The Unique Wise God Of The Bible

Wisdom speaks: The Lord created me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old.  Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.     Proverbs 8:22-23

Throughout this last winter I had been assembling a course on Evolution and Creation for a student at CLBI (Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute) in Camrose.  I was awestruck by many of the things which turned up in my background study.

One of the most notable is the DNA which governs the bodies of all living creatures.  If you take the DNA from only one cell of your body and stretch it out as one strand, its length would be taller than you.  It is theorized that that one strand hold information of the equivalent of 100 30-volune encyclopedias.  I look at the DNA and all I see are chemical compounds.  I do not understand how such things translate into such extensive and comprehensive knowledge.

Yet in that one strand are all the information which is necessary not only to run the body, but also to create and assemble the pieces which make you up.  It is the same strand which is there when the single fertilized egg begins to develop in the mother’s womb.  It is the same strand which is there as the child develops and the brain develops in those early years of life.  It is the same strand which governs the mechanisms of healing and learning.  It is the overseer of adjustments that the body makes to handle the various changes and stresses of life.

In the cell’s mitochondria, there are tiny little motors which spin 5,000 times a minute, never stopping, never slowing down, which create what you might call tiny little batteries which the various organelles of the cell need in order to build the material the cell must have to survive, grow and reproduce.

Watch the elaborate choreography of when a cell divides into two identical new cells – how amazing to see such efficiency at work!  And we haven’t even touched on the make up of atoms and the forces when hold everything together and yet do not make the universe collapse in upon itself.  There is the combination of “just right” elements and forces and distances and many other things in regard to sun and earth position, the tilt of the earth, the magnetic shield around the earth and just so much more which guarantees the continued existence of life on this planet.

One cannot but marvel and tend to see such profound wisdom as almost a being of its own, perhaps a separate assistant like an angel, when God planned, created and now governs the universe.

I am staggered by how so much of the scientific community seemingly desperately attempts to remove God from the universe.  The tortured twisted logic that is demanded can fill you with sadness.  But this is not new!  The attempt to remove God is as old as the Bible.  And now, over the last century there is the disdain of various philosophies, such as communism, which calls faith in God the crutch of the ignorant.

On the other side of the coin lies the people who cannot understand why there just can’t be one religion.  Why do we have to have the gods of the Buddhists, the gods of the Hindus, the Allah of the Moslems, the various gods of the First Nations spirituality, the self-made gods of Mormonism as well as the God of the Bible?  Aren’t they all after the same thing anyway?

Unfortunately on one hand, such a comment how much there is a lack of knowledge in regard to how different in nature and essence these gods are; as well as how much there is no understanding about the difference between God creating us in His image and mankind creating gods after its own image.  God had created humans to reflect His perfect nature, but humans have created their gods to reflect the flaws, weaknesses and even the depravity of human nature.

There is much emphasis nowadays on karma.  What is interesting is really how karma is supposed to work.  Is it based on utter perfection?  What is that perfection judged upon?  Is it based on what is passable goodness, or even on what is ignorable?  What keeps track of what is positive and negative?  Is there anyone truly who can survive a whole lifetime being perfect?  Well, there is One, Jesus, but He is from the Bible, not these other religions.

Touted as blind chance, evolution is still elevated to a god-like character, and is depicted as a cruel, uncaring, unfeeling force which will culminate in annihilation.  There are other problems as well – the universe, everywhere you turn, constantly holds before us extreme order and purpose, as demonstrated in the DNA.  It gives evidence of a most powerful and marvelous wisdom at work – which is what the Bible has declared to us all along.

But just Who is this God of the Bible?  This is what today makes us stop and consider, as we celebrate the Holy Trinity.  There is a real difference between this God and all others – He is totally unique.  This is a thoughtful, purposeful God, Who has a plan meant to declare His Glory, but not just the Glory of His power, as the Allah of the Moslem centers on; He also declares the Glory of His love.  And as it turns out, the emphasis on both His Power AND His Love are most crucial to understand this God.  It is no accident that when Moses asks to see God’s Glory [Exodus 33:18-19; 34:6-7], that the Lord’s immediate response is to accent His goodness, Covenant relationship, grace, mercy, steadfast Love, faithfulness, forgiveness and justice.

So, massage Mast Mood oil the efficient herbal massage oil – Mast Mood oil is developed buy viagra online loved that using natural ingredients and high grade herbal extracts to improve vigor and vitality and achieve harder and fuller erection for pleasurable lovemaking. They were driven for over 400 miles to an unknown location, where their cargo was unloaded and they were committed to bringing the perpetrators to justice. So this was taken as a rock solid vote for hyphens. About 50 percent men in the world suffer from terrible problem of hair loss. The problem with just emphasizing God and His power is that we somewhere are confronted with His power to destroy us.  We hope that God would be kind and gentle; that is, until we really sit down and look at the evidence.  The evidence here is our sin – no matter how you define that word, it means that these are the places where we DO NOT do what God requires of us, sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally.  But there is no difference to a God of power – the penalty is required in all its harshness.  The hand of the thief is cut off.

