Intro: WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT GOD HIMSELF!
1. In Boca Raton Florida, Jerry Stevens, a pilot, decided to greet the New Year by writing, "God is Great" and similar messages in the sky above the city. When they saw the skywriting; many residents panicked and called police.
They believed Steven’s airplane might be part of a terrorist plot.
2. It tells alot about our Nation - we have no fear of God, who is great; but
we stand in fear of terrorists, of mere men. If we would fear God, we
would soon lose our fear of man.
3. Name and Nature of God.
Trans: Gen. 1:1
"In the beginning" marks a starting point of a specific duration, as "in the beginning of the year" which anticipates an "end" as well.
"11 "But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12 a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year." Deuteronomy 11:11-12
Job 8:7; 42:12; Eccl 7:8; Isa 46:10...
The earth not only has a commencement, but one with a view to a consummation. Just as surely as the earth has a specific beginning it will have a specific end. That consummation will involve a new heavens and earth.
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind." Isaiah 65:17
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea." Revelation 21:1
This is why we should live life with that consummation in mind...life is not just aimless but has a purpose, an end - it is going somewhere. And it all centers on God.
Tozer, "One of the greatest tragedies that we find, even in this most enlightened of all ages, is the utter failure of millions of men and women ever to discover why they were born....
Those who have followed the revelation provided by the Creator God have accepted that God never does anything without a purpose. We do believe, therefore, that God had a noble purpose in mind when He created us.
We believe that it was distinctly the will of God that men and women created in His image would desire fellowship with Him above all else.
In His plan, it was to be a perfect fellowship based on adoring worship of the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
If you are acquainted with the Shorter Catechism, you know that it asks an age-old, searching question: "What is the chief end of man?"
The simple yet profound answer provided by the Catechism is based upon the revelation and wisdom of the Word of God: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."...
Yes, worship of the loving God is man’s whole reason for existence. That is why we are born and that is why we are born again from above. That is why we were created and that is why we have been recreated. That is why there was a genesis at the beginning, and that is why there is a re-genesis, called regeneration.
That is also why there is a church. The Christian church exists to worship God first of all. Everything else must come second or third or fourth or fifth....
Sad, sad indeed, are the cries of so many today who have never discovered why they were born. It brings to mind the poet Milton’s description of the pathetic lostness and loneliness of our first parents. Driven from the garden, he says, "they took hand in hand and through the valley made their solitary way."
I. FIRST, THE SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD.
A. Last week we looked at God’s Nature…Self-existent.
Boice, "First, when Genesis begins with the words "In the beginning God," it is telling us that God is self-existent. This is not true of anything else. Everything else depends on some other thing or person and ultimately on God...
God is the ultimate cause and is Himself uncaused. God has no origins; this means: first, that as he is in himself he is unknowable, and second, that he is answerable to no one.
Why should God’s self-existence mean he is unknowable? If God is the cause beyond everything, then he cannot be explained or known as other objects can...This is one reason why philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God.
These disciplines are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The scientist will admit that there is much he or she does not know. But it is quite another thing to admit that there is something that we can never know and which, in fact, we do not even have a technique for discovering.
To avoid this the scientist may attempt to bring God down to his level, defining him as "natural law," "evolution," or some such principle. But God eludes him.
Perhaps, too, this is why even Bible-believing people seem to spend so little time thinking about God’s person and character. Tozer writes, "Few of us have let our hearts gaze in wonder at the I AM, the self-existent Self, back of which no creature can think. Such thoughts are too painful for us. We prefer to think where it will do more good—about how to build a better mousetrap, for instance, or how to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. And for this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives."
God’s self-existence also means that he is not answerable to us, and we do not like that. We want God to give an account of himself, to defend his actions. But while he sometimes explains things to us, he does not have to and often does not. God does not have to explain himself to anyone."
Self-sufficiency means that God has no needs and therefore depends on no one.
This is not true of us. We depend on countless other things—oxygen, for example. If our supply of oxygen is cut off, even for a few moments, we die.
We are also dependent on light and heat and gravity and the laws of nature. If even one of these laws should cease to operate, we would all die immediately. But this is not true of God. These things could go—in fact, everything could go—yet God would still exist.
Here we run counter to a widespread and popular idea of God that says God cooperates with man and man with God, each thereby supplying something lacking in the other.
