one verse of scripture tonight we talked about the song first
song in the scriptures last week and I want to take a line out
of this song first song was sung there in verse 11 Who is like unto Thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? We want to talk
about God is. God is. God is God. He's solitary. Greg Amquist brought
a message up at Todd's. Onlyest. Onlyest Jesus. He created that word. It is what
he preached. The onlyness. Onlyness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Well, God is alone. He has an
aloneness. He is solitary. There's things that, you know,
God is such a way that distinguishes him, sets him apart from all
creatures and everything else that's in this world. You and
I, we're in a group, we're in a bunch. You can't turn your
hand for the difference in the human race. Anybody in the human
race, you can't turn your hand for the difference in it. And in this days of religious
perversion, most people know nothing of God's being. be but
in the Bible these folks they knew something about who is like
unto thee O Lord among the gods Micah said who is like unto thee
O God that pardoneth iniquity passes by the transgression of
the remnants of his heritage retaineth not his anger forever and fulfills his promises to
Jacob his elect And there are very, very few who understand
that God is infinite, majestic, great, beyond any imagination
we could possibly think about Him. And He's perfectly glorious. Ain't that what He said? Who
is like unto thee, O Lord, who is like thee, glorious in holiness,
fearful in praises, doing wonders. And I hope by God's blessed grace
tonight to inspire us to alone, adore and reverently, reverently
worship the Lord, our God, showing that he is alone, alone in his
being. He alone is solitary. There's nothing, nothing that
we can think or say or do. that we can begin to imagine
what he's like as God is. But I hope that I can say a few
things about it tonight. He is excellent. Oh, he's glorious
in his excellence. And if you ever see God as what
little bit we can know about him that he make us to know,
it'll cause you to reverence him, fear him, Worship Him and
always think of Him in the highest terms you possibly can. Now a God that you can manipulate,
a God that you have to cooperate with, a God that you have to
wait on you or you wait on Him in any way. You know a God that
is pitiful, cannot be revered, cannot be feared, cannot be worshipped.
But a God who is alone, who is solitary in his being. An old
hymn writer said, can creatures to perfection find the eternal
uncreated mind? Or can the largest stretch of
thought measure and search his nature out? I want to say a few
things about how God is alone in His solitariness. First of
all, here's the thing. There's only one God. Just one. One God. Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one. Just one. Paul told Timothy. Timothy, there's one God. One
God. One Father. One God. And one
mediator between that one God and man. One God, one mediator
between God and man. That's the man, Christ Jesus. And I want you to look over here
in 1 Corinthians 8. Look in 1 Corinthians 8. And I tell you, that's the thing
about it. You know, you get to thinking
about God. And you get to thinking about where he's at, what he's
like, what he does, how you know him. Where did he come from? How does he exist? Who was before God? Was there
anything before God? Was there anything before a star?
Was there anything before an angel? Was there anything before
anything? But there's one God, and look
what Paul said here in 1 Corinthians 8, 5. For though there be that are
called gods, you see that little g? Gods, lots of gods. The Greeks had Mercury, Polos,
Thor, Zeus, and all of them had all these different attributes,
but they all had one fault in them. A weakness in them. Lots of gods. Lots of gods. Romans had lots and lots of gods. Whether they're in heaven, whether
they worship the stars, the sun, the moon, or whether on earth,
made out of clay, silver, and gold, as there are gods many
and lords many, but to us, But to us, who's us? God's people,
God's elect, God's people that he's made himself known to. But
to us, there's but what? One God. The Father, now listen to this,
of whom all things, everything that is, are. And we're in Him,
we're in God. and one Lord Jesus Christ by
whom are all things and we exist and are saved by him. One. Everybody's got all these gods
and all these lords. He said, but we only have one.
We only have one. God alone is solitary in his
being. There are many angels, many men
and all other creatures, but God is one. He said there's only
one potentate, only one who exists in His being. And because there's
only one God, our allegiance is due to Him and Him alone. Our affections, our affections,
our heart is to be directed to Him and Him alone. All who know
and trust and worship Him are just one body. One body with
many members. And oh, there's one God. And
oh my, ain't you grateful that there's just one? If there was
two or three, which one would you know to worship? Which one
would have the power? And I tell you, not only is there
one God, but God is eternal. God is eternal. Genesis 1-1 says
the very beginning, the very beginning of His revelation.
In the beginning, God. No one ever heard of Him before
that. No one ever existed before that. He dwelt alone in eternity
by Himself. And He said in the beginning,
He said God. Where was he at before then? What was he doing before that?
