God?
This message is on my heart partly, brothers and sisters, because I’ve heard from numerous Christians lately in other circles that they believe in God, and they believe in Jesus. But Jesus isn’t the only way. There are many ways.
And I would say, “Are you a Christian?” “Well, of course, I’m a Christian.” Well, according to the Word of God, I find that hard to believe. I want them to be a Christian, but in their minds they are. But in reality, they have not yet found God.
This morning, I’ve read some scriptures from the Bible. A lot of people do not believe that this is the Word of God, and that creates a difficulty. Because this is the only book that I know of that has ever been written that tells us who God is and what God is about.
There’s a lot of philosophy been written in this world, and there’s a lot of men’s imaginations about who God is and what He is. But this is the only book that I know of that has been given and written that actually informs us who God is.
If you want to know who God is, or about God, I would suggest that we read the Book.
Is the Bible authentic? Well, we know that there have been many old documents written all the way back to Moses. As far as we know, Moses wrote the first five books of this Bible, about 1500 BC.
And there are a lot of old documents, a lot of these scriptures written anywhere from 1500 years ago to 600 years ago, as far as the Old Testament is concerned. And, of course, through the first century after Christ was crucified.
I think, brothers and sisters, I don’t know, I think sometimes we take it for granted that everybody believes that the Bible is the Word of God. But many, many do not. Even many who call themselves Christians say, “Well, yes, it’s a good book, and it has a lot of good things in it. But we’re not sure that it’s actually God’s Word.”
Well, let me say something to us. It’s got to get settled in your heart that this indeed is the Word of God. As we go on in our Christian life, as we begin to know more about God, about the Lord, as we encounter Him personally, the more we read, the more we wonder at this Book. It is amazing.
Let me give a few examples. The Scripture itself, in 2 Timothy 3:16—you don’t have to read this; we won’t have time—says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Now, that’s the testimony of the Book, and it comes through the Apostle Paul.
The one who met Christ on the Damascus road said that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God.
In 2 Peter 1:19-21, Peter, an apostle that was with our Lord Jesus Christ, says:
We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man:
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Where did Peter get that from? He got it from the Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, the Scripture itself says that there is a way to know God, that God has revealed Himself, and God has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. Man was an instrument for writing these Scriptures, but the inspiration came from God through the Holy Spirit.
Scholars and people who are mathematicians have said, considering that these documents, these prophecies from the Old Testament, were actually written 1500 to 600 years ago, that the odds of fulfilling eight of the prophecies concerning Christ is one hundred million to one.
There’s over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus Christ. And they say that the fact that eight of them were actually fulfilled—that they, you know, only eight out of the 300—I mean, they all were fulfilled. Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t say that quite right. But if you only look at eight, the odds of that happening from something said 1500 years ago is one hundred million to one. That’s a lot of zebra.
Let’s think about it. In Genesis 3:15, which was written by Moses approximately 1500 BC, he said that there would come a Savior born of a woman. Of course, Christ was born of a woman. We know that from Scripture. If you want to verify that, you can look in Matthew 1:18.
In 700 BC, Isaiah prophesied, and he said that this Messiah would be born of a virgin, in Isaiah 7:14. Let’s just look at Isaiah 7:14.
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a Son,
and she will call His name Immanuel.
Isaiah the prophet, 700 years before Christ, wrote that. It became fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Let’s look at Micah 5:2. Now, Micah is a little difficult to find. It’s one of those minor prophets. Micah is between Jonah and Nahum, and then after that is Habakkuk, I think. Yes, Micah 5:2.
But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
It’s speaking of Christ, where He would be born. Remember, when the king found out from the three wise men that came to see him, inquiring where this new king was—they were looking for Jesus. This is approximately two years after His birth when the wise men came, by the way.
They were looking for Jesus, and the king said to his own people, “Now, where was He born?” And the ones that knew the Scriptures in that day looked, and they said, “Well, it’s obvious. It’s in Micah 5:2 that He would be born in Bethlehem”—700 years before Christ was born.
Out of Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah—we just read it—it says His name will be called Immanuel. And if you look in Matthew 1:21 and 23, you find that He is to be called Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.
In 700 BC, in Isaiah 50:6, it speaks of Him being spat upon. And we know that that was fulfilled when He went before Pilate, and after He was judged, they spat upon our Lord Jesus. It says so in Scripture. I don’t have time to go back and actually read all this.
