I cannot be here with you at the church building and also sitting at home in my house at the same time. I am limited in time and space. I can only be in one small space at one time. If I want to trade spaces, that is, be someplace other than where I am at this moment, time must pass as I move from one space to the other. God has no such limitation.

A little boy was walking home from Sunday school one day, dawdling along the way as little boys sometimes do. He scuffed his shoe into the grass and found a caterpillar. He picked a Dandelion head and blew the seeds off the stem. He spotted a bird’s nest overhead and thought about climbing the tree it was in. A neighbor who knew the boy and often kept a protective eye on the lad’s solo trips around the neighborhood saw him walking by his house, waved, and called out to him by name, asking him how he was doing and what he was up to today. The boy told the neighbor he’d been to Sunday school and had been learning about God. "Hey, that’s great!" the man said. "Say, if can you tell me where God is I’ll give you a dollar." The boy, who had apparently been paying close attention to his Sunday school teacher, thought for only a few seconds before saying, "I’ll give you five dollars if you can tell me where He ain’t."

The boy had it exactly right. God is everywhere. He is omnipresent as theologians like to say.

Last Sunday I spoke to you about the nature of God. My sermon was called Twelve Timely Truths about God’s Nature. I admitted to you that covering only twelve characteristics about One so vast and majestic as the God described by the Bible is a very inadequate coverage, but we have to start somewhere. We had time only for the first six truths, so this morning I’d like to give you the other six in this non-exhaustive treatment of the subject.

The points about God’s nature that we made last time were these:

1. He exists.
2. He is eternal.
3. He is the Creator.
4. He is unique.
5. He is personal.
6. He does not think like we do.

If you missed last week’s message and would like to catch up, we have tapes and (now because our deceased photocopier has been replaced) printed copies available.

A seventh timely truth about God’s nature is this:

The theological word often used is "omnipotent."

The creation of the universe certainly demonstrates God’s unlimited power. As we continue our modest explorations of space with our most sophisticated telescopes from our tiny outpost called earth, we have yet to discover the end of the cosmos. The deeper we look into space the more we learn of its vastness. Kick that up a notch and try to imagine the magnitude of a being capable of bringing such immensity into existence and you begin to realize why the Creator would have to be all powerful.

Actually, man really has no way to experientially quantify God’s awesome power. We saw a couple of contemporary examples of great power in the category five hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast this year. The widespread devastation of thousands of square miles of populated country was enough to take our proverbial breath away. But this is nothing like the awesome power of God. Choose whatever analogy you like - nuclear explosions, massive and leveling earthquakes, huge forest and range fires, floods and hurricanes – all these exhibit great power from man’s limited perspective, but they fade to utter insignificance when placed alongside the power of Almighty God. He created the earth and the universe. He spoke and light flashed into existence from one end of space to the other. He created the earth and everything in it and on it – the atmosphere, the oceans and the dry land, the vegetation. He created the birds and the land animals. He installed the special lighting fixtures in the sky of our own planet – our sun and moon. He created man. Later, because the place became permeated with sin, His awesome power destroyed the living things of this world and began man’s population again.

Such astounding power to create and destroy goes far beyond anything we could ever cause or prevent. Our God is all-powerful.

"I am God Almighty," God said to Abraham in Genesis 17:1. "Walk before Me, and be blameless."

God is referred to as "El-Shaddai" (Hebrew for "God Almighty") 48 times in the Old Testament and there is ample reason to acknowledge the truth of that designation. He is an awesome being of great power.

8. He is All-knowing.

Again the theological word for this is "omniscient." There is nothing He does not know.

A certain man was looking at a photograph of the Statue of Liberty that had been taken from a helicopter. He marveled at the intricate detail that had been sculpted into the head of the statue – the hair, the crown, and other fine points that surely the artist who started his work in 1875 must have thought would never be seen since airplanes and helicopters didn’t yet exist. Yet Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the statue’s sculptor, took the same pains in his craftsmanship on the top of Lady Liberty’s head as he did on the feet and everywhere else he knew the statue would be seen. Little did he know that pictures of the top of his work would someday be available to the world via web cams on the Internet where anyone could see them! I imagine that if Bartholdi were alive today he would breathe a big sigh of relief as he remembered his painstaking efforts on those parts of the statue that were hidden from human view in his day.

Sometimes in our anemic assessment of God (and I refer to mankind in general here) we live as though He were not all knowing – as though, like the statue, there are parts of our lives that will never be seen by anyone. We skimp, we ignore, we cut corners and we cover up, never grasping that such subterfuge is done in vain. God knows it all.

