All right, well, we are continuing our progression through the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is our church's subordinate standard to scripture, for what we believe, a profession of the perspective we're coming from. And we have been going through chapter two, which is a very, very rich and meaty chapter. more than possibly any of the others because for its subject it has God and the Holy Trinity. And I'm just going to read paragraph one again to catch us back up. There's just a long list of the attributes of God here in chapter two, paragraph one. And on some nights we'll cover several at once. Last week, we just spent our whole time focused only on God's immutability, what it means that our God is an unchangeable God. And today we're gonna cover a couple more, but still a small section here. So this is chapter two of the Westminster Confession of Faith of God and of the Holy Trinity. There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory. most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and with all most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. So today we're gonna dial in on those three words following immutable, just picking up right where we left off. We're going to look at how God is immense, eternal. and incomprehensible. Immense, eternal, and incomprehensible. So first, God is immense. I'm just going to read the two proof texts that the Westminster Divines gave us for defending their position as to why they say that God is an immense God. And then we'll get into some discussion. So the first proof text they list is 1 Kings 8, 27. But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have builded. So God, of course, dwells uniquely in the temple in Israel. He dwells uniquely in us today. We are the temple as the church of Christ, but he cannot be bound in those places. Not even the heaven of heavens can contain God. And then Jeremiah 23 verses 23 and 24 is their second proof text. Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord Yahweh, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord Yahweh? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord Yahweh. So God's immensity is one of his attributes that is really an aspect of something else that we've already discussed and been over. His immensity is an aspect of his infinity. So we've already talked about God being an infinite God. There is no beginning or end to him. He is unbound. He is unending, He is unlimited. In a word, He's infinite in being and perfection, as the Westminster Divines have already said. And immensity, that word immensity, is God's infinity as it relates to space. So space is, you know, what we can see. It's different than time. That's his eternality, and we'll get to that in a moment. But immensity is God's infinity relative to space. And it's another aspect of God that I think is very difficult for us to understand, if we're being frank, because it's a way that he's very unlike us. We are not immense. Relatively speaking, human beings are tiny, tiny creatures. Has anyone here ever seen either a picture or one of those videos where it kind of shows you how big a person is compared to all these other things like here's a person Here's a mountain, here's a planet, here's a solar system. Okay, some of y'all have seen that. If you haven't seen one of those, especially kids, ask your parents. You gotta see one of these pictures or videos. It's really unbelievably eye-opening how small we are compared to so many other things. I watched one of those videos as I was preparing for tonight, and even though I've probably seen them five or six times before, it just kind of blew my mind how little we really are. When you compare the size of a person to something like a planet, It's just, our minds can't even make sense of it. I just did a quick internet search to try to get some more scientific perspective on this size issue that we're talking about here. And just a couple quick notes here. One source I read says that if you were to compare a human to the observable universe, So that's all the stars and galaxies and planets and stuff that scientists have ever been able to see or even think that they know are out there with their telescopes and all their fancy equipment. If you were to compare one human to the observable universe, it would be like comparing a single grain of sand to the entire earth. That's just, it doesn't even make sense in our minds. We don't have a way to compare things that are so unequal. It's just unbelievable almost. It really is, as the divines will say about God in a moment, it's incomprehensible. We can't fully understand it. The difference between a human and the known universe Compare that then to the difference between a human and God. Or even say the difference between a human and a known universe, which is tiny compared to big, to the difference in the entire universe and God as immensity is taken into account. There's still no comparison between the two because the difference between the whole known universe and God is infinitely more different than us, that little grain of sand and the whole known universe. It just becomes even more wild for our brains to think about. How could God be that much higher and bigger and greater and more powerful? than the whole known universe. How can he be bigger than the earth compared to a little grain of sand? But he is. God is the one who, without a single word, without breaking a sweat, without challenging himself at all, created the heavens and the earth. Not just the known universe. All that the scientists can see is just a little sliver of what actually exists. But God, without breaking a sweat, created the heavens and the earth. He created more stars and planets and trees and animals and galaxies and plants than we even know exist. We've been here for over 6,000 years now, and we have not even discovered all the things that God created and put on our earth, much less what he put in other places in his world. He is infinitely greater than anything that He created. And we don't even know the tenth of what He created, I think. Maybe we don't even know the hundredth or the thousandth. I don't know. But clearly God must be immense. This is the God that, in maybe more terms that we can understand a little better, that measured out all the waters of the earth in the hollow of His hand, and He weighed the mountains in a scale. Even that's hard for us to understand. How could God just take up the Appalachian Mountains that we're in and put it on a scale and, ah, yes, that looks right. It's just mind boggling to us. But God's immensity, it's not just about his size. It's not even really mainly about his size because God doesn't really have a size per se. Remember, God doesn't have a body. He's a pure spirit. He's without parts. So these discussions about size, what they do is they really just help us in a small way to grasp how amazing and unlike us God really is. All these ways that God communicates with measuring out the waters of the earth, Things like that, they're ways that God accommodates to us, like we discussed recently. He's coming down to our level and speaking, giving us a picture that we can kind of grasp so that we can worship Him rightly and love Him truly. But really, God's immensity is another way, more properly, of