Sometimes I must compartmentalize
God. Now I don't do that to degrade
him, I do that so I can take small bites. The subject of God is so huge
and he declares himself that. Everything about him is the absolute
superlative. He has the most grace, the most
mercy, and everything about God is superlative. It is the most. And that passage of scripture
over in the book of Revelation chapter 5 and verse 6 where it
spoke of our Lamb, the Lamb of God, and those characteristics
about him, those things that we recognize about the lamb.
And John was given that view of the lamb. And if we draw that
lamb, and we've seen charts of it, and at the time we probably
said, you know, this doesn't look as good as it should. If
we drew that lamb with seven horns, and seven eyes, and seven
spirits, we'd have a monstrosity. We'd have something that we wouldn't
want to talk to our kids about. But if we just leave it like
it is in the scripture and find out, this is figurative language. And we've gone over this, but
I just want to go over it again. And that is the omnipotence,
the omniscience, and the omnipresence of God. I can't help, but as we go through
in our Bible readings, I'm making notes. I found verses, as Mike
was mentioning, I found verses I didn't know was in the Bible.
Lots of them. There's chapters I didn't know
was in there. When I started the book of Leviticus, I could
not believe that that whole chapter was new to me with regard to
if you did something and didn't even know you did it, you still
got to go down and take care of it with a sacrifice. I said,
when was this put in here? It's there, and it's been there,
and we just find out as we read the book of Leviticus under the
old economy. Anybody that was following the
old economy for their hope, they had to come to the conclusion,
this is impossible. No wonder they went to become
vagrants. We'll never get this done. And that's what the Lord
intended. And he was, the law was their
schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. And they didn't look
at it that way. They thought they could keep
it. Well, tonight I'd like to spend a little time looking at
several verses of scripture that deal with these great subjects
about our Lord, take them in bite-sized bits, and read what
the scriptures have to say, what God had to say about himself.
Now, that's what it is. God speaking about himself. He is revealing to us through
the word what he is, who he is, and the great power that he has
as we look at his omnipotence, and the great knowledge that
he has as we look at his omniscience, and what great ability he has
when we look at his great omnipresence, where two or three are gathered.
And I can't help but think that there are many of those, two
or three gathered together around the world. There's people all
over this world that are gathered together in his name and at the
same time he's in the midst of them. Now that's a great God
that will minister his word to so many twos or threes. Now,
if there happens to be 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 or 100 or 300,
the Lord is still ministering to his people in those flocks
all at the same time with the same purpose in mind, and that
is the revelation of Jesus Christ. He is our all and in all. He fills all, and He is in all. Now, turn with me, if you would,
to a word given to Abraham. Now, we looked over here with
regard to that one time, but this is another verse in the
book of Exodus chapter 17. Exodus chapter 17, as we think
of God's omnipotence, great comfort to God's people, great comfort
to God's people is to know that God is great. That's a comfort
to God's people. Someone said, and I wish I had
written down who said this, I read it somewhere, when God's people
are beset by temptations or persecutions, a revelation of God's character
and glory is the best remedy. When we're up against it, the
best remedy that we can have is to see God as he is. Great, almighty, all-powerful
God. And this is not happening by
mistake. This is happening on purpose.
Now, turn with me to Genesis 17, verse one. It says there,
Genesis, excuse me, Genesis chapter 17. If I said Exodus, please
forgive me. Genesis chapter 17, verse one, the word that God
gave to Abraham when He is 99 years old. God appeared to him. And when Abram was 99 years old,
I was down in North Carolina recently and brought a message
down there. I had the Bible class and then
jump right into it again and have the next service. Mike knows
what that is from last Sunday, but There was a gentleman come
up to me. He was 91 that day. And when
he came up to me, he struck me right there. I mean, I towered
over him. A gentleman came up, gave me
a great big hug, and thanked me for the message. And he says,
I became a Southern Baptist at 12 years of age. And I said,
that's a long time ago. And it wasn't until about 10
years ago I heard the gospel and God saved me. And he says,
I love the message of God's grace. Now, Abraham is 99 years old. And the God of heaven appears
to him, it tells us there. And it said, he appeared to Abraham
and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. Capital A-L-M-I. Almighty God. Now if that won't
float your boat, to have God appear and reveal himself as
the almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect, be thou
upright. Now with God as almighty, there's
no way in this world that God's people can't walk but that way.
