I always count it a great privilege
to preach the gospel, go different places and preach the gospel
of God's grace. Always look forward to and enjoy
going down to Kingsport and worshiping with our friends there and preaching
to them. But there is one thing specific about the meetings in
Kingsport that always are delightful for me. Almost every time I'm
there, There's an old 90-year-old primitive Baptist preacher sitting
right on the front row who rejoices in the gospel of God's grace
just as if he heard it for the first time. And that encourages
me. I want so much to rejoice in
the gospel of God's grace and the good news of our Redeemer
today as when first I heard it. to rejoice in the greatness of
God when I draw my last breath as when I first found something
revealed in my soul of the greatness of our God. Turn with me, if
you will, to Habakkuk Chapter 2. In his excellent book, Gleanings
from the Godhead, Arthur Pink, begins the book with a chapter
he titled, The Solitariness of God. I'm going to take his title
for the title of my message tonight, The Solitariness of God. I want
to show you from the scriptures something of that which separates
God from all his creatures and distinguishes him obviously from
all that men call gods in this world. The solitariness of God. Moses said to the children of
Israel as he was about to depart from them, ascribe ye greatness
to our God. Let us always, when we think
of God, think of God in terms of greatness beyond imagination. Whenever we think of God, let
alone speak of Him, we ought to stand up and pay attention
with an awesome sense of God's greatness, His majesty, His supremacy. Moses declares God's solitariness
in the redemption of our souls in his great song of redemption
in Exodus 15. He says, Who is like unto thee,
O Lord, among the gods? All the gods that men have made. All the gods that we read about
in history. All the insignificant little
things men have called God in days gone by. And all the imaginary
gods that men make in our day. Who is likened to thee among
the gods? Who is like God? If you want to be disgusted or
laugh, read the billboards in front of churches when you drive
by them. And you will ask yourself, where is God? Where is there
a God who is like our God? Who is likened to thee among
the gods? I don't even know when it comes
out in our local paper. Whenever the churches do their
advertising, And just in case any preachers are listening,
I'm talking about Danville, Kentucky, where they do their advertising,
read the paper and you'll scratch your head. You say, who is like
unto thee among the gods? The God of this age described
by the people who claim to worship and serve him is not even slightly
like our God, not even slightly like our God. Micah describes
his distinct character and solitariness as God like this. Who is a God
like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever
because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have
compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities
and thou will cast their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou
will perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which
thou has sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. Now, when
Habakkuk considered God's judgment upon the nation of Judah. When
Habakkuk considered the reason for God's judgment, God was about
to destroy the land and send them into captivity because the
children of Israel had learned idolatry. They had learned to
worship Jehovah, claiming to worship Jehovah, but mixing the
worship of Jehovah with the worship of the gods of the land. And
so the Lord raised up some pagan people, some idolaters, the Chaldeans,
folks who worshipped their fishhooks. They worshipped their fishhooks.
Read the second chapter. They worshipped their angles.
They worshipped their fishnets. Anything that they thought there
might be something connected with something successful, they
made a god out of it, worshipped it. And Habakkuk looks up to
heaven and ridicules the gods of men
and worships God in his solitary greatness as God. Begin reading
with me in verse 18 of Habakkuk chapter 2. The prophet considers the idols,
the gods that men make, ridicules them, and he bows before the
triune Jehovah and worships him as God alone. May God, the Holy
Spirit, give us grace to do the same. What profiteth the graven
image that the maker thereof hath graven it? Of what benefit
is the graven image to him? Of what use is this man's God? He's got him a stump. And he carved it out right pretty. And he overlays it with silver
and gold. And he paints it magnificently. If he's not able to, he hires
somebody to do it. Spares no expense. And he's got
him a God. And he keeps regular feast days.
and regular appointed times of worship, he pays his money and
does his duties to his God, and prays, and prays, and devotes
himself to his God. But if God can't see, and he
can't hear, and he can't move his arms, if he's moved, the
worshipper has to move him. The God he prays to has no breath
of life in him. He can do nothing without the
aid of the one who claims to worship him. Does that sound
like your daddy? Does that sound like your mama? Does that sound like your neighbor?
