The only true God is revealed in Scripture rather than in popular imagination. Using John 17 and related passages, the sermon asks who God is, whether He can be discovered, whether He has fully revealed Himself, and how He may be known. God's power and wisdom are seen in creation, yet His fullest revelation is found in Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God. The conclusion argues that God is known truly only through Christ and by believing His self-revelation.
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Welcome to the Emmaus Bible Hour. This is a program for you and your family, a time to open the Bible and see what God has to say to us through His Word. Greetings, everyone.
This is your teacher Ken Engle again, and it's good to be together for the second lesson in the series on what the Bible teaches. Today brings us to lesson number two. Today we're thinking of God, the God of the Bible. Let me say by way of introduction that the modern God, the popular God of Christendom, is certainly not the God of the Bible. You know, we hear people today talk glibly about God in a rather detached and careless way. It makes us wonder what God they're talking about. There are false gods abroad, and the popular God, I'm afraid, is far removed from the God who is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.
Now, by way of a text, let's think about John seventeen three. That's John chapter seventeen and verse three. And our Lord says, and I'm reading, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Now let's center our thoughts for a moment on this expression, the only true God. This suggests that there are other gods that are untrue, that are false. But we're thinking today of the only true God. And I'd like to raise four very important questions. Number one, who is God? Number two, is he discoverable?
Number three, has he fully revealed himself? And number four, if so, how may I know him? Now question number one, Who is this only true God? Well, if you'll refer to your manual under the nature of God, you'll see an array of scriptures that express to us the nature of God. And on page eight, we have a section on his attributes. Now it's very important that we read these scriptures. They're not spelled out in our manual. They're referred to. For example, we read that God is a Spirit, John four, twenty-four.
We read that God is a person, Matthew eleven, twenty-five, and other scriptures. God is one, and yet has expressed himself in a triunity of personalities, consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although the doctrine of the Trinity is something that we cannot reduce to reason, It transcends reason, and it certainly is the truth of the Holy Scriptures. Now, it will be necessary for us to read carefully and ponder the Scriptures under number four, the Trinity, and then His attributes. I want you to look up these passages, and I believe that if you meditate upon these great declarations of the Bible, we will arrive at an adequate knowledge of the only true God.
Now question number two that I have before me today is this. Is this God discoverable? And in answer to this question I would say, yes, he is, but only partially. When I say discoverable, I mean discernible, discoverable by man. For example, God has revealed himself in creation. Matthew nineteen verses one and two, I think underline this fact. I read in Matthew nineteen One and two, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. This is confirmed by Romans one, where we read in verses nineteen and twenty that God has manifested himself even to the pagan world by way of creation.
We read that the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they, that is the heathen, are without excuse. And so you see both Old Testament and New Testament corroborate the fact that God has partially revealed Himself in creation. How utterly unreasonable it is to dismiss the concept of a supreme being. To conclude that we have a product without a producer, that we have a design without a designer, violates reason. The more we get to know the vastness, the complexities of this creation of ours, the more we're convinced that behind it all is one great omniscient and omnipotent worker.
He is the living God, so that there is no excuse for the pagans to bow down to gods of their own producing. And then, too, man, despite his fallen condition, still dimly reflects his Creator. Inasmuch as man knows, man wills and man loves. I say in spite of the fact that man is a sinful creature and far, far removed from the condition in which he was originally created, yet he still has intelligence. This intelligence which man has, which distinguishes him from the brute that has mere instinct, I say man's intelligence is a dim reflection of the omniscience of his great Creator.
And then too man wills and he determines. This too is a faint reflection of the sovereign God who worketh all things after his own will. Furthermore man loves. He has a capacity for loving. Here again is a reflection of the one who made him and who is revealed in the Bible as love. Furthermore man is a gift of speech. This is another distinction that marks him out as being superior to the animal, who cannot communicate by means of speech. The God who made man with an ability to speak, he himself speaks, and communicates his thoughts to his creatures.
But while creation reveals his power and wisdom, and the law of Moses reveals his righteousness, yet these are only partial revelations of himself. It's only the incarnation and the cross that reveal fully his heart. So this brings us to question number three. Has this God, this only true God, fully revealed himself? And the answer is a glorious yes. In John I, we have these words. No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. And in Colossians one-five we read that Christ is the image of the invisible God. And this is confirmed by Hebrews one, verses one and two. God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world, who, being in the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
These three texts then clearly declare that God has fully and finally revealed Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as an artist reveals Himself in a production, piece of art that he produces, just as a musician reveals himself in the compositions that come from his skilled fingers, just as an author reveals himself in the book that he may write, so God has fully revealed himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has come to us in his manhood to reveal the very heart of God. While creation and the law reveal God partially, it's only in Christ that we can meet the very heart of God Himself.
So Christ, I repeat, is the full and conclusive revelation of the only true God. Our final question, all this being true, may I know this God? The answer is yes. In John fourteen six Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. In Hebrews eleven six bears this out by saying, Without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
How good to know that we can come as sinners as guilty sinners, acknowledge our ignorance, acknowledge our sin, and meet God in the Lord Jesus Christ, who brings us into the family of God by giving us his own life and his own nature. Now prepare for lesson number three. It deals with man, and God bless you as you do your tests and live his life in the power of his Holy Spirit. But John's word may be healing, Or a thorning that will be.
There be safety, and in Jesus, Are our patience, just for me. Oh, my loving brother, when the world's on fire, So do you want God's good luck? Will it be your hero? Fight me over in the Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages, left for me. When the dawning of that morning, gracious you'll be all the world. Rocks and mountains, rings and mountains, mid-conclusion will be heard. Oh, my loving brother, when the world's on fire, Don't be much I could come to be your pillow.
Hide me over in the rock of the ages. The cloud of ages left for thee. Wages trembling, days rejoicing, we keep our king to his place. For the ransom Christ will gather, we have saved them by his grace. All my loving brother, when the world's on fire, But you must have food come, to be your pillow.
Hide me over in the Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages, and for me, Rock of Ages. And for me, for me. Thank you.