And in the Psalm of David, the sixty-ninth Psalm, it said they will give Him vinegar. And we know on Calvary’s cross that He was given vinegar to drink. He did not drink it, but He was given it to drink, to deaden the nerves.
In Psalm 22, I’ve got to read Psalm 22. Let’s turn to Psalm 22, starting with verse 6.
But I am a worm, and not a man;
A reproach of men, and despised by the people.
All who see me sneer at me;
They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,
“Commit thyself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”
Yet Thou art He who didst bring me forth from the womb;
Thou madest me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.
Upon Thee I was cast from birth;
Thou hast been my God from my mother’s womb.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near;
For there is none to help.
Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
They open wide their mouth at me,
As a ravening and roaring lion.
I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And Thou dost lay me in the dust of death.
For dogs have surrounded me;
A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
They pierced my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;
They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.
By the way, this was written 1000 BC. Most of us have read the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. That crucifixion is an exact fulfillment of Psalm 22, written by David a thousand years before Christ was crucified.
When this was written, the cross, the punishment of the cross, was not even in existence. It was not until the Romans came in that they put people on a cross.
You know, I know if a person is kind of set against the Bible being the Word of God, it’s difficult to convince them. But brothers and sisters, my heart’s convinced.
I don’t know of a more exact description of our Lord’s crucifixion that came out of the heart of David. And how did David know? The Scriptures testify that David was a man after God’s heart. He knew God, and God shared His heart with him, even His crucifixion on Calvary’s cross.
It goes on. It testifies in Isaiah 53:9 that He would be buried with the rich. Now, He was born poor. But remember Joseph of Arimathea, I think it is, who was a rich man, came and took Jesus from the cross and put Him in his grave. So He was buried among the rich.
And then the resurrection from the dead is prophesied in Psalm 16:10; the ascension to glory in Psalm 68:18; the fact that He’d be the Lamb of God, Isaiah 53:7. Our brother read that this morning at the table.
Is this the Word of God? I think so.
If you don’t believe that, think of the nation of Israel. In Deuteronomy, written 1500 years ago by Moses, it was prophesied that because of the disobedience of the nation of Israel, He would scatter them among the nations. But one day He would gather them back together.
Now, this has happened in my lifetime. Because the nation of Israel, because of their disobedience—the Jewish nation—was scattered among all the nations. But in 1948—I was born in '43—in 1948 they were once again recognized as a nation.
That has not happened to any other nation in history.
The Bible is the Word of God. God wants us to know His Word in order that we might know Him.
We can avoid knowing God. We can spend our life doing other things. God has given us a free will. But I want to say, brothers and sisters, if I have considered this ministry from the day, I have to say and confess to the Lord, “Lord, I have not been diligent in searching for You in Your Word.”
Because You have obviously revealed Yourself in this Word. That’s why You gave it to us. God is a mystery, and He can only be seen or known if He chooses to reveal Himself.
And we thank God this morning, brothers and sisters, that this is one instrument which God has provided for a people in the last days to be able to know who He is.
And yet the Word itself says—and I’ll just read this—in Job 11:7-9:
Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
In other words, God is a mystery, and He chooses to reveal Himself. And yet we will spend eternity learning about God because He is incomprehensible—who He is, what He is. There’ll be no end to learning God.
Now, there is a key. There is a key to knowing God. You can know God; you need to know that. And there’s a key to knowing God, and that’s also shown to us in the Scriptures.
In Mark 1:11, it says:
Thou art My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
When Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River, God could not hold it back anymore. His voice broke through the heaven audibly and said, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”
In Mark 9:7, the Lord once again broke through. The disciples, three of them, were on the mount of what is now called Transfiguration with the Lord Jesus. And a cloud overshadowed them, and the Lord spoke—God spoke once again—and He said:
This is My beloved Son; hear Him.
In Luke 10:22, it says no man knows who the Father is but the Son, and whom the Son will reveal Him to. No man knows the Father except the Son, and unto whom the Son chooses to reveal the Father.
And in John 14:9—this is Jesus speaking—He says:
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
And in John 10:30, He says:
I and the Father are one.
Brothers and sisters, there are many people in Christianity today who say, “We don’t believe—we don’t know that Jesus is the Son of God.” Jesus said He was the Son of God. He didn’t say in those words, “I am the Son of God,” but He said, “I and the Father are one. If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.”