Indeed it does. Read on. The molten image and
the teacher of lies. that the maker of his work trusteth
therein to make dumb idols. Woe unto him that saith to the
wood, awake, to the dumb stone arise, it shall teach. You wouldn't do that, would you?
You wouldn't think about doing that, would you? Of course not. It is laid over with gold and
silver, but you forgot something. There is no breath at all in
the midst of it. It's just a dumb idol. It's a
dumb piece of wood. It's useless. It's utterly useless. The only thing that it is good
for is for you to soothe your conscience with a little religion
and it can do nothing except what you do for it. So it is
with all the idols of men. Whether those idols be carved
in wood and stone and overlaid with silver and gold and decked
out with fine ornaments, or whether they be dug from the dark forest
of man's depraved imagination and called Jesus and God and
the Holy Spirit. If the God you worship can do
nothing without you, he's no God at all, just a dumb idol. You see, the God of this age
no more resembles God as he is set forth in this book than an
ant resembles an angel. The Jesus of this age is not
he who shall save his people from their sins, but he who offers
salvation or tries to save. The God of this age is not he
who does whatsoever he will in the army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, but rather it is God who wants
to do things if only you would let him. The Holy Spirit that's
spoken of in this day of insanity religion, the Spirit of this
age. It's not God the Holy Spirit
who gives life to whom he will, who quickens whom he will, but
rather just a helpless influence that teaches folks how to act
like idiots. Nothing similar to the God of this age. Brother
God, you ought not poke fun at religion like that. The religion
of this age deserves to be mocked, mocked publicly and mocked loudly. Read 1 Kings chapter 18. and
see how Elijah, God's prophet, spoke of the God of this age.
Scream a little louder. Maybe he's asleep. Maybe you
need to wake him up. Y'all dance and cut yourselves
some more. He's probably going to relieve himself. We'll be
back from bathroom in a few minutes. That's not what he said. Oh,
yes, it is. That's exactly what he said. He mocked their gods
because their gods useless. Read on now. But. not our God. The Lord is in his
holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence. Let me give you a little more
literal reading of that. The Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth hush before him. Hush. Hush. Be comfortable. Be quiet. Be easy. Stop your murmuring. Stop your
griping. Stop your complaining. Stop your
questioning. Hush! God's sitting on his throne. He's in his holy temple. Undisturbed. Unmoved. Unchanged. He's God. We know that God is great in
his wisdom, wondrous in his power, and abundant in his mercy. But
in these degenerate days of religious perversion, most people know
nothing about who God is. Don't go arguing, picking fights
with folks. I don't suggest you do that at
all. It won't do any good. But I'll tell you what to do.
When you're around folks, family, neighbors, and they start to
discuss religion, just ask them to give you a good description
of God. What they think is an accurate
portrayal of who and what God is. And you'll want to weep. as you listen to them speak so
pathetically of one they call God. It is the solitary excellence
of God that inspires reverence for him, faith in him, and obedience
to him. Our God is incomprehensibly great. Isaac Watts expressed it well,
can creatures to perfection find the eternal uncreated mind? Or can the largest stretch of
thought measure and search his nature out? Tis high as heaven,
tis deep as hell, and what can mortals know or tell? His glory
spreads beyond the sky and all the shining worlds on high. Let me call your attention to
five or six things. about our God that sets him apart
distinctly as God. Five or six things that that
can be said only about God. Only about God. First, there's
just one. There's just one. Here, oh, Israel, the Lord, our
God is one Lord. One Lord. One God. Now, I know we live in this day
of multicultural insanity and the multiculturalism has become
just an open denial of all sense of true religion and an open
denial of anything that distinguishes people on this earth. But when
people start to talk about the God of the Mohammedans and the
God of the Papists and the God of the Jews and the God of the
Baptists and the God of the Protestants and the God of Mormons and we
all worship the same God. And you hear the news commentators
talking about the Muslim terrorist going about shooting somebody
crying, crying, long live God. That's not what they're crying.