He not only knew what the head of Lady Liberty was like before someone flew over it with a helicopter and camera - He knew the inside and outside of the statue, including its molecular structure! In fact, He knew that there would be such a statue erected in New York Harbor long before there was a United States of America to whom it would be gifted by a yet nonexistent nation called France! He knew this just as He knows the smallest details of every other part of His creation – past, present, and future. He knows when some distant star (from our perspective) goes super nova in some remote and barely observable part of the universe. He knows if and when the microscopic organisms we are so concerned about today in our fears of a "bird flu" pandemic will mutate so as to be passed from human to human. He knows what you ate for lunch yesterday, last week, and on any day last year. He knows what you will eat for lunch today and tomorrow and five years from now. While it is difficult for us to imagine such knowledge, these are some of the kinds of things covered by the word omniscient.

We are limited in what we know by what we can see and observe in the present and, perhaps in some examples of theoretical science, what we can predict in a very limited and uncertain way.

But God knows it all.

Elihu in Job 37:15-16 remarked:

Hebrews 4:13 says, "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

Oh, and (to poke a little fun) I have some bad news for the International Star Registry – that organization that will name a star after you or someone you love for only $54 plus shipping and handling…. ($97 for the Deluxe kit that comes complete with a double matted certificate in a gold metallic frame.)

Someone was present to count and name the stars long before some sharp entrepreneur came up with such a unique way to make money.

"He counts the number of the stars," wrote the Psalmist in Psalm 147:4. "He gives names to all of them."

God knows our hearts according to 1 John 3:19-20:

In speaking of "our hearts" here, John isn’t talking about the muscle pump in our chests. He’s referring metaphorically to the center of our thoughts and emotions. God knows everything about us – our dreams, our aspirations – even our deepest secrets.

Jesus said of His Father in Matthew 10:29-30:

How it is that God can know all of the details of the universe and still be concerned with the insignificant state of my receding hairline is more than I can understand. But then again, I cannot understand a being who can know everything. I stand in awe of the Bible’s description of our Creator!

We’re back now to the little boy walking home from Sunday school. Remember how he responded after his neighbor told him he’d give him a dollar if he could tell him where God was? He said, "I’ll give you five dollars if you tell me where God ain’t." There is no place where God "ain’t."

The theological word for this characteristic of God’s nature is "omnipresent." God is everywhere present in time and space.

The Psalmist expressed it this way in Psalm 139:7-12:

I cannot be here with you at the church building and also sitting at home in my house at the same time. I am limited in time and space. I can only be in one small space at one time. If I want to trade spaces, that is, be someplace other than where I am at this moment, time must pass as I move from one space to the other. God has no such limitation. He can be two places at the same time. In fact, He is everywhere at the same time. Thus time is not necessary to His presence. He lives in a realm that is apart from time and apart from the limitations of space. Therefore, He is not a physical being like you and I. "God is spirit" Jesus teachers us in John 4:24.

It goes beyond the limits of this sermon to spend much time on this but I believe this is why God could know in times past what we would be doing in our present. It is why He can predict with 100 % accuracy what will happen in our future. He is not limited in time or space. No matter where we might go, He is already there. This is what was behind Jesus’ strange sounding statement to the Jewish leaders who challenged His teaching on immortality in John 8:57-58:

The reason for the poor sounding English here is that what Jesus said is difficult to translate. Before Abraham was born, Jesus existed. We are so limited in time that we must speak of past, present, and future. Our present is only a fleeting moment which passes by rapidly. God is in the present all the time! Past, present, and future are the same to Him. Perhaps you remember God’s response to Moses when the great leader asked Him what he should call Him. He said in Exodus 3:14, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’"

Is anyone besides me having trouble getting this to compute? If you are it is probably because of our limitations in time and space. God has no such limits. He is everywhere present and therefore, not limited in time or space.

Let’s move on to something a little easier to grasp…

This attribute of God is referred to many times in the Bible.

1 John 4:8 says, "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

Verse 16 of the same chapter says, "And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."

God doesn’t merely love those who love Him. John 3:16 tells us, "For God so loved the world…."

His love for all the people in this world is seen in the many blessings He gives, even to those who reject Him. In Matthew 5:44-45 Jesus said, "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

This past week a controversy erupted regarding TV preacher and personality, Pat Robertson and something he said in the wake of the removal of school board members in Dover, Pennsylvania who supported the teaching of intelligent design in the school system’s science curriculum. On his 700 Club TV program he said, "I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there."