How can you say He’s not the Son of God?
This tells us God reveals who He is—how? Through His Son. That is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself: through His Son, Jesus Christ. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—the responsibility of the Son.
You know, the Father loved the Son so much that He said to His Son, “Son, we’re so one. You’re going to be the One that will manifest to the world who God is, who We are. When they see You, they will see Me.”
Now, we have our own earthly sons and daughters, and others see something of us in our sons and daughters, don’t they? But we’re not perfectly one like the Father and the Son are.
We certainly, I don’t think, could say, “Well, if you’ve seen my son, you’ve seen me.” I couldn’t, because they are different. But brothers and sisters, uncannily, they’re very much like me. Unfortunately, it’s not always the things that I would like for them to manifest.
But the Father loved His Son, and He said, “That’s going to be Your responsibility: to reveal God to a people.” And the Son loved the Father so much, He said, “Father, I’ll take up that responsibility.”
The Father says, “Well, You know that man is going to rebel. He’s not going to want to know God. He’s going to run from God. There’s going to be sin that has to be taken care of.”
The Son said, “Father, if it means going to Calvary’s cross and dying for the sins of man, that man might know who You are, I am willing to do it.”
So if we want to know the character and nature of God, there’s no other way but to know Jesus Christ. Why? Because that’s the way God has chosen to reveal Himself. There is no other way.
In fact, Jesus says no man can come to the Father except by Me. God’s way is clear, brothers and sisters. Do not be taken in by this talk that there are other ways to God, that there are other ways to heaven. There’s only one way.
It is God’s way, and God’s way has said, “You must come through My Son, Jesus Christ.” There is no other way.
You know, when we have the Lord’s table, there are times when near the end we will turn and worship and praise toward the Father. And I’m always thrilled when we do that.
Because the table, of course, takes us back to the Lord in remembrance of Him. But you know, His heart is to bring us to the Father, to show us the Father. So when we see our Lord Jesus Christ, we should see the Father. We should recognize the Father and express it as such.
I’m not looking for methods, you know, where we say, “Okay, we always got to do this.” That’s not my heart. But when the Spirit brings us to that place where we recognize the Father, oh, how that must thrill the Son, because that is His responsibility.
You know, the Apostle Paul, he was very religious. He knew the Scriptures in and out. In fact, my understanding is that as a high Pharisee, he actually memorized the first five books of the Bible.
You know, when we’re asked to memorize something, we usually try to get the shortest thing we can find because we feel challenged. But they say that these men, like Paul, actually memorized the first five books of the Bible. That’s quite a lot. That’s quite a lot of knowledge of the Bible that they had at that time.
And yet he did not know God until he met Jesus on the Damascus road. That’s when he found the true living God: when he met Jesus on the Damascus road.
And I think it’s interesting. He says, “Paul, you’ve been throwing My saints in prison. You’ve been having them murdered.” He didn’t call him a murderer, but that’s what he was.
Paul was so zealous for God that he was actually against God, not knowing, because, brothers and sisters, he didn’t know God. He had the Scriptures, but he still didn’t know God until he met Jesus Christ on the Damascus road.
What was the difference? That’s when he came into a living knowledge of God—not just head knowledge. Everything he had up until that time was in his head, but now he met Jesus, and it was in his heart. He had a heart knowledge of God, a living, a life knowledge of God. And that is the great difference.
But this Paul—listen to what Paul said in his letter to the Colossians. He said, speaking of Christ:
He is the image of the invisible God.
For by Him were all things created.
He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
That’s what Paul discovered once he met Jesus. Christ is the exact image of God. There’s no shadow, as the Word says, between them.
So what is the key to knowing God? The key is knowing Jesus Christ. That is the key to knowing God, and God wants to reveal Himself.
Christ is the exact image of God, and it is His responsibility to reveal God, to be the express image of God so that man can know God.
Brothers and sisters, the Bible, from cover to cover, is about Jesus Christ. From cover to cover. The whole purpose of the Bible was to unveil who Jesus Christ was: a revelation of Jesus Christ, given by God through the Holy Spirit, that we might know God.
Now, my burden is that we might go through the Word of God, through the entire Word of God. Now, I won’t go through every book necessarily, but it is my heart that we go through the Bible discovering God, allowing God to reveal Himself to us. Kind of a history study.