That's not. They've got enough sense to know
there's a difference. Most Baptists don't have any sense, but most
Islamic folks have enough sense to know there's a difference.
Allah is not God. He's Allah. There's one God. There's one God. And that one
God is described by his own word, plainly in scripture, in such
terms that he cannot be mistaken for who he is. The scriptures
are so very, very simple. You know, people make a great
deal out of stuff that there's really not a whole lot to be
said about. When the scripture starts to
give us a creed, a confession of faith, I've read a good many.
I've read a good many. I've read a good many theology
books. And you know, folks can talk in the most ambiguous terms.
You scratch your heads, I wonder exactly what they meant by that.
Do you know why? Because they don't have a clue
what they meant by that, or they don't want you to know what they
meant by that. But when the scripture gives us a confession, the scriptures
use one syllable words that a child can understand. There is one
body, one spirit, even as you're called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who
is above all and through all and in you all. That's the first
thing. There is but one God. I know that those words are acknowledged
by all who profess to be Christians. But few understand the reality
of this fact. There is one God, and that means
that all who are called gods, but are not described in their
character in this book, are not God. Call somebody Jesus, you can
call me Jesus if you want to, that don't make me Jesus. You
can call Bob Duff here God if you want to, that doesn't make
him God. And you can call Denise the Holy Spirit if you want to,
that doesn't make you the Holy Spirit. That doesn't change anything.
But we're sincere, that still doesn't make me God, or somebody
else God. No. Let's look in the book of
God and see how God describes his solitary being. In 1 Timothy
chapter 1, or chapter 6 rather. Verse 16, God alone is solitary
in his being. There are many angels, many men,
many of all other creatures, but there's just one God. He
only hath immortality dwelling in light, which no man can approach
unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and
power everlasting. Because there's one God, if we
have faith, it must be in him alone. Because there's just one
God, our allegiance must be to him alone. Because there's just
one God, our affection is claimed by him alone. Because there's
just one God, all who know, trust, and worship him are one body
in him. All right, God is one, that's
first thing. Second, God is eternal. Come back to Genesis chapter
one. Genesis chapter one. God alone is eternal. Men are not eternal. Angels are
not eternal. The devil is not eternal. Matter
is not eternal. God alone is eternal. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. There was nothing and no one
but God. There was a time before time
began when God dwelt alone in his own ineffably glorious being,
solitary and independent of all. There was no heaven in which
he set his throne and manifested his glory. There was no earth
he used as his footstool that engaged his care. No angels to
sing his praise, no universe to be upheld by the word of his
power. No men created in his image and
after his likeness. There were no hours, no days,
no months, no years, no ages, but from everlasting to everlasting
God. In old eternity, God alone was
in his glory. He's the great I am. the eternal
God, who says, I live forever. The psalmist says of him, thy
throne is established of old. Thou art from everlasting. He's
the first and the last. Isaiah describes him as the high
and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity. Now, I'm going to repeat
that a number of times. The high and lofty one who inhabiteth
eternity. Not lives in eternity. not dwells in eternity, the high
and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity. He comprehends eternity in his
own being, the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity.
This great God who alone is eternal is and must be the creator of
all things. the possessor of all things,
the ruler of all things, and the disposer of all things. He
alone is God eternal. Now, having said that, our puny
brains, and we start to think about God, you who are brilliant
and highly academically educated, your brains are just puny. I've made just puny. Our puny
brains can't get any grasp of eternity. Eternity. Our God is the high and lofty
one who inhabiteth eternity. That means that God is not fettered
by the constraints of time. He's the high and lofty one who
inhabits eternity. His works All his works are revealed
in time. His works, all his works are
made manifest and experienced in time. But Hebrews chapter
4 verse 3 tells us that his works were all finished from the foundation
of the world. How can that be? How can that
be? With God, there's no such thing
as past and future. No such thing. So for God to
will a thing is for it to be accomplished. When the eternal
God willed our election, our names were written in the book
of life. When he willed our election, we were adopted, accepted into
the Lord as the sons of God. When He willed our redemption
in Christ Jesus, Christ was the Lamb slain, by whom and in whom
we were redeemed and reconciled to Him, justified and accepted
in Christ the Beloved as our Redeemer before the world was,
when God the Eternal willed to bless us. How can this be? We weren't there.