It is imagined, for example, that God lacked glory and created us to supply it. Or again, that God needed love and therefore created us to love him. Some talk about creation as if God were lonely and created us to keep him company. But God does not need us.
God does not need worshipers. Arthur W. Pink, who writes on this theme in The Attributes of God, says, "God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That he chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on his part, caused by nothing outside himself, determined by nothing but his own mere good pleasure; for he ’worketh all things after the counsel of his own good will’ (Eph. 1:11). That he did create was simply for his manifestative glory.... God is no gainer even from our worship.
All this is of great importance, for when we notice that God is the only truly self-sufficient One, we may begin to understand why the Bible has so much to say about the need for faith in God alone and why unbelief in God is such sin."
B. This morning we look at one of God’s Name...Elohim.
1. First, it relates to His Ability which causes fear.
Chafer, "He reveals Himself as Elohim, which is related to the name El, having a root meaning of "power" or "fear." It suggests "God’s greatness or superiority over all other gods." The name Elohim identifies God as "the subject of all divine activity revealed to man and as the object of all true reverence and fear for men."
"God (Elohim): Elohim is the general or universal name for God in the Hebrew language. It means the Almighty God, the God of all might and strength. It means the Strong and Mighty, the Omnipotent, the One with supreme power and intelligence, the One who is always there, the Faithful One, the One who is to be reverenced and feared (see note—•Genesis 1:3).
God’s (Elohim’s) power in creation is to strike reverence and fear in the heart of man. The word is used about 2570 times in the Bible." [Preacher’s Outline and Sermon Bible - Commentary]
a. A God who Creates out of nothing is so powerful that we tremble in His presence.
"17 ’Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You, Jeremiah 32:17
"Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing." Isaiah 40:26
Unfortunately this generation is so ignorant and indifferent it has little or no appreciation for genuine creating - we think we are creating test tube babies! True creating is to brings something out of nothing...
Frank Sheed, was messages were often interrupted by hecklers. Once, after Sheed had described the extraordinary order and design created by God as seen in the universe, a man shouted out, "I could make a better universe than your God!"
Frank replied, "I won’t ask you to make a universe, but would you mind making a rabbit—just to establish confidence?"
b. A Creator that Controls every thing He created causes us to become a little nervous.
"3 And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." 5 Simon answered and said, "Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets." 6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!" 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken;" Luke 5:3-9 (NASB)
c. A God who can Cure any and all diseases is frightening to us.
"24 "But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,"—He said to the paralytic—"I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home." 25 Immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God. 26 They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen remarkable things today." Luke 5:24-26 (NASB)
d. A God who can Calm a raging sea with a mere word is terrifying.
22 Now on one of those days Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, "Let us go over to the other side of the lake." So they launched out. 23 But as they were sailing along He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. 24 They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. 25 And He said to them, "Where is your faith?" They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, "Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?" Luke 8:22-25 (NASB)
Today people are afraid of oil spills; terrorist attacks; of bad economic news - of everything but God! But as believers we should have a healthy fear of God, and thus fear nothing else.
1. A Command. "Fear God" (1 Peter 2:17).
2. A Caution. "Be not high-minded, but fear God" (Rom. 11:20).
3. A Consecration. "Singleness of heart, fearing God" (Col. 3:22).
4. A Company. "Walking in the fear of the Lord" (Acts 9:31).
5. A Condition. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12).
But fearing God is a healthy fear that removes unhealthy fears!
Tozer, "Why anyone should be fearful and timid saying, "I’m afraid I cant make it; I’m afraid God can’t keep me."
God can keep the stars in their courses and the planets in their orbits; God can keep all His vast display of might everywhere throughout His universe. Then surely God can keep you.
It’s like a fly perched on a seat in an airplane, moaning and trembling for fear that the plane can’t carry its weight! That fly is so light that it’s impossible, outside of a laboratory, to even weigh the little guy.
And yet imagine him sitting there, flapping his little wings saying, "I’m just afraid this plane won’t hold me up!" God will hold you up, when nothing else can. He is upholding all things by the word of His power - and that includes you."
2. It is also related to the Trinity.
Boice, "We should note a number of things. First, in the Hebrew of this chapter the name for God is Elohim. This is a plural word. It is used as if it were singular—that is, with singular verbs and (usually) with singular pronouns referring back to it—to indicate that there is but one God only. But the fact that it is plural also suggests that there are plural dimensions to God’s being."