The purpose of this Bible is Christ—to reveal Christ. You know, our brother Stephen said something, I don’t know, many years ago that has stuck with me: history, H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. I’m an engineer, and that’s difficult for me to do.
Spell it a little different: H-I-S, hyphen, S-T-O-R-Y. What does that say? His story.
That’s what history is all about, really: His story. It’s His story.
Now, why does God want us to know Him? Why does He want to reveal Christ to us? He wants us to be drawn to Christ. He wants us to come to Christ. He wants us to seek Christ, that we might be transformed and conformed to His image.
I’ll get into this in a future lesson, our future ministry, but man is the only creature created in the image and likeness of God. Only creature.
And brothers and sisters, we can be transformed into the fullness, that full thing that Christ is looking for in us, into the image of His Son. Not only that, His life put in us is a witness to Christ, and we actually become a part of Him.
Now, our brother is going to share about being in Christ to us. We’re actually put in Him, a part of Him. We never take on deity, but His nature and character—we actually become a part of it. As a matter of fact, it says that we are part of His body, of which He is the head.
Now, that is a bit of a mystery in itself, and only the Holy Spirit, I think, can give you a clear understanding of what that means. But He didn’t say that we are like a body, or that we’re going to function like a body. He says, “You are. I put you in the body of Christ.”
You are part of the body of Christ, that His life might be manifest in you, as well as through your brothers and sisters, that we might get a complete picture of who Christ is.
You know, I think in eternity, as far as God is concerned, there’s only going to be really one man. We will be there, all of us who believe and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We will, of course, be there. But God sees Christ—the Head and the body. That’s the way He sees it: one man.
Well, boy, we’re out of time almost.
This is His story. Let me emphasize this: this is His story.
Now, the Bible contains a lot of history about man, a lot of history about the nations, a lot of history about Israel. But this is not a history book. It’s not intended to be a history book. It’s a revelation of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this Book is to reveal Christ.
The Bible contains a lot of wisdom—Proverbs, Psalms, Job. A lot of people say, “Boy, I take this as my philosophy of life. The Sermon on the Mount is my philosophy of life.” Brothers and sisters, this is not a philosophy book. This is a history—His story—of Jesus Christ.
Yes, it contains a lot of wisdom, wisdom that we should utilize, wisdom that we should understand. But in itself, what is wisdom without Jesus Christ?
The Bible contains much about food, dietary law—very good ones, as a matter of fact. Very good dietary laws. Maybe if I followed more of them, I wouldn’t be quite as food conscious. Anyway, it’s not a book on diets.
It contains a lot about health and how to stay healthy, and it talks a lot about leprosy and how to cleanse leprosy and how to take care of those who have different sicknesses. Brothers and sisters, it’s not a medical book.
It even has a lot of rules—laws, I should say—concerning safety. There’s one in there that says, if you build a house and you go up on the roof, you need to put a parapet around it so no one will fall off. Brothers and sisters, it’s not an OSHA manual.
It is the history of Jesus Christ. There’s a lot in here on raising children and family life, but it is not a how-to book on raising children and family life.
Four easy steps to raising your children, or the secrets of a happy marriage. Look, there are a lot of things you can find in here concerning these things, and they’re good things, things to be considered. But I’m telling you, that is not the purpose of this Book.
The purpose of this Book is to reveal Jesus Christ, who God is. There’s a lot about business practices in here, but it’s not a road to successful business.
Let me say it in a different way: this Book is not man-centered. It is for man. It’s God-centered. It’s about Jesus Christ. It’s that man might find out who God is. That’s what it’s all about.
And this is my concern: it’s not a methods book. In Christianity today, I see a lot of methods. Brothers and sisters, this is not a method book. If you approach it that way, you will learn a lot of good things, a lot of helps you’ll get. I would encourage you to learn some of them even. But don’t approach this Book that way.
Approach it from, “I need to find out who God is. I need to know Jesus Christ. I need to know His character. I need to know His ways.”
You know, the Word says that Israel knew the acts of God, but Moses knew God’s ways. Brothers and sisters, the Lord is pleased to bless us. He’s pleased to perform mighty acts like He did for the nation of Israel. He’s pleased to do these things for us.
But brothers and sisters, what pleases Him far more is that we learn His ways. We learn who He is, that we can have a heart-to-heart conversation.
You know, when we have small children, they’re always coming up asking us for things, for this and for that. And we as parents are pleased to give it to them. But there comes a day, usually it’s after they’re teenagers and they’re off on their own, that they really begin to understand their parents.