Well, we were. How can this be? We haven't been
born yet. No, but when God willed to bless
us, Ephesians 1, 3 says we were blessed. When he willed to have
a bride for his son, he didn't have to wait on the bride to
make up her mind. We were wed to his son. When he willed to
have us, we were his. When he willed to have us his
own, we were his own. When God willed that we be with
him in glory, We were seated together with Jesus Christ, God's
darling son, our mediator, in heavenly places. Well, brother Don, if that's
the case, then this whole thing of salvation is totally outside
ourselves in its accomplishment, and nothing can ever interfere
with it Because it's done from eternity. Is that good or what? Totally outside ourselves. In no way hinging on anything
about us, good or bad. The foundation of God stand assure
having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. All right,
here's the third thing. God is spirit. Our Lord Jesus says in John 4,
24, God is a spirit. Quite literally, God is spirit.
And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. The Bible often ascribes to God
human terms, speaking as though he has a body in parts like we
do. The scripture speaks of the hands
of the Lord, the eyes of the Lord, the ears of the Lord, the
mouth of the Lord, the heart of Jehovah. The scripture speaks
of the Lord's mighty arm. The scripture speaks of him in
many ways in human terms. But whenever the scripture uses
such terms to speak of God, Understand that they are only anthropomorphic
terms. That is, they are terms relating
to humanity to give us some concept of God's greatness, His power,
His goodness, His works, His wonders in redeeming and saving
our souls. As you read your Bible, as you
read your Bible, you will never find not even one. Now listen. You will never find
not even one comparison of God to something physical. Not once. Not once. God is never in the
scriptures compared to anything visible, tangible, or physical
as a representation of his being. Even under the Old Testament
scriptures, in the ceremonial worship of the law with the tabernacle,
and the priesthood, priest breastplate, and the altar,
and the mercy seat, and the holy of holies, all those things in
the Old Testament. All of those things were pictures
of God's redemption and grace to his people in Christ Jesus,
but not pictures of God himself. Not representatives of God himself.
Representatives only of what God would do for his people.
Turn back to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus 20. Because God is spirit, he expressly
forbids every form of idolatry. Look here in Exodus 20 verse
3. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Now that's a prohibition to the
worship of idols. That's plain enough. You can't
worship Allah and worship God. You can't worship the Virgin
Mary and worship God. It's impossible. Can't be done.
Well, I know people who do. No, you don't. No, you're trying
to make the way broader than it is. No, you don't. There's
no worship of God along with the worship of idols. Thou shalt
not make unto thee any graven image. or any likeness of anything. Now that's another story. Don't take a statue of Zeus and
make him a statue of Jesus. Don't have any pictures of that
Wild Bill Hickok kind of sissified hanging on the wall. No pictures,
no images, no representations of God or of spiritual things. We don't. or any likeness of
anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth. What's that talking about? Can't
take pictures of your family. Now, there are some folks who
say that, and that's a better interpretation than to suggest
that it's all right to have pictures of Jesus around. No, no, no pictures,
no idolatrous representation, no, no images of angels, no crosses,
no religious icons. All that is idolatry. And all of that prohibits worshiping
God in spirit and in truth. Now, you can't see it from where
you are, see that picture right there? If that helps you to worship
God, something's wrong with you. Something's wrong with your religion.
And it doesn't matter whose picture it is. Doesn't matter. Drop me a cross. If that makes
you feel close to God, you don't know God. That's just all there
is to it. If that helps you to pray, you
don't know what praying is. I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry.