In the beginning there was nothing but God and no one but God. And this is how our puny brains
have to work. There was a time before time
ever began. There was a time when God dwelt
alone, alone in the great glory of his own being, satisfied with
himself, dwelt by himself, dwelt with his own glory, satisfied
with everything that's in himself. There wasn't any heaven in which
he could set his throne. There wasn't an earth that he
could call his footstool. That sounds like God. That sounds like somebody ought
to be worshipped. Sounds like somebody ought to
be bowed to. Sounds like somebody ought to
be worshipped and bowed down to and say, Oh! There were no angels to sing
his praises. There was no universe to be upheld
by the word of His power. There was no world or universe
to be governed by His wise, glorious providence. There was no man,
no man, no man created in His image. There were no seconds. There
were no hours. There were no days. There were
no months. There were no years. There were
no ages. God. God. God. From everlasting, God was alone
in His glory. Look in Isaiah 57. Who is like unto thee, O Lord?
Who is like unto thee? Isaiah 57. So all from everlasting God was
alone in his glory. No man, no angels, No universe,
no earth to engage His care. Verse 15. Isaiah 57, 15. For thus saith
the High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity. You know what I inhabit? I inhabit
this little bitty space I'm in right now. That's as far as I
can go. I can move from one spot to another,
but that's the only space I can inhabit. You just inhabit a little bitty
spot on that seat, on that pew. He says a high and lofty one.
that inhabits eternity. Oh bless his name, whose name
is holy. And listen to this, and I dwell
in the high, in the holy place. I stay up there. But here's what
he says, and I also dwell with him that is of a trite and humble
spirit. to revive the spirit of the humble,
to revive the heart of the contrite ones. So this great God that
is eternal must be the creator of all things. He must have created
everything that is because there was a time that nothing was.
He must possess all things. He must possess them. He must
be the ruler of all things, since He made them. And then He must
be the one that disposes of whatever He wills to dispose of, including
man. If He wills to dispose of a world,
He can. If He wants to dispose of a town,
He can. And if He wants to dispose of
you and me, He can. We're His. And then God is Spirit. Not only is there one God, and
He's eternal, but He is Spirit. John 4.24. John 4.24. God is
Spirit. Oh God. Look what he said in verse 23.
He's with that woman at the well and he's talking to her. She's
talking about worshiping. She's talking about worshiping.
She said, I know that Jerusalem's a place we got to go worship.
Our Lord said, oh no, no, no, no. The hour is coming and now
is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. for the father seeketh such to
worship him God is a spirit and that is italicized so if you
take that italicized world out God a spirit and they that worship
him must worship in spirit and in truth God is spirit that means
that he has no physical attributes. And the scriptures often describe
him and ascribe to him in such terms as the hand of God, the
arm of the Lord, the mind of the Lord. He has stretched out
his hands. But these are terms, these are
words that God's used to accommodate to our language, to us, to help
our poor little old puny brains understand something about the
work of God in this world. He says the eye of the Lord runs
to and fro. Now I know that He in here does
that to let us know that God sees everything. He said it runs
to and fro and behold the good and the evil. But now we understand
that God knows our thoughts are far off and that God sees everything.
But he uses a language like, well we have to look here, we
have to look yonder. And God says, I want you to know
that I see everything. But he don't have eyes. And he's not looking over here
and looking over there. He declared the end before he
ever started the beginning. Before eternity started, God
had me in His will and in His purpose. He had me made the way I was
to be made with the mind I had, the will I had, everything about
me, God made it to be so. And so he uses words so when
we say something, we say, well, you know, he accommodates it
to our language. We'll say, you know, the Lord heard my cry and
inclined his ear. God don't have an ear, but he
uses that to let us know that I hear you. I'm a God that hears
words. I'm a God that can be called
on. I'm a God that can be trusted. I'm a God that you can worship.
I'm a God you can trust. Now, you know, I'm going to give
you a big word. Anthropomorphic. Boy, it takes a smart man to
know a word like that. Not messing up. But these
anthropomorphic terms as described as having human form. But I tell
you, these things that God uses to describe himself for our puny
prayers, they don't in any way, in any way represent the true
nature and being of the Almighty God. None whatsoever. He is Spirit. And God is a Spirit. God is Spirit. And as a Spirit,
and this is something we He expressly, expressly forbids every form
of idolatry. And idolatry is that which represents
God's being. Now look in Exodus 20. Exodus
20. Exodus 20. You know, since God is spirit,
how do you make an image of a spirit? And that's what God says don't
do. That's what God says don't do.
