The Attributes of God part 2

Joey Midgett

The Attributes of God • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

Exodus 15:11

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The unfathomable attributes of God

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The Attributes of God part 2

Bible Text: Exodus 15:11

11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?

Who is like thee, glorious in holiness,

Fearful in praises, doing wonders?

Introduction:

Last month we started a series on the attributes of God. Those characteristics that make up who God is and what He is like. And last month we covered the first two.

I) The Aseity of God, He is infinite, He has His being in and of Himself.

and

II) The Self-Sufficiency of God - He has all He needs within Himself.

Today, we would like to look at a few more.

The third one we are going to look at is the immutability of God.

III. God is Immutable - (Meaning) He Never changes

Malachi 3:6 “For I am the Lord, I change not; Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”

God never changes. Who He is never changes. His attributes never change. His character never changes. His mind is never changed. His plans do not change and His promises do not change.

Friend, what a comforting thing for us to know about God.

A. God is not a God that gets older, slower, worn down.

Psalm 102:25-27

“Of old You founded the earth,

And the heavens are the work of Your hands.

“Even they will perish, but You endure;

And all of them will wear out like a garment;

Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.

“But You are the same,

And Your years will not come to an end.”

Aren’t you glad for the immutability of God in His being?

God holds all of creation together. He created it and He sustains it. If God were to be ever changing, ever getting older, no matter how slow the process, then one day, you and I, His creation would no longer be able to exist.

But God does not change in that regard.

B. And thank God, He also does not change His mind.

If God could change or if God could change His mind on a matter, we would be in utter misery all our lives. Wondering if God is going to hold true to His promises, wondering if God is going to suddenly get angry with us and cast us out and take away our eternal life.

It was not because Israel was so righteous that God has not cast them out, but it is solely because He has said, because He has proclaimed them as His possession forever.

And He is not done with Israel, and He is not done with you.

God hasn’t changed His mind about you.

James 1:17 “Every 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.”

Friend, God is never going to get any new information about you that He did not already know from eternity past. If God is going to save you today, knowing not only your past, but He knows your future as well. If God is going to save you today, He is not suddenly going to get some new information on you and unsave you tomorrow.

Which is exactly why Paul could write in Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We have joy unspeakable as believers in Christ because our God is an unchanging God.

Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie; Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

God is going to perform that which He has proclaimed.

Listen to,

2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.”

Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

(Could comment on the verses that seem to say God changed His mind.)

IV. God is Omnipresent - He is Always Everywhere

Jeremiah 23:24 “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.”

If there is no where that we can hide from God, then it must be by necessity that God is everywhere. He fills every place in creation.

Psalm 139:7-10 “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me.”

He is in all places and at all times.

Now He is not in a place in the same way that we are in a place. We are physical beings and so we have a physical presence in any place that we are. We take up space. because we are made of matter.

God is not physical, He is not made up of matter, but He is Spirit.

Now the Hebrew and Greek words for this are Ruach and Pneuma, and they translate as spirit, but they also translate as wind or breath as well.

And though you can’t see wind or breath molecules with the naked eye, they are however physical substances. They are gases and therefore they are made up of matter as gases are a state of matter.

But God as Spirit is not at all like that, though we have nothing in our human language that can equate to that. So it is one of those things that is explained to us in the best our languages can do. Much like when the Bible talks about the arm of God or the hand of God.

Proverbs 15:3 “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Beholding the evil and the good.”

There are not millions and billions of eyes everywhere watching, but the concept is explained to us in a way we can understand.

Another verse that uses the same type of language would be Isaiah 66:1 or Acts 7:49 “Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?”

It is not that the head of God is in heaven and that He is so big that His legs and feet span to the earth, but this is a way of explaining to us that the fulness of His being is everywhere. All His attributes, His love, His wrath, His mercy, His justice, His grace, His knowledge and so on are fully present everywhere in creation and beyond.

Now this does not mean that we always feel His presence everywhere or all the time, He chooses when and where to manifest Himself to us and how. But nonetheless He is there.

And all of the trinity share in all these attributes we are talking about.

Now we could go further and talk about how that Christ in His incarnation set aside for a time some of these attributes to be able to come in the flesh, but even now Christ is all and in all and He too is everywhere and at all times.

Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

John 14:23 “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

That’s the fulness of the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that takes up their abode in us.

He is everywhere, and at all times.

Matthew 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

He’s in that prayer closet, He is in this sanctuary, He’s in that hospital room, He’s in your bedroom, your living room, your workplace, anywhere and everywhere.

Job 34:21 “For his eyes are upon the ways of man, And he seeth all his goings.”

V. God is Omniscient - He is All-knowing

God knows Himself perfectly, and being the author of all things, He knows all of creation perfectly. He not only knows what has happened in the past and what is happening in the present, but He knows all of the future as well.

That seems a pretty big statement when looked at at first glance. But we need to remember that God being the author of all things, also created time and space and matter. Therefore He is outside of those things and not limited by those things. All of time is laid out before Him like an open book.

God, speaking to Israel through the prophet Isaiah as they worshipped false gods of stone and wood and metal. Things that could not hear or speak or do anything for them. God says,

Isaiah 46:5 “To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, And compare me, that we may be like?”…

Isaiah 46:9-10 “Remember the former things of old: For I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times the things that are not yet done, Saying, My counsel shall stand, And I will do all my pleasure:”

Friend, He not only knows the end from the beginning, but He declares it, He has authority over it. It is His counsel that will stand. That Hebrew word for counsel means plan, purpose. And I will do all My pleasure, says the Lord.

Psalm 147:4 “He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.”