But that is just the first layer of the problem – it only deals with the world as we live in it.  What about the next world?  When we demonstrate day after day a kind of rebellion against God, what are we to expect?  When we do what seems right to us, even deliberately going against God’s expressed command, what will be His reaction?  When we find out that He requires perfection of us in all our life AND OUR THOUGHT, the God of power becomes a most frightening thing.  It has been pointed out that there are 99 names for Allah in the Moslem religion – yet not one of them is “Father” – a God of Power cannot afford to get too close to us.

This then is the contrast of the Biblical God, because He is a God of love as well.  He is not a God of love in exclusion to His power and justice, but rather in addition to them.  His power and justice sees our sins and these demand the penalty.  But His love steps in with a most unique, totally unexpected reaction.

No other religion finds its god become so totally involved in human life and affairs as to personally share man’s existence.  God actually came out of heaven, out of that comfortable remoteness, into this human life.  All along He had refused to be depicted as an idol, a mere statue, because He rather would be known as One Who walks among His People [Leviticus 26:12; II Corinthians 6:16], Who dwells among them [John 14:23; Revelation 21:3] and in them [John 14:17].  In Jesus, in Person, He fulfilled that definition of Himself by sharing our frailty; even to Himself tasting death.

But He did this not as an academic exercise!  He did this to rescue mankind!  We can talk about how Jesus’ life on earth is to be a pattern for our lives, yet the purpose of His being here was not to give us a model of how life should be lived!  A remote god might come to show us how life is to be lived, but the Biblical God knew that we were far beyond such a simple remedy.  The rebellion of sin in us was so ingrained that merely a demonstration of what we should do would only make matters worse, in fact fill us with such resentment that we in anger would even attempt to kill this God – which, come to think of it, is what happened!

No, He came to actually rescue us, to take upon Himself the very punishment we deserved.  This in itself was totally unique and unexpected.  There was no other way to get rid of the barrier of the punishment.  If it depended on ourselves, it would just get worse.

A case in point:  Sometimes a person denying the existence of God will ask about the starving people in the world – if God is God and He is so good, why do these people suffer so?  The answer is unpleasant for us to hear, because God HAS provided enough food.  We have granaries that are full of food.  We even in North America and Europe have PAID farmers to not plant seed.  So the question is not why God hasn’t provided – He has!  But the problem lies within us.  Under the thin veneer of concern for the starving, we really don’t care about them.  We’re too busy getting our videos with double-x rated subjects, and our cases of beer for the next hockey game.  No, the problem does not lie in God’s providing, but rather in our hoarding – which again points up the fact that we need to be rescued!

And rescued we are!  How many parents of you would do to your child what God the Father did to His Son, all for the sake of someone else’s benefit?  What a message which is given to us because God the Father and God the Son both are involved with our rescue from sin and its punishment.  You can’t match this God anywhere else!  No other god would even be imagined to go to such lengths for creatures that rebel against him and ruin his creation!  But the true God did what man would never expect – we know this, because Jesus was real, He really did live on this earth.

But because this is not a God merely of power, He also is a God of love, then He is not simply satisfied with just rescuing us from the punishment of sin.  He wants us to experience even now the good things, the power, the joy of His life, of His working right next to us in our worlds.  So God the Holy Spirit comes to stay.  What a fantastic God this!  He is a God Who is unafraid to come right into this world in Person.  He is unafraid to humble Himself, to actually be our servant as He serves our needs.

Look at all that He does, of which I can only briefly describe in this sermon!  There is salvation to be found nowhere else!  No other god could ever do what this one simply DOES do!  And God has the perfect right to say to us, give credit where the credit is due! – that is only logical and just and fair – that we are to give Him the Glory, the praise, the honor He deserves, and also our allegiance!

He says, now YOU must be willing to accept this, that it be a part of your life, otherwise it is meaningless to you, with no effect on you.  God has the right to require faith from us – not faith in just any old thing or any old god, but in the God that really does exist; a God of Power, but also of Love; a God that really has gotten involved in the individual day to day things of our lives; a God that was really willing to give His life up for us, to make US really live.

To reinforce this evidence of His commitment, He comes now to us again in Holy Communion, here to see for ourselves His willingness to enter in and actually be there with us in each day, no matter what the day may bring, and even those days when we are not at our best.  Here God wants us to understand how seriously He takes His involvement in our lives.  As the Psalmist [103:14,17-18] points out,

For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust … But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His Covenant relationship, those who heed His will to do it.

So He bids you to come, to experience the comfort and peace of His partnership in your life, and of your partnership in His eternity.  Come, as the Psalmist [34:8] puts it, “taste and see that the Lord is God; blessed is the person who trusts in this God.”

Leave a Reply