The fact that the creation is ascribed to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit should be proof that Elohim here, relates to the Triuine God:
God the Father, "24 I say, "O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days, Your years are throughout all generations. 25 "Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands." Psalm 102:24-25 (NASB)
God the Son, "1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. John 1:1-3 (NASB)
God the Holy Spirit, "You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the ground. Psalm 104:30 (NASB)
This Triune God has a relationship with us.
Think of 3 men standing in front of a house - the first man says, "That’s my house." The second man also claims its his house. And the third man says "That’s my house."
They were all right - the first man built the house; the second man bought the house; and the third man is renting it.
God the Father created us; God the Son, bought us; and God the Holy Spirit lives in us...
The "Us" passages indicate a Triuine God:
"Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Genesis 1:26
"Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"— Genesis 3:22
""Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech." Genesis 11:7
Gruden, "What do the plural verb [let us] and the plural pronoun [our] mean? Some have suggested they are plurals of majesty, a form of speech a king would use in saying, for example, "We are pleased to grant your request." However, in the O.T. Hebrew there are no examples of a monarch using plural verbs or plural pronouns of himself in such a "plural of majesty" so this suggestion has no evidence to support it.
Another suggestion is that God is here speaking to angels. But angels did not participate in creation of man, nor was man created in the image and likeness of angels, so this suggestion is not convincing.
The best explanation is that already in the first chapter of Genesis we have an indication of the plurality of persons in God Himself."
We have talked about God being Eternally self-existence:
Father..."1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. Psalm 90:1-2 (NASB)
Son..."17 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Revelation 1:17-18 (NASB)
Holy Spirit..."13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 9:13-14
This get’s back to God’s self-sufficiency - One God, in One Person would not be sufficient!
Boa, "Love, is impossible without a Lover and a beloved. Within the Triune Godhead, there is, a perfect interrelationship of love, lover and Beloved. God can rejoice in Himself. This mutual intimacy within the Godhead, is clearly seen in Christ’s priestly prayer, ""Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." John 17:24
Chafer, "The attributes of God require both Agent and Object. Power, love, and disposition to communion, like all attributes, necessitate both. Requiring reciprocal relations, they cannot arise and be exercised within one absolute unity.
Obviously, the Agent and Object are Persons...In all the fullness of infinity, there attributes have been eternally active in each Person. It is impossible, for a finite mind to comprehend, the intimate and enduring affection which infinite love has generated within the Godhead. Each loving and each receiving in return."
This kills the foolish theory that God was lonely and needed to create man to have a companion! He already had a Companion - Himself!
Keep in mind, even after he created man, man is still not comparable to God - An infinite God cannot have any meaningful discussion finite man! It would be like, us trying to carry on an intelligent discussion with an earthworm! They just are not in our class...and neither are we in Gods!!!
Con:
1. We have looked briefly at the Nature and Name of God.
2. It should cause us to stand in awe and worship.
3. On October 3, 1993 Sergeant Jeff Strue-ker ’s squad was ordered into the center of Mogadishu, Somalia to secure a building as part of a larger operation.
In the first trip into the city he and his men drove through a hailstorm of bullets. One soldier was shot and killed. It was then that Jeff felt the fear. He began to pray. The Humvee was covered with blood as they escaped the city with their dead and wounded comrades and returned to their base.
Then the news came that a black hawk helicopter had been shot down. Strueker’s squad received orders to return to the fight. As Jeff was cleaning out the bloody Humvee, he remembered: "I began to talk to the Lord. I thought I was going to die," he said. Feeling his fear grow, he began to ask God to protect him. But his prayer soon changed.
He prayed, "If I die tonight, that’s fine, as long as your will is done," Struecker said. "For the first time in my life, and I had been a Christian since age 13—I was prepared to die. God spoke to my mind and my heart and said, ’I’ve been protecting you every day of your life,’" He did not tell me, ’You will live through the night.’ He simply showed me my life has always been in his hands."
Jeff did survive that night, went to seminary and is now an Army chaplain. He learned if you fear God, there is nothing left to fear.
Johnny Palmer Jr.
StrugglingThruScriptures.ning.com