That's the way it is and I'm here to tell you the truth God's
Spirit So well, we're not under the law. That's that's given
the commandments. No, we're not under the law We're
not ruled by the law, but we have neither the desire nor the
right to violate God's law We worship God in spirit this commandment
then expressly forbids the acceptance of any false God and the worship
of God through any image, the representation of God by anything
visible, the use of religious images, symbols, pictures, pictures
of Christ, crosses, crucifixes, religious relics, angelic forms,
anything, anything. We worship God in spirit. You
see, all true worship is spiritual worship. It is worship in the
heart. It is heart worship, worship
by the direction, leadership and power of God, the Holy Spirit. Worship in the realm of the spirit.
Merle, we live in the spirit. We walk in the spirit and we
worship God in the spirit. True faith is heart faith. True
worship is heart worship. True devotion is heart devotion.
True obedience is heart obedience. True service is heart service.
We worship God alone. We worship God spiritually, we
worship God sincerely, and we worship God in truth, in accordance
with revealed truth. Turn to 1 John chapter 5. God is one, God is spirit, God
is eternal, and God is a triunity. You study religion sometimes. I don't really suggest that you
do, but if you dare, boggle your mind down with a bunch of poison,
study comparative religions and try to find somewhere at some
time where somebody without this book ever invented a notion like
one God in three persons. Try to find it. You won't find
it in mythology. You won't find it amongst the
ancient brilliant minds of the Gentile world, or among the ancient
barbarian minds of the Gentile world, and you won't find it
anywhere except in this book. There are three that bear record
in heaven. The Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost, and these three are one. Brother Don explained that. Do you know I actually used to
try to study the Trinity just so that I could explain it to
folks? And the more I tried to explain, the muddier the water
got. I just couldn't make it any plainer
that John makes it here by inspiration. There are three that bear record
in heaven. The record of the Father, the
record of the Word, and the record of the Holy Spirit. the record
of the Father's decree, the record of the Son's obedience, and the
record of the Spirit's witness. And these three persons, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, are one God. Not just they agree in one, not
just that they're similar to one another, they're one. We
do not worship three gods in one God. We do not worship three
separate gods. We worship God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, one God in three eternal persons in all things
equal, each one glorious as the other, each one ineffably solitary,
eternal, and infinite as the other. And the Lord God is represented
that way throughout the scriptures. In the Old Testament, the Lord God Almighty is seen
at the very beginning, revealed as three persons in one Godhead. We're told that God the Father
created all things, but he created all things through his Son, the
Word, and by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, God the Holy
Spirit. God the Spirit moved upon the
face of the waters. God said, let us make man in
our image and after our likeness. And God promised to send his
son, the seed of woman, to redeem a fallen man. All that in the
book of Genesis. In the New Testament, when our
Lord Jesus was baptized, Matthew chapter 3, the Father spoke from
heaven. The son is going down into the
water to be baptized and the Holy Spirit descends from heaven
like a dove and rest upon him. He commands us to go forth into
all the world and preach the gospel, baptizing disciples in
the name, not names, name singular of the father and of the son
and of the Holy Ghost. The benedictions of grace given
in the scriptures speak of the father, the son and the Holy
Ghost. And our Lord Jesus said, I will
pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that
he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth. And
just lest anybody be mistaken in this book, God, the father
is specifically called God. God, the son is specifically
called God. God the Holy Spirit is specifically
called God because we worship one God in the trinity or triunity
of his sacred persons. Number five, God is independent. Independent. Self-sufficient. Independent of everybody and
everything. Totally sufficient within himself
without us. We don't add anything to God
by our obedience to him or our service to him. And we don't
take anything from God by our disobedience and our sin. God
did not choose to save us in order that he might gain something
by us. He chose to save us just because
he would save us. And he chose to save us that
he might reveal his glory in us. But we don't add anything
to his glory. And when Satan fell and Adam
plunged our race into depravity and death, God didn't lose anything
by us. Oh, no, God is totally unaffected
by things of time. totally unaffected by the things
of time. Now get this, get this. God dwells
alone in the infinity of his self-sufficient, independent,
glorious being and nothing touches him. Nothing moves him. Nothing changes
him. Nothing. He predestined us to
eternal glory and salvation according to the good pleasure of his will.