He said He forbids any form of idolatry, that which represents
God's being. Now look what He said in Exodus
20 in verse 3. He says, Thou shall have no other
gods before Me. And you notice that's in little
g's. All gods but Him is a little g. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image, or any likeness of anything that
is in heaven above, bird, eagle, sun, moon, stars, or that is
in the earth beneath, anything on this earth, anything in the
water, anything in the sea, or is under the water or under the
earth. And listen to this, thou shall not bow down thyself to
them, nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God. Oh, I'm jealous of my glory.
I'm jealous of my worship. I'm jealous and I want nobody,
I want nobody to brook me. Visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children under the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me. and showing mercy unto thousands
of them that love me and keep my commandments. When it says
here there is one God and he says have no other gods before
me. This commandment forbids the
acceptance of any other God. We cannot worship any other God.
We cannot accept any other God. I don't care who represents Him.
I don't care what they say about Him. But if He is not God Almighty,
if He's not the Creator, if He's not the Sovereign, if He's not
Omnipotent, He's not the God of the Bible. And so this commandment
forbids us accepting any other God. And secondly, it forbids
the worship of any image. Any image. And I tell you, beloved,
God is invisible. He dwells in the light that no
man can approach unto. If he's spirit, you can't see
him. The representation of God by anything visible, that means
an image. And let me tell you what I mean.
The use of any religious images, any religious images. I remember
years ago people used to go around and sell Bibles. People used
to go around and sell Bibles and they had these great old
big Bibles they'd come around and sell. Kids, you know, go
around going to college or something, going to school, they'd come
out and sell Bibles. And boy, if they got in there,
you know, and they'd sell these great big, they'd be calling
them family Bibles. Big old family Bible. And you
know you'd lay that Bible over there and the one thing they'd
show you, you'd say, sure look at all these pictures in here.
Oh, there'd be all these pictures in there. There'd be the 12 disciples
sitting around the table and there'd be pictures of the Lord
and there'd be all these pictures and all these things. All these
paintings and things supposed to be of Christ. And folks thought,
oh my goodness, that's beautiful. I tell you, it's worth it just
to get the pictures. And you can't take a picture
of God. And I'm going to tell you something.
You know, for years and years and years, everybody, if I ask
you to close your mind and picture what the Lord Jesus Christ looks
like, I believe everybody that's said another gospel for any years
and years, when they close their mind and try to picture an image
of Christ, they can't do it. I can't do it anymore. Used to
be able to do that, but I don't do it anymore. I close my eyes
and try to get an image of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's blank.
It's blank. I don't see no long-haired, blue-eyed,
blonde-headed, emaciated little old man. I don't see somebody on his knees
with a light shining down on him. I don't see nobody with
his heart, great old big heart on the outside of him showing
how good he is. How hard, how much of a heart
he's got. I don't see no pictures of him with his sheep in his
arms, a little lamb in his arms, carrying it across a creek. And that's what we're talking
about. If you have a picture like that, the best thing you
can do is burn it. Don't give it to anybody else.
Don't take it to the Goodwill. Don't take it over to Good Sam's.
Get rid of it! And oh, I tell you, the use of
religious images, symbols, pictures, crosses, crucifixes, religious
relics, or even getting an angel's form. People like angels. I've never seen one. Oh, ain't
she a little angel? Wait till she grows up. Ain't
that right? Ain't that the way we
are? Oh, my. Oh, God. And you know there's churches
that have these images around them. Up there on I-75, going up to
see my brother. When you get out of Cincinnati,
about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, there's a great big church up
there called The Rock. And they got a statue, I guess
it's 30 foot tall, of this image with his hands stretched out
and long hair stretched out there in the front of that church with
his hands stretched out. It's like Oral Roberts one time,
he said, you know, he saw a 900 foot Jesus. So one thing wrong
with him. He's too little. He's too little ain't he? I tell you, all true worship
and service rendered to God must be spiritual, must be heart worship. must be heart worship. It is
not sufficient for us to come before him and get down on our
knees or prostrate our body or come with words of praise. He
must be worshipped with our spiritual nature. And He gave us a spiritual
nature. He gave us this new nature so
that we could worship Him. So that we could know Him. So
that our hearts and minds could be taken up with Him. They that
are in the flesh cannot please God. But Paul went on to say,
but we're not in the flesh, but we're in the Spirit. And that's
a capital S. We are in the Spirit. If so be
God dwell in us. And if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of Him. So the Spirit of God dwells in
us, so God gives us His Spirit, so we can turn around and worship
Him in Spirit. And that's why our worship services
is so simple. So simple. What time and what
opportunity does the flesh have in our worship services. We get
up, we sing a couple of hymns, very particular about what we
sing, somebody will read the scriptures, somebody will pray,
sing a hymn, and then I preach, and then we dismiss. What chance
does that give the flesh to get up and have anything in our worship
service? And we don't want, we have enough
to do with our flesh, it hinders our worship anyway. But oh, we worship Him with our
spiritual nature. We worship Him with our souls.