We can’t even begin to count the stars that are in our own view, let alone the whole universe, and yet He has named each and every one of them.

Psalm 147:5 “Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite.”

Without number, without limits, His knowledge is as infinite as He is.

Friend, we can never attain to that. And I’m not talking about we can not attain that kind of knowledge, I mean we can’t even attain to the fact of His infinite knowledge.

Romans 11:33 “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”

And His knowledge is not simply a knowledge of all things and what to do in any given circumstance. Like a God reacting to situations at hand, as they come up. No! He knows it all altogether.

Psalm 139:4 “For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.”

The word is not even on the tongue and He knows it.

1 Kings 8:39 “Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)”

Friend, how can you hide from a God like that?

Who not only knows you through and through, better than you know yourself, … the very hairs of your head are all numbered, but He knows the future you as well. Knows every action you will take, every word you will speak, and even every thought that you will ever think.

1 Chronicles 28:9 “… for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts:” …

Friend, we are laid bare and open before the omniscient God. We need to serve Him with a whole heart, we need to worship Him for who He is.

Many have a form of religion, the concept of God that they like and they have made up for themselves. No different from the Israelites of old that began worshipping these false gods of their own making, many today have their wooden Jesus’ that they pull out of their pocket when they need him. Someone to cry out to when calamity hits, when they need something, or just to make them feel good, and then they put the golden calf back in the pocket and rise up to play as the Bible says.

But friend, the true Jesus, the true God is not an object to pull out when you want and put away when you want. But He beholds it all, the evil and the good.

Hebrews 4:13 “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

That verse says that not only does God know all things about all His creation, the thoughts and intents of men’s hearts, but it says that we will have to give an account before Him one day, with whom we have to do. With whom we must give an account.

And there is no faking it there. The omniscient God who knows it all, sees it all, proclaims it all.

And that should be a humbling thought, that God knows it all, that He sees it all. He knows my inner thoughts. It should be a fearful thing.

But even when are thoughts and actions condemn us, we can take solace in Him. Take solace in His mercy and His grace that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 John 3:20 “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.”

See not only does He know all things about you, good and bad, but He also knows whether you have put your faith and your trust in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

See God knows we are going to mess things up sometimes, most of the time. But thank God John, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God wrote this in 1 John 2:1-2

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

God has made a way of escape for you and I. Which is part of His omniscience as well. God foreknew the fall, God foreknew your sin, and it wasn’t that man sinned and God had to come up with a contingency plan, but it was all part of God’s plan before the foundation of the world.

Which even that boggles the mind. Theologians have struggled with the deep thought of that for years, and will continue to struggle with that until we no longer know in part, but when we shall know even as we are known.

The omniscience of God.

And sixth, and last of all for today.

VI. God is Omnipotent - He is All-powerful

Psalm 33:6 “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.”

All power belongs to Him, and He can do all things, and He does them at His great pleasure.

Luke 1:37 “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

Job 42:1-2 “Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, And that no thought can be withholden from thee.”

Jeremiah 32:27 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”

Nothing is impossible with God.

So some would put the question:

Can God make a rock so big even He can not pick it up?

Can God create a God like Himself?

Obviously, the answer to these questions is no. But it is only no, because those are irrational questions.

God is not irrational, and therefore can not go against His nature, He can not be or do anything irrational.

Some might be tempted to say, well what about Him causing a great fish to swallow Jonah, and keeping Jonah alive inside that fish for three days?

Or what about Jesus walking on water? What about Him speaking to the wind and the seas and them obeying Him? What about God causing the sun to stand still in the sky and basically stopping time from moving on for a period of time?

Aren’t all these miracles irrational as well?

And the answer would be no, they are not irrational at all. They are not illogical at all. They are unnatural, they go against the normal behavior of nature, which is why they are called miracles and not normalicals. But they are not irrational. God is free to do what He wills with whatever He has created and the laws that He created to govern them by. But He cannot do that which is irrational or illogical, because they go against who He is.

But He is all-powerful!

Isaiah 40:28 “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, That the everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.”

Revelation 19:6 “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”

He does as He wills because He has the power to bring it about. And there is nothing that anybody can do to thwart what God wills to be.

Isaiah 43:13 “Yea, before the day was I am he; And there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall (undo) it?”

Isaiah 14:27 “For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”

And at the same time we read a passage like Hebrews 6:18 “That by two immutable things (there’s that word again immutable, unchangeable) , in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:”

Again, God can do all things, but He will never do that which is against His own nature.

Which is a comfort for the believer, because as God has the power to save and the power to damn, He will not go against what He has promised to those that trust in His Son, and they are saved to the uttermost by the unchanging all-powerful God.

Conclusion:

I’d like to close with a passage of scripture and a brief comment on it.

Hebrews 1:1-3

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”

This passage of scripture declares that it was by the Son that God created all things. He is the Word. He is that Word when God spoke in Genesis chapter 1 and created all things, He is that Word in John chapter 1 that was in the beginning with God, that same Word that was God, that same Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. And not only did He create all things, but He upholds them still, and I like this phrase, it does not say by the power of His word, but it says by the Word of His power. It has that same Word in mind here, it is the Son, it is the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is all-powerful, He is the Lord Almighty.

He said in Revelation 1:8 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”

And just for those that would say that is talking about the Father, a couple verses down Revelation 1:11 “Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: ...” The same God. A couple verses further down in 2:8 He says, These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;”

A careful reading of those chapters shows there is no doubt this is talking about the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the Almighty.

Friend, if you need to, would you come to Him today, to the One that is unchanging in His ways, that is everywhere all the time, that is all-knowing and that is all-powerful, that is able to save to the uttermost? If you need to, you come!