He's almighty and he's providing all the almightiness and all
of the grace. He is going to keep his people
walking up rightly. Now we stumble and fall. Have
you ever seen a puppet walking along stumbling but the person
is still hanging on to them? I mean, God has taken control
of his people. And though our feet might fall
out from under us, we'll not be cast down. Turn with me, if
you would, over to the book of Isaiah, chapter 43, as we think
about this omnipotence of God. And for our benefit, the omnipotence
of God means that he will secure victory over every one of our
enemies. that there will not be an enemy
that will sneak in or sneak around or sneak under or sneak over
and take an assault upon us. It is a promise because of his
almightiness that he will secure victory over every one of our
enemies and over every enemy of the church and over every
enemy of God. He is almighty. There is nothing
greater than He is. In fact, everything besides God
is a created person, being, or thing. There is nothing that
was not created by God, except God. Beside Him, there is none
else. Now, here in the book of Isaiah,
chapter 43, We read that there is none that can deliver out
of his hand. That just almost fits in with
John. John 10 there, Isaiah 43 and verse 13. Isaiah was used
as a secretary to write this message to Israel and to us as
Israel, the church, about his almightiness, and part of his
almightiness is this. Isaiah 43, verse 13, says, 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 let
it? There's none that can deliver
out. Now that's positive and that's negative. To Egypt, not
one of Egypt will be delivered out of my hand. And Moses sang
a song, he delivered all of them to the depths. Now to Israel,
it was a blessing because none took Israel out of God's hand.
Egypt couldn't do it. All the sorcerers of Egypt couldn't
do it. They were all contained in the
hand of God. And the Lord Jesus shares that
with us when he said, none can take them out of my father's
hand and none can take them out of my hand. And he's almighty. There's no enemy that is able
to take us out of the hand of God. Well, I've heard people
say, well, you can do it. No, you can't. Not if you're
Christ. You can't do it. Now, left to ourself. We'd fall, we'd fail, we'd go
bankrupt, but he has so much on the line. He has so much at
stake. His righteousness is at stake. And he will deliver all his people. His omnipotence secures the victory. His greatness, he is the almighty
God. None can deliver out of his hand.
Turn with me next book to the book of Jeremiah 32. And the
Bible is filled with this. The Bible is filled with the
message of God's greatness. When it comes to salvation, it's
filled with His greatness. When it comes to redemption,
it's filled with His greatness. When it comes to creation, my
goodness, it's filled with His greatness. When it comes to the
storms, it's filled with His greatness. Everything redounds
to the greatness of the almightiness of God, and the church is the
heart and core of God's greatness demonstrated on this earth. He
lifts us from places we could not lift ourselves. We are all
Lazaruses in various places in this world, and it is the almightiness
of God that steps up, and I appreciate what I heard this morning. He
comes to the grave. He comes to the tomb. He's marching
to the tomb. He's going to come with power
and great glory to the tomb where we are, to the pit where we are,
in death and trespasses and sin, and he will call us with his
almightiness and draw us out, bring us out, bring us out of
that pit, out of that tomb of our own religious stature. We're
propped up. We're mannequins propped up trying
to have the appearance of life. And God comes along and gives
life. And it's not a prop. It is reality. It is the Lord
Jesus. Now notice here in the book of
Jeremiah 32. Jeremiah 32 verse 17, Jeremiah
again, secretary of God. He's not secretary of state,
he's secretary of God. He's God's secretary, a prophet
used by the Lord. And here in the book of Jeremiah
chapter 32 and verse 17, ah Lord God. Behold, thou hast made the heaven
and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there
is nothing too hard for thee. Now in a time of great peril
that Jeremiah was going through, what greater comfort could God
give to him than to say, I am almighty. I am God and beside
me there is none else. Turn with me. We read this the
other night. I want to read it again. Revelation chapter 11
verse 17. It's something to come to the
end of those seven great seals that the Lord opens and allows
John to see the vision of them and write them in a book. And
the world is scared to death about the seven seals and God's
people conclude them all this way. Notice here in Revelation
chapter 11 and verse 17, the world, religious world is just
scared to death when God opens those seals and there's a pale
horse. Oh my goodness, and then there's
a black horse, and the horses go through, they're just fear
and trembling. Now notice what the church had
to say after the seven seals were open. Verse 17 of the 11th
chapter, they're saying, well, let's just back up to verse 16,
and it says there, and the four and 20 elders, what's said before
God, on their seats, fell upon their faces and worshipped God,
saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art,
and wast, and art come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great
power, and hast reigned. Now that's what the church said
after the opening of the seven seals. Didn't make them nervous.