He chose to save us to show forth his glory in us, but not that
his glory might increase by us. Job said, if thou be righteous,
what givest thou him? And he said, if thou sinnest,
What doest thou against him? No. Men try to rob God of his
glory, but you're not going to rob God of anything. Men assault
God's throne all the time, but nobody reaches his throne. Not
in heaven, not in earth, not in hell. God's totally independent
of his creatures, independent of time. All things were made
by God for the praise of His glory. All things ruled by God
for the praise of His glory. Turn to Revelation chapter 4.
Let me show you. Revelation chapter 4, verse 11. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things
for Thy pleasure. They are and were created. I'm talking about the solitariness
of God. God, so completely independent
of His creatures, that he depends on man for nothing. That man
determines nothing, the creature determines nothing. God's totally
independent. All that we experience of his
grace and his goodness, we experience simply because of his sovereign
good pleasure. Our God is in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever he Whatsoever the Lord pleased that
did he in heaven earth and in the seas and in all deep places
It pleased the Lord to make you his people That's the reason
you're here Brother Larry in his prayer a little bit ago Mentioned
the first Corinthians 4 7 who maketh thee to differ from another?
What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Why is it that you
worship God because it pleased God to make you his people? It
pleased God to sacrifice his son in your room instead as your
substitute. It pleased God to reveal himself
in you. It pleased the Lord. God almighty. Totally above creation. Turn
to Isaiah 40. I'll wrap this up. Isaiah 40. How we thank God and praise him,
adore him for his good pleasure of grace and mercy in Christ.
But we know that God is totally independent of his creatures.
He's self-sufficient without us. And this is great comfort
to our souls. Isaiah 40 begins that word, comfort
you, comfort you, my people. Now look how the Lord God describes
himself. Verse 15, behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket. And you thought you were important. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Some of you folks are old enough
to remember when you go to the local general store and you have
something weighed out and you have those old scales there,
they have some weights in them. And I've been in some pretty
crusty old general stores. And I don't believe the weights
had been moved or dusted in years. And you know, I never asked the
fellow to dust them off before he weighed out what I was getting.
How come? Because the dust didn't matter.
Dust is totally irrelevant. The dust is insignificant. What
did God say about the nations of the earth? What did he say? The nations are counted by God. as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the isles
as a very little thing, and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor
the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations
before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him as less
than nothing and vanity. All the nations, all men in all
the world, in all the ages of time are counted before God as
nothing and less than nothing and vanity. We can't spell church without
you. God was spelled in church a long
time before you were born, and He'll be spelled a long time
after we're both dead. No, you're nothing, less than nothing. Verse
18, to whom then will you liken God? Of what likeness will you
compare unto Him? The workman melteth a graven
image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth
silver chains. He that is so impoverished that
he hath no oblation chooseth a tree. Man so poor he can't
bring an oblation so he goes and gets him a tree. A tree that
will not rot gets him a good locust tree. And he seeketh unto
him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that shall not
be moved. Have ye not known? Have ye not
heard? Hath it not been told you from
the beginning? Have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? It is he that setteth upon the
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers,
that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them
out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing,
He maketh the judges of the earth vanity. This is our God. He alone is God. A. W. Pink wrote, God is solitary
in his majesty, unique in his excellency, peerless in his perfections. He sustains all, but he is himself
independent of all. He gives to all, but He is enriched
by none. This is God. The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth hush before
Him. The Lord is in His holy temple.
Hush, my heart, before Him. The Lord is in his holy temple.
Hush, my brother. Hush, my sister, before him and
worship. Amen. Lindsay, let's sing. I've been wanting to sing it
a while. A mighty fortress is our God. I think it's number
36, that great hymn by Martin Luther.