We worship Him with our hearts. We worship Him with our minds.
We worship Him with our wills. Our wills, and Paul said, Oh,
the will is me is present. Our wills, our wills would be
enthralled with God if it could be, if we didn't have this flesh
to deal with. Our souls sometimes get taken
up with Him, just get enraptured and just taken up with God. When
you think about Him and you just lose thought about Him, then
your mind is just filled with joy to think about. Oh, you think
about God this way and you begin to consider Him and all of a
sudden you get lost in your thoughts and you end up with the purest
worship you could ever have. And not only do we worship with
our spiritual natures, but we must worship Him in truth. Truth? What's truth? Revealed truth. This right here, with revealed
truth. We got to worship God in the
truth that He's revealed to us. And that's the only way you can
have truth or know God is by revelation. It's impossible to
worship Him where he is not the solitary supreme other words
he's got to be everything or you can't worship him he says
they that worship him must must worship him in spirit that's
it but also in truth truth now just like what I'm saying tonight
the truth about God And I tell you, it's not a suggestion.
God don't give a suggestion. You know how to worship Him?
He said, they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and
in truth. And it says, He seeketh us to
worship Him. That don't mean He's looking
around here and saying, I'm going to find somebody to worship me
that way. That means that He seeks people and He brings them
to worship in spirit and in truth. Everyone that he's called and
brought to himself, he teaches them, you worship me in spirit,
you worship me in truth. And it must be the truth according
to the truth that God is, that he is. If he's not presented and set
before our hearts and set before our minds and set before all
the people that we know as omnipotent, he's got all power. I've heard
once, yea, twice, that all power belongs unto you. That he's omniscient,
that he's all wise, infinitely wise. And everything that happens
in this world, he does it by his wisdom. And that he's omnipresent,
that means that there's not any place that he's not. There's
not anywhere in this universe that you can go where God's not. Not anywhere, he's everywhere. And if we don't worship him this
way, then he's not worshiped. And there's no worship where
the Almighty Weights on the will of anyone or anybody. And we got to be dogmatic about
that. I want to show you something
over in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 9. 1 Thessalonians
1 and verse 9. Talking about God, God is. Oh,
God is. Stephen Charnock's got two big
volumes on nothing but the attributes of God. And when you understand that
God alone is God, He was alone from eternity and time didn't
start until he said in the beginning and you know what he's going
to say at the end time shall be no more there was a time when
there was no time and there will be a time again when there won't
be any more time but look what he said here the
apostle said about these brethren verse 9 1 Thessalonians 1 for
they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had
unto you when we came preaching the gospel now listen to this
how you turned to God from idols to serve the living the living
and the true God God is the alone one dwelling
solitarily by himself and he can't be known by man except
he is pleased to reveal himself and let me wind it up over here
in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6 how blessed how wonderful how
glorious is God and he is pleased he is pleased to make himself
known to his creatures to his creatures and that's what we
are we're his creatures and oh to worship him to worship
him look what he said here in 2 Corinthians 4 6 for God just
starts with God for God and listen to this who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness that's talking about the creation there
was darkness and in the beginning God said let there be light and
there was and look what he said he commanded
the same God who created said shine the light out of darkness
he turned around and hath shined in our hearts Just like He called
light. He said He shined in our hearts.
As He calls the light to shine. Out of darkness. Here we have
these darkened hearts, these dead hearts. And He commanded
the light to shine. Where at? Into that heart. To give the light. That same
light that He commanded out of darkness. I want that light to
shine in their hearts. Well, what's the purpose of the
light? To give us a knowledge, to know something of the glory
of God. And where do we see this glory
of God? And He calls it to shine in our
hearts in the person of His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what our Master said?
If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. If you've seen the
Father, you've seen me. Is he worthy to be worshipped?
Is he worthy to be praised? If he is who he says he is, and
he's like he says he is, our hearts just, we just can't
grasp it. And that's why, and I know I
got to hush, but that's why when we get into eternity, God is so great and so glorious
in his being, that will spend eternity and still not know it
all. Can't do it. Can't do it. Can't do it. All
right, let's get song number 37. Number 37, and I'll tell you what we're going
to do. We're going to sing the first and the third and fourth of this
hymn. You stand again. The best verse. Verse three. That God, who sent Him to die,
I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, I've heard
and gladly married Sings my soul, my Savior God,
to Thee How great Thou art, how great Thou art Then sings my
soul Take me home, take me home Thank the Lord for his mercy