Didn't bother them. They just looked at it as, this
is God's demonstration through Christ Jesus of the greatest
victory we could ever enjoy, and that's the victory over sin,
death, hell, and the grave, and every enemy of the church. And
they just said, hallelujah. Now, let's read on there. and
the nations were angry and thy wrath is come in the time of
the dead and they shall be should be judged and that thou shouldest
give reward unto thy servants the prophets and to the saints
and them that fear thy name small and great And shouldest destroy
them, which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened
in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of the
testament, and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings,
and an earthquake, and great hail. My goodness, what is going
on but God's greatness? He shook Sinai. Remember reading
that? He shook Sinai. Lightning's going
on. He shook Sinai. And here he is,
thy great power. And then one other verse here
in the book of Revelation chapter 19 and verse six, Revelation
chapter 19 and verse six, I heard as it were a voice of a great
multitude. Revelation chapter 19 and there
in verse six, I heard, as it were, a voice of a great multitude,
and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings."
What did we just read about in chapter 11? Thunderings, lightnings,
and hail. There's the voice. And it says
there, Revelation chapter 19, verse 6, and they're saying this. What are they saying? Hallelujah,
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Now lightning and thunders get
people's attention. Have you ever been under a thunderclap?
There is no room for any other sound. Talk about white noise. I don't
know what you call that. That's just noise. It shakes
everything. You can just feel that thunderclap. You can feel the wave of sound
strike you when you're right under it. And here we are. And
what does it say, this thunderclap? It's just getting people's attention.
It's cutting out all of the noises and all of the thoughts that
we have. And he just says, Lord God omnipotent reigneth. And you know what the church
says? We knew it. And we love it. took the reigning
power of God to break us and to bring us to Christ. And it's
going to keep it on going. And he's going to present a spotless
because of his great omnipotent power. Power over all sin, power
over death, power over hell, power over that other created
being everybody's afraid of, Satan. He is on a chain. In fact, he's chained. You know
what's chained, Satan? We read about it here, we're
gonna get to that point someday. You know what's chained him?
The gospel. The gospel's chained him. We
read the examples found in scripture. Christ came along and unchained
his people from Satan. The gospel has chained Satan,
shut him up, hedged him up, put him in his box. All right. His omnipotence, the omnipotence
of God. Now I'd like to look at just
a few verses with regard to his omniscience. Those seven eyes. He knows for whom he died. I love it. His omniscience tells
me this. He knows who he died for. He's
not worried about that, find them all. He knows them. Now
there's a verse over in 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 16. Would you
go over there with me? 1 Samuel. This is, well, this is the beginning
of our presidency. Right here. We want to be like
all the other kingdoms. All right. You're going to have
a king. He's going to take your young
men. He's going to take your gold. He's going to take your
property. He's going to take everything
you own. Oh, we don't care. We want to be like everybody
else. And sure enough, he gave him a king. And he took him down
the river. On God's eternal, everlasting
purpose, he's going to raise up a king, David. But you know what? Still a king. Still a king. And it tells us
here in 1 Samuel 16, Samuel is going out to, and I like this,
because it just shares with us another picture, type in a shadow,
of God's elective grace. Before David became king, he
was anointed. It wasn't on the day that he
became king. It was before he became king,
a long time before he became king. And God chose his people
in the council halls of eternity a long time before he made them
his people. It's just another beautiful picture
of God's everlasting grace. Now, God did not choose anybody
on foreseen faith. You know what prompted God to
choose people? On foreseen unbelief. We weren't going to believe.
What prompted God to choose people? Everybody that descended from
Adam was going to have a bucket full of unbelief. And the only
way that they'd ever have that overcome is he chose them out
before the world began. Before they had done any good
or evil, he's going to choose out his people. There's a bucket
full of unbelief in every one of them after Adam sinned. They
wouldn't have turned towards him. There was no foreseen faith
in them. There was nothing that would
prompt them to turn to God. So I'm just thankful that God
did his business before the world began, and he knew what we'd
be like, and he knew that if he didn't do it the way he did
it, There wouldn't be anybody around the throne of grace singing
those songs that we read about in the book of Revelation if
he didn't do his part first. All right, over here in 1 Samuel
16, verse 6 and 7, the scripture says, it came to pass when they
were come that he looked. Samuel looked at Eliab and said,
and he's this tall, and this broad, and handsome. And Samuel could just see, this
man's going to represent Israel well. He said, this is him. Surely the Lord's anointing is
before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his
countenance. Don't see his star. I just mentioned that because
this is not able to see kind of qualifications. This is not
out in the open qualification. That's what he's saying. Man
looks for the outward qualifications. That's all we can go on. But
he goes on to say here, the Lord says, look not on the countenance
or on the height of his stature because I've refused him. For
the Lord seeth not as man seeth. Isn't that a true statement?