While I agree with Robertson’s contention that special creation ought to be considered in schools right alongside the non-provable dogma that everything around us happened by chance, I wish that he would be a little more careful about his statements of what God may or may not do about it. Yes, God could certainly act to punish men on earth at the present time for the actions they take against Him. The Bible gives us examples where He has done such. But since many times God also "causes His son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous," and no one today has a special revelation from God to enable him to say for sure when God does and does not take such action, statements like this from people like Pat Robertson are presumptuous at the very least. They cause controversy and misunderstanding that is needless and does not help the cause of Christ. God does not always act in the present to bring man’s sins into judgment.

In fact, He often temporarily forestalls judgment upon the multiplied wrongs and injustices of the inhabitants of this world because of His deep love for mankind. Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow about His promise [His promise to judge the world – DR] as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."

He is a God of love. We must understand this. But don’t get the mistaken idea that God is like some overindulgent grandfather who takes no note of wrongdoing among those made in His image. We must also understand that:

While God loves mankind, He hates sin and those things that destroy man and man’s relationship to Him.

Romans 1:18 says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…."

While God may put up with sin sometimes by not calling it into account at the moment of its perpetration, judgment forestalled is not judgment forgotten. Those who suppress the truth of God will most certainly be judged. We just don’t know God’s timing in the matter.

After warning his readers with some examples of behaviors that invoke God’s anger, Paul said in Ephesians 5:6: "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience."

It is not the fact of God’s judgment that I call into question by referring to statements like those made by Pat Robertson. It is the presumption that anyone knows God’s timing – that is, when He will act and when He will wait and act later. Forbearance is not forgiveness. Jesus warned in Matthew 12:36, "And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment." Even our words are remembered in judgment.

Paul warned religious hypocrites in Romans 2:5-6, "But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God…."

While God’s wrath may not be seen now, it is "stored up" for later.

"Love and wrath in the same God? How can this be? Are you sure, Dave, that you are accurately portraying the nature of God by teaching both concepts in the same sermon?"

Yes, I am sure.

Paul brought God’s love and His wrath together in the same sentence in Romans 11:22, "Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off."

Whether you or I receive God’s kindness or His severity depends largely upon what we do with His word and His Son.

But perhaps the biggest reason many today misunderstand God is that they don’t understand this final point I want to make about God’s nature:

The word "holy" means "set apart from sin." Under the Old Covenant system, the tools and implements used in the animal sacrifices, along with the priests who used them, needed to be purified ceremonially. Then they were set aside for this special use in the Tabernacle or Temple. This setting apart was to keep them from being polluted by common use. They were said to be holy.

In a similar way God is "set apart" from sin. Since He is completely righteous, there is no room in His nature for what is wrong. Titus 1:1-2 tells us, for instance, that God "cannot lie." Because of His holy nature, there is no falsehood in Him.

Proverbs 15:9 tells us, "The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord…."

In Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne recorded in Isaiah 6:3, angelic beings were calling out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts."

Psalm 99:5 says, "Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool; Holy is He."

As a holy being, God has no fellowship with those who live in sin. Isaiah said in Isaiah 59:1-2 to ancient Israel who had allowed far too much sin to come into their lives, "Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save; neither is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear."

What is so wrong with sin? Sin destroys our relationships with God and with others. I like to teach this to new Christians from the very beginning of their walks with God. God isn’t arbitrary in what He calls sin. Pick any list of sins that you wish from the Bible. Go down the list with a dictionary and define each one named. Then ask yourself which of the things forbidden by God is actually good for you in your relationship with God and others. You won’t find any.

The limits God places on us are for our own good.

So God is holy. He is perfect, free from and separated from all sin. It is fully outside His nature to do evil.

This creates a problem for us because we are not always holy. In fact, sin wrecks our own holiness so much that we can never be holy on our own. We need help outside ourselves.

This is the reason God sent Jesus to die on our behalf. The power of His shed blood paid the price for sin so that sin can be wiped off of our record. Those who have accepted His offer of full forgiveness through Christ can be holy even when their actions have been less than holy.

If you have not made your peace with the God whose nature we’ve been discussing, I hope that you will do so very soon. We would like to help you along your way in that matter if you will let us. Because most folks, when they begin to seek God, don’t know where to start, it is very helpful to have someone explain it to you and point you to the answers.

We believe the place to start is in the pages of this book, the Bible. It is God’s word for us today. In it are all of the things we need to do to be right with God and to live with Him forever.

Whether it would be with a Bible study in your home or in some public or other private place, let us help you find your way. You won’t be sorry you asked.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

[Archive]    [Home]   [Comments]   [Search]