The Attributes of God – The Sovereignty of God

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Lecture 4, The Sovereignty of God:

Resounding throughout the pages of Scripture is the proclamation that God is King. And the concept most closely associated with His kingship is His sovereignty. To say that God is sovereign is not to say merely that He is stronger than everyone else, although this is true. Rather, to call Him sovereign is to ascribe to Him a rule and authority that transcends space and time, leaving nothing outside its scope. In this lesson, Dr. Lawson examines the nature and extent of God’s sovereign rule, showing how a biblical understanding of this topic can change the way we view the progress of history, the events of the present world, and the circumstances of our own lives.

Presented by Ligonier Ministries: http://ligonier.org

The Attributes of God – The Spirituality of God

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Lecture 3, The Spirituality of God:

The concept of spirituality is used to communicate a variety of different ideas. For some, this word indicates a conscious commitment to the things of God. To others, to say that someone is spiritual is to suggest that he or she has a generic interest in religious or supernatural matters. However, to speak of God’s spirituality is actually to identify Him as a spirit—an immaterial, invisible, and infinite being that is fundamentally distinct from material, visible, and finite creatures. In this message, Dr. Lawson investigates what it means to affirm that God is a spiritual being and why this aspect of His character is crucial to our understanding of who He is.

Presented by Ligonier Ministries

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?

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An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it during the past few years. It has developed at an abnormal rate, even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them.

From speaking out as the Puritans did, the church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses. My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the church. If it is a Christian work, why did not Christ speak of it? “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). That is clear enough. So it would have been if He had added, “and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.” No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to him.

Then again, “He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers .., for the work of the ministry” (Eph. 4:11-12). Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all his apostles. What was the attitude of the church to the world? “Ye are the salt” (Matt. 5:13), not the sugar candy—something the world will spit out not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Matt. 8:22) He was in awful earnestness. Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, “Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow.” Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them.

In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, “Come out, keep out, keep clean out!” Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon. After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, “Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.” If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments.

Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to effect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the
drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of the conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one
springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

A sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon

The Attribute of God – The Asiety of God

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This is the second video in the 16 part series on the Attributes of God by Steven Lawson presented by Ligonier Ministries.

The attributes of God – Introduction

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This is a sixteen part series explaining the attributes of God by Steven Lawson as presented at Ligonier Ministries. Here is the introduction.

Getting the Gospel Right

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We need to get the Gospel right, every-time!

Give People the Whole Gospel

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We need to give people the whole Gospel, not just a portion of it!

To Judge, or Not to Judge

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Have you ever corrected a fellow believer using God’s Word, and their response is “Judge not lest you shall be judged?” Or how about this one? “It is not your job to judge. Only God can judge me.”

Well both statements are totally based on not “rightly dividing the word of truth”. Telling someone that they cannot judge is, at best is a false teaching.
These people who make these statements do not read the whole context of the passage to understand what Jesus is actually teaching. They like to quote this passage:

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Matthew 7:1

If they only had read a little further, they would have found out that Jesus was, in fact, teaching us how TO judge. Did you get that? Jesus was teaching us HOW TO judge, not teaching us NOT TO judge. If you read verse 5, we see that Jesus teaches that we must get rid of the beam in our own eye before we can help our brother with the splinter in his eye. To put it another way, we have to take care of our own sin/sins first before we can help our brother or sister. If we are doing the same thing as our brother or sister, how dare we judge them! If we do, we are a hypocrite!

Let me ask you this. If you of a brother or sister in your church group that is living in sin, do you try and correct them using God’s Word? Or, because of your belief that it is not our job to judge, or you’re afraid that if you do, you will be judged in the same manner, that you let that brother or sister continue in their sin? Which do you choose to do? I bet that quite a few of you would say that you would correct them using God’s Word. If you correct them using God’s Word, did you know that is judging them? If you don’t do anything, why are you letting sin grow and fester in the church? Let’s say for example you have a basket full of apples, but one of them is rotten. Do you remove that bad apple so that the rest can be saved? Or do you allow that one bad apple to spread its rottenness to all the other apples? I know your answer. It would be to remove that one bad apple.It is the same with one brother or sister who is living in sin in the church. Their sin will slowly infect the rest of the members, not necessarily with the same sin, but sin as a whole. We are commanded to purge that sin from the church body so it doesn’t spread.

Paul has this to say:

7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?

13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

1 Corinthians 5:7-13.

In verse 11 Paul is not just telling us “these sins only”, but telling us that if a brother or sister is willfully and continually sinning, we are not to have anything to do with, no even to eat with them. That sounds a lot like judging to me. Look at the very next verse. “… do not ye judge them that are within?” The ESV says it this way:

“For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?”

Yes, we are to judge those inside the church so we can purge the leaven (sin) from the church! We cannot allow sin to grow and fester within the church. Now for the mic drop.

“Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgement”

John 7:24

Guess who said this? This came straight outta Jesus’s mouth my brothers and sisters!!! Jesus is telling us to judge righteous judgement. He is not telling us NOT to judge, but TO judge! We judge righteously by using His Word, and ONLY His Word. So, correcting someone who is sinning by using the Word of God, is judging righteous judgement.

In conclusion, it is our job to only judge those in the church. God is the only one who can judge those on the outside of the church.

Are you truly Repentant?

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When you mess up, and you repent, are you truly repentant? Do you face the same sin again and again only to decide to give in to it and then ask for forgiveness? Is this a merry-go-around with you?

As Christians, we need to realize that if we keep giving in to the same sin over and over again, and keep repenting of it over and over again, that maybe we really are not truly repentant. Now I’m not condemning anyone who falls into this circle of sinning, repenting, sin again, repent again, as I have my own Achilles heel I struggle with. I am merrily sharing what the Holy Spirit has shown me in hope that it may help others with their own Achilles heel.

The word repent in the Greek literally means “to repent, to change any or all of the elements composing one’s life: attitude, thoughts, and behaviors concerning the demands of God for right living.”

How can we change our attitude, thoughts and behaviors about the sin that is our Achilles heel? The first thing we can do is call upon the name of the Lord. Romans 10:13 says this; “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Now this isn’t what the verse says, I’m using it as a life application. If we call on the name of the Lord He can and will save us from the temptation we are facing. Who better to help us in our time of temptation than Jesus Himself!

We can also, and we should, give thanks in that time of temptation. Please note that I did not say to give thanks for the temptation, but in that time of temptation. Give thanks and praise Him for His promise that He “… is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13. Believe His promise to us, and trust His Word that He will make a way for us to escape the temptation.

Let us “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on our own understanding;” (Proverbs 3:5). If we attempt to resist the temptation on our own understanding, on our own power, we will fall every single time. Trust in the Lord to provide a way of escape, and how then can we not fall. The Lord has to be our strength, and the fortress we run to in these times. We can not do it on our own!

Meditate on God’s Word. When we focus all of our being – body, mind, and soul – on God, we draw close to God, and He draws closer to us (James 4:7).

In these few ways of changing our attitude, thoughts and behavior, we actually are resisting the devil and his demonic mafia. We willingly open ourselves up and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, and to strengthen us so that the next time we are tempted, we can more readily face it and defeat it with God’s help. The more we rely on Him, the easier it seems to be to resist the temptations. Yes we will still fall and sin, but the good news is that we won’t fall as often, and we won’t be so willingly to give in.

Remember that God is our strength, and we need to lean on Him. Trust Him to provide a way out!

Duty of Man

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Solomon in Ecclesiastes tells us that everything is vanity, that no matter what we do or say, it is all in vain. He gives us his conclusion in 12:13 “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” The whole of man is to fear God and keep His commandments, as this is the only thing that is not vanity. This should be, and has to be, our number one priority as believers. Not, our spouses, children, churches or even our jobs.

Jesus tells us in John 14:15,21 that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. In first John, John teaches us over and over about keeping His commandments. There are those that will try and tell you that we are under the New Covenant so the commandments (laws) that are part of the Old Covenant do not apply to us. If that is true, then why is it taught to keep them AFTER Christ died and rose? Would it be because we are to still keep them? Now I will say that the Levitical Laws have been fulfilled by Christ’s death so they do not apply to believers.

HOWEVER, the moral laws – that is the 10 Commandments – are still oh so relevant for us today. Thou shalt not kill still applies today as it did in the Old Testament. Yes, I know Jesus gave us two new commandments in Matthew 22:37-40 (KJV) “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Look at verse 40, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Jesus was saying that all the laws hung on these two, not that He meant for them to be two totally different and new laws. Look at the first one. “Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Jesus said to love God with everything you have, your whole being, not just a part of you.

Let’s go back to the 10 Commandments. The first 4 commandments hang on the first “new” commandment as they deal with you and God. If you love God, you will – with His help and guidance – not put ANYTHING in front of Him, period. That is, you will not make anything the focus of your attention other than God Himself, and you will place into your memory all these things.

The last 6 commandments hang on the second “new” commandment as they deal with your relationship with your neighbors. Basically, it is just as Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Plain and simple if you ask me!

This is our duty as believers, obey His commandments because we love Him and we WILL be in a right relationship with Him. When we do this, we will want nothing less than His will for our lives. When this happens, – in the words of 19th century pastor:

“When your will is God’s will, you will have your will.”

C.H.Spurgeon

Let us pray as Jesus prayed in the garden, not my will, but your will be done. When we can honestly pray this prayer, we will be leaning on Him for everything, and the Holy Spirit will give us a peace that passes all understanding! This is our duty, to put our full and utmost trust in Him, acknowledge Him in everything we do, and He will direct our paths.