Lesson 1: Thinking Right and God Incomprehensible

THEME: We should have a lofty concept of God, God is incomprehensible and an attribute is something true of God.

Proverbs 9:10 — The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

• Lesson 1: Thinking Right and God Incomprehensible
• Lesson 2: The Holy Trinity
• Lesson 3: The Self-Existence of God
• Lesson 4: The Self-Sufficiency of God, The Eternity of God
• Lesson 5: The Immutability of God, The Infinitude of God
• Lesson 6: The Wisdom and Omniscience of God
• Lesson 7: The Love and Grace of God
• Lesson 8: The Sovereignty and Holiness of God

The Knowledge of the Holy, Lesson #1: Introduction, God Incomprehensible

The loss of the concept of the majesty of God.

PARAGRAPH #2. LIST WAYS THE CHURCH HAS “SURRENDERED HER ONCE LOFTY CONCEPT OF GOD.”

• The concepts of Majesty & Holiness

  • MAJESTY: impressive stateliness, dignity, or beauty; 1 Chronicles 29:11; Psalm 104:1; Psalm 93:1; Psalm 145:5; Hebrews 1:3; Jude 1:25; Psalm 8:9; Hebrews 8:1
  • HOLINESS: “to be set apart.” God is also set apart from something — Set apart from any other name. God’s name is holy. His name is set apart from any other name in the entire universe. Set apart from His creation. God is not like anything or anyone He has created. Set apart from anything that is sinful or evil. In fact, this is what is stressed the most about God in the Bible. He is the most “holy,” and no one is as “holy” as He is. He is perfect.; Hab. 1:13; Ps 20:6--the heaven of his holiness; Ps 51:11; Le 21:8; Eze 43:8; Ac 4:30; 2Pe 2:21; 1Jo 2:20; Re 3:7

1. WHAT DO YOU SEE AS EVIDENCES OF OUR “UNAWARENESS”? of the Holiness and MAJESTY of God?

2. What effect does an awareness of the holiness have?

PARAGRAPH #5. TOZER POINTS OUT AN “ALARMING” DICHOTOMY BETWEEN THE EXTERNAL GAINS AND THE INTERNAL LOSSES OF THE CHURCH.

Gains Mostly external and losses internal ...

3. IN WHAT WAYS IS GOD WRONGLY thought about? [Ch. 1 Why we must think rightly about God?]

What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. [It influences every other part.]

• What is my witness concerning God.

The man who comes to a right belief about God is releived of 10,000 temporal problems.

• Is my concept of God worthy of him?

4. What is God like? [Ch. 2 God Incomprehensible]

• Roman, Greek, Babylong, Persian mythology -- grotesque
• Infinite Ps 147:5

Job 11:7 ¶ Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?

Pr 8:17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.

Jer 29:13 — And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

God is unsearchable but He is not unknowable. We can know Him as He reveals Himself to us.

• What has God disclosed of himself?

A Divine Attribute: Something True About God

A DEFINITION OF OF ATTRIBUTE: An attribute of God is whatever God has in any way revealed as being true of Himself. An attribute is something true of God.

• How Many Attributes are there of God?
  • Seven?
  • A thousand?
  • Numberless?

What is God like? What kind of God is He? How may we expect Him to act toward us and toward all created things?

Psalm 19:1 — The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork

Are you prepared to see God?

Matthew 5:8 — Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

"We must break ourselves of the habit of thinking of the Creator as we think of His creatures."

• Man changes and his character, traits come and go — are unstable.
• Man is made and therefore is the sum of the traits that make up his character.
• There is but one God; God is simple, uncomplex, one with Himself.
• The harmony of His being is the result not of a perfect balance of parts but of the absence of parts. Between His attributes no contradiction can exist.

"The doctrine of the divine unity means not only that He need not suspend one to exercise another, for in Him all His attributes are one. All of God does all that God does; He does not divide himself to perform a work, but works in the total unity of His being."

"The divine attributes are what we know to be true of God. He does not possess them as qualities; they are how God is as He reveals Himself to His creatures. Love, for instance, is not something God has and which may grow or diminish or cease to be. His love is the way God is, and when He loves He is simply being Himself."

What can we know about God? What He has disclosed about Himself.

• Israel Could know that God was among them.

Joshua 3:10 — And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. [1Sa 17:46]

- The people of the earth could know that God is mighty.

Joshua 4:24 — That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever

- God keeps His promises.

Joshua 23:14 — And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.

- God knows it all.

2Sa 14:20 — o fetch about this form of speech hath thy servant Joab done this thing: and my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.

- God alone is God.

1Ki 8:60 — That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else.

- And so much more ...