That could be underlined twice and be right both times. The
Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. Now how can he
do that? He's omniscient. He knows all. Turn with me if you would. to
back just a little bit to 1 Samuel chapter 2. 1 Samuel chapter 2
and there in verse 3, Samuel again is a secretary, he's God's
secretary. He's one of the many that we
find was used by the Lord to give us the word of God. In 1
Samuel chapter 2 and verse 3, the scripture says, talk no more
so exceeding proudly. Let not arrogancy come out of
your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions
are weighed. The Lord is the God of knowledge. He knows everything and everybody
without exception. Sometime, and I'll never do this,
I'll never do this because the consequences are so serious. I'm not interested in spending
a long time in a federal prison. But you know what I'd like to
do? I would like to wrap up a firearm in a piece of lead and see if
I couldn't get it through my baggage, just to see if it could
be done. Now, the consequences are really
bad if you got caught. That's federal prison time, a
long time. To see if I could hide something
from somebody. You see what I'm talking about? See if I could hide something
from those electronic snoopers. I'd just like to see if it could
be done. Now, I said that to say this, you can't hide anything
from God. He can see through lead. There's
nothing that he can't see into or see the motives of. Turn with
me, if you would, to First Kings, Chapter 8. First Kings, Chapter
8. First Kings, Chapter 8. Verse
39. Then hear thou in heaven thy
dwelling place. First Kings chapter 8 verse 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. Now that's positive and that's
negative. To God's people, it is absolutely essential that
he know every heart of every man. Because on those days when
we're having a bad day, we still want him to know us. On those
days when we're not serving him like we know we should, we still
want him to know us. That's why we read over there
with regard to God, I don't change. O sons of Jacob, I still know
your heart. I created your heart. You are
my child. Even when David was sinning,
Moses was sinning, all those other people that we find a record
of. I just love it when I read about Abraham and Sarah in the
Old Testament and flip over to the book of Hebrews and read,
not one sin is recorded about them. I'm so thankful I can read
their title clearly. By faith, Abraham and by faith,
Sarah. In the book of Genesis, it said
Sarah laughed and Abraham doubted. In the book of Hebrews, it doesn't
say that. Why? It's under the blood. Thank God. That's what we depend on. He
knows us for who we are without our sin. He knows us. He knows
our heart. We depend on that. That is absolutely
our eternal security is he knows us. Doesn't matter whether we
know him, but if he knows us, he'll not lose us nor forsake
us. That's what he says here. I know
everybody's heart. Now those that are not mine,
I know them. We read that this morning. Those
that are mine, I know them and I'll lose none of them. And that's
our eternal security. It's not us, it's him. Turn with
me to Psalm 147. Psalm 147. Verse 5. Psalm 147 verse 5. What a wonderful statement just
to read this. Great is our Lord. Now that's
messianic. Great is our Lord. Psalm 147, verse 5, great is
our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. He has no end of understanding.
We depend on his infinite understanding of the covenant of grace. We
depend on his infinite understanding of redemption. We depend on his infinite understanding
of regeneration. We depend on his infinite understanding
of the good news, the gospel. He understands all these things
without a dictionary. Without anybody pointing out,
he understands all the terms and all the principles and precepts
of the gospel, and he is carrying them out to the nth degree on
the behalf of the church. His understanding is infinite. Oh, Lord, I don't understand
redemption. He says, I do. Oh, Lord, I don't
understand election. I do. Oh Lord, I don't understand
a man in a slave market being bought out. I do. His understanding is infinite. I don't understand how you can
take people who have been dead for 5,000 years and put them
together again at the resurrection. He says, I do. I don't understand
how you raised Lazarus out of the tomb. He says, I do. His understanding is infinite. And the church just says, thank
you, makes it simple. The simplicity of the gospel,
I don't have to understand it. I'm just a recipient of it. He's
poured it into me, lifted up my lower lip and poured it into
me. Thank God Almighty. My time is up and I'm not finished
and we'll pick up some other time.