They begin to understand what their parents were all about, and why their parents were so concerned about them, and why their parents had all these rules. They begin to see and understand it came out of a heart of love. It came out of a desire that they might be on the right path.
So God’s Word is Christ-centered. That is its purpose.
If you approach it and focus on any one of these other things that I’ve mentioned as what you’re really seeking for, you’re going to miss the center of what the Book is all about. You’re going to be focused on the blessings of the Lord, or maybe even on the attributes of the Lord.
“Love. Lord, I want Your love. Lord, I want Your patience.” What are we doing when we do that? We’re looking for a package called love. We’re looking for a package from God called patience.
You’ll never get the love of God apart from Jesus Christ. You’ll never gain patience apart from the Person of Jesus Christ. It’s Jesus Christ whom we’re going to have to know and have live in us, that we might have His love and His patience.
You know, I thought about it. I said, “Lord, is there a good example I can give that really brings this home?” I’ve got one, but I’m not sure if it’s going to bring it home, so we’ll see.
But, you know, in the Boy Scouts, we used a compass. And I used to love to do, I think they call it orienteering or something like that, where you use your compass and you go so many steps and you go through this marked-out thing in the woods. The person or team that came closest to the final destination would win. And that was a little game you’d play to get you used to using a map and a compass.
Well, a compass, of course, is really pointing to magnetic north, a deposit of iron up near the North Pole. It’s magnetic north. There is a true north. If you can go out at night and find the North Star, you’ll find true north.
The analogy is this: our Lord Jesus being true north; all of His blessings, all of these things that we want from Him, are like magnetic north.
Now, we can start out our lives, two people: one focused on true north, the other one focused on magnetic north. And we can leave Richmond, Virginia, and as we begin our trek, we will be side by side.
By the time you get to Washington, DC, you’ll be twenty miles apart. By the time you get to New York, you’ll be sixty miles apart. By the time you get to Toronto, you’ll be 120 miles apart. And when you finally arrive at the North Pole, you’ll be 590 miles apart.
One will have the blessings and all of the gifts and all the things of the Lord, but the other will have the Lord Himself. That’s the point.
It’s good to be blessed by God. You should thank Him every day for His blessings. My brothers and sisters, it is the God of the blessings that we should really be seeking and learning to know.
I will do this very quickly, I promise. The second essential key to knowing God is the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2:11, it says:
The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Let me be very simple. I think it’s something all of us really already know. Only the Spirit of God can tell you and show you Jesus Christ.
Without the Spirit, when you read this, it will be a history book. It will be a book of methods to you. Yes, if you want to know about love, you can look at all the Scriptures on love. If you want to know about all the different foods you eat, go back to Leviticus. If you want to know how to raise a family, you go through there and go through your concordance and look up all these Scriptures on family life and things. You can approach it that way.
But the Holy Spirit—now that Christ has returned and ascended the throne—it’s His responsibility to reveal to you personally who Jesus Christ is. And He will utilize this Book, if you will read it, to do just that.
He says, “This is all about Christ.” It might not seem that way when you look at it, but it’s all about Christ. And I hope that as we go through it, we will see exactly that.
In other words, it’s the Holy Spirit that changes it from a knowledge in the mind to a knowledge in the heart. Maybe that’s the simplest way to say it. It takes the Holy Spirit.
I’ve already mentioned Paul on the Damascus road. Oh, what a mind knowledge he had, but he had no knowledge in his heart. His eyes had not been opened. But on that Damascus road, the Lord shone in that bright light to him, actually blinded him for three days. It was so bright.
Oh, wouldn’t it be marvelous to have such a revelation of Christ that it would blind you? Actually, if He were to reveal Himself to you in such a way, He could. But He knows your heart can’t stand it. You’d probably have a heart attack.
I want to say one other thing. There may be some in here who do not know the Lord, don’t believe in God maybe, or do believe in God, but are not so sure. And they would say, “Well, look, I don’t have the Holy Spirit. How can You hold me accountable? Are You telling me that I still would go to hell? Are You telling me that God could not accept me?”
Let’s read. We need to read this. Romans. This is what the Word of God says, not what Jerry says. Romans 1—we read it in the beginning:
Because that which is known about God is evident within them;
for God made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes,
His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen,
being understood through what has been made,
so that they are without excuse.
What does that say? That says that in every man, in the nature of man, God has put something there that when he looks at the creation, when he looks at the stars, when he looks at the leaves—I wanted to bring a leaf in today and say, “Do you not see God has made this?”
They tell me that every snowflake is different. I find that hard to believe.
But what God is saying is, “You’re still accountable, because I put something in your nature.” Even though you haven’t been born again—in spiritual terms, you have not been born again—there’s something in your nature and every man that says there is a God.
And that I’m able to prick your conscience through the creation that you see around you. If, in looking at My creation, you do not recognize that there’s a God, you’re in deep trouble, because I know it’s there.
You are accountable. You should at least be able to say, “Yes, there is a God.”
But man has failed in another way. Many unbelievers are willing to admit there is a God, but they, instead of really searching for God, what they have done is they’ve made God in their own image.
They thought about God and they said, “Well, He must be this way or that way.” And they actually made little idols and said, “This is my god.” For us, that sounds very ridiculous, doesn’t it? That anything that a man could make could be a god. If I can make it, it’s no better than I am.
Some people believe that, amazingly enough. But today, brothers and sisters, I think we still tend to make God in our own image.
Some will say, “Well, God is love. I don’t believe in hell. God is love. It’s impossible for a loving God to even have such a thing as hell.”
Brothers and sisters, I’ll say this: actually, hell was made for the fallen angels. But all who choose to follow Satan—Lucifer, who has turned to Satan—will follow him wherever he goes. And he’s going to hell. So whoever your god is, that’s where you’re going. It’s that simple.
Another thing man has done is he said, “You know, I’m good enough. Yeah, I believe in God, and I’m good enough. I think I’m good enough. I’ve looked around the room and looked at all you sinners, and I’ve decided I’m just as good as you are. If God’s going to accept you, He’s got to accept me.”
They do not understand, nor have they seen, God’s righteousness that demands sinless perfection, of which none of us can meet.
They don’t understand that that’s why Christ came to the cross of Calvary: to pay for your sins and mine, to obliterate sin. He took your place and my place on Calvary. He took God’s punishment upon the sinner that we might have a relationship with Him, that we might know Him.
They don’t understand, and so they’ve made God in their own image, a god that was comfortable to them.
Brother and sister, I cannot tell you how saddened it saddened me to know that a bunch of people—a group of people, I should say—are having a seminar on the way to God and deciding, Christians supposedly deciding, that there are many ways.
God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Jesus says, “No man can come to the Father but by Me.” That’s in His Word, the inspired Word of God. We need to listen to God, not to man.
Oh, brothers and sisters, for most of us in this room, maybe for all of us, you have Christ. You have the life of Christ within you. You have the Holy Scriptures. We have one another. We have the Holy Spirit—all with the purpose of revealing Christ, revealing God.
So I asked the Lord. I said, “Lord, what is lacking? What is lacking in my life, in my knowledge of knowing You?” And the word was passion. “Where is the passion to know Me? Where is the heart to really know Me? Not just receive My blessings, but to really know Me. Where is that heart? Where is that heart of David among My people?”
You know, Paul in Philippians 3 said:
That I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
being made conformable unto His death.
That I might know Him. That was Paul’s passion.
Brothers and sisters, I think to know the Lord is marvelous. I mean, we need to know the Lord. That should be the passion in our heart. I confess a lack of passion before you all, my brothers and sisters. But that doesn’t mean that I am excused. It means that the passion should be there.
I had one encouraging thought. Kenny’s speaking on the Song of Songs today. It’s about the maiden who’s in love with her Lord. And you know what her prayer was:
Draw me, Lord, and I will run after Thee.
I think that’s what our prayer needs to be in these days: “Draw me, Lord, and I will run after Thee.”
Let us search the Scriptures. Let us find Christ. Let us find God. My burden is that God will create a passion in all of us, a passion for the true knowledge of God, a hunger and a thirst to know Him more and more.
Lord, we come to Thee today. Lord, we would say, all of us, draw us, Lord, that we might run after Thee.
Lord Jesus, how You have desired to reveal Yourself. And Lord, we’ve been so lax in pursuing Thee. Lord, forgive us. But Lord, don’t let us go.
Lord, create that fire in our bones. Create that passion in our heart for Thee and Thee alone, Lord. Lord, may we not be sidetracked by anything, even Your blessings. May we just have a passion to know Thee. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.