describing His omnipresence, His transcendence, and His power. We'll dial into that word omnipresence for a minute. Omnipresence just means that God is everywhere. Omni means all, and presence is like where we get our word presence, or we can say place. He's in all places at all times. Commenting on God's immensity, R.C. Sproul says this, wherever he is, God is present in his fullness, eternality, immutability, simplicity, omniscience, and omnipotence. All of God is present because he is one, It is not the case that part of him is in one place and part of him is in another place, as if he were spread thin. Wherever he is, which is everywhere, he is all there. So that's what immense, I think, is driving it most importantly here, is that God is everywhere. And we're not like God, as we said. First, the first thing we talked about was how small we are compared to how immense God must be. We're small. But secondly, we're always in one place at one time. Always. And then thirdly, even if like in a weird sense, sometimes we might say we could be in more than one place at one time, our whole being cannot be in more than one place at one time. Now, what am I talking about here? There are funny things that we can do to kind of act like we're in different places. Has anyone here ever traveled to that four corner spot in America where you have the four states that touch? Okay, we do, we have someone that's done it. So you've got Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. And the way that the geography is, they all line up to one point. And you can put your body like this, and you can be in all four states at one time. Of course, that's nothing like what God is when he's everywhere. Because God's without parts. When you're in New Mexico, only your legs in New Mexico. But when God's in New Mexico, all of God's in New Mexico. And at the same time, all of God is in China. At the same time, all of God is in all of the space that he created. He's always there and he can't be split up. Remember, God is simple. He's not composed of a bunch of different things. He's simple. When Psalm 139 says that if I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. David's praying and he's comforting himself. And he's also giving a warning, I think, prophetically to people that think that they could escape from God's presence. He's saying anywhere that you could go or even those places that you can't go, but you can imagine someone going. Because of course, David couldn't go to the depths of the sea. He couldn't go to the lowermost parts of hell. He couldn't ascend to heaven. He said, no matter where you go, God is there. The Bible is telling us that God's one and indivisible presence is everywhere. I'm going to read a little bit of a longer excerpt here that I thought was so helpful from Dutch reformed theologian Louis Burkhoff on this topic. He says, in a certain sense, the terms immensity and omnipresence as applied to God denote the same thing and can therefore be regarded as synonyms. Yet there is a point of difference that should be carefully noted. Immensity points to the fact that God transcends all space and is not subject to its limitations. While omnipresence denotes that he nevertheless fills every part of space with his entire being. The former emphasizes the transcendence, that God's above everything. He's not bound by anything. and the latter, the eminence of God that he's in and through all things. So transcendence and eminence. God is eminent in all his creatures, in his entire creation, but is in no way bounded by it. In connection with God's relation to the world, we must avoid on one hand, Burkhoff says, the error of pantheism. Pantheism is thinking that everything's part of God. so characteristic of a great deal of present day thinking, he says, with its denial of the transcendence of God and its assumption that the being of God is really just the substance of all things. And on the other hand, we must avoid the deistic conception that God is indeed present in creation with his power, but not present with his very being and nature. and acts upon the world from a distance. Though God is distinct from the world and may not be identified with the world, he is yet present in every part of his creation, not only in his power, but also in his being." That's a lot of big words and Berkhoff is really drawing a tightly reasoned argument, but what we can see here is Berkhoff saying, God is not bounded by anything at all. He's totally free, but he is at the same time in everything. God is everywhere. And we have to avoid the two errors, one of denying that God is imminent, that he is a totally dispassionate, aloof creator God who is not intimately involved with his creation. That's one error we have to avoid. And the other error denying his transcendence, that he's so intimate with his creation that he loses that transcendence, that he loses that separateness and aboveness that he has with us. God is both separate from us and with us, so he's not confused and intermingled, but he's not distant either. These are very intense, heady Things and not something we can always grasp all at once but things to meditate on for some time So we see in God's Word. He is he is immense He is omnipresent. We cannot hide from God and he has not hidden himself from us Because he is everywhere Before I go on any questions about immensity That's right, we can't see him because he's invisible which we discussed two weeks ago and All right, let's look at his God being eternal, his eternality. The proof text that the divines put for this is Psalm 90 verse two, before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. And then 1 Timothy 1 17 is a praise that Paul gives. Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. We could cite a lot of other verses too, but the divines were limited. They didn't want to put 15 verses on each one of these attributes of God. Another one that came to my mind was Isaiah 57. He's the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity. So what does it mean for God to be eternal? This one might be a concept we're a little more familiar with or a little more comfortable grasping an idea of. Immensity is maybe not something we talk about all the time, but God being eternal, we might think about that a little bit more. Does anyone wanna take a whack at what it means for God to be eternal? He never dies. That's absolutely right. God never dies. Anything else? Well, yes, Jesus died. We'll have to put a pin in that, and we'll talk about that later, how Jesus died and God did not die. But he never dies. Well, think about it this way. God never dying, and God was, what were you saying, Abby? God was what? Oh, he wasn't born. Yes, exactly. Exactly, God wasn't born. So that's God not dying is I think easier for us to understand even than God not being created or God not being born. Do we have anyone here that's really good at math or really likes math? You do? Okay, okay. I'll ask a question and if you don't know it, get Mr. White to help you because I've heard he's also very good at math. This might be a little advanced, but I'm gonna throw it out there. What's the difference between a line in geometry and a ray? Do you know? A ray has no end, that's right. But does it have a beginning? It does, a ray has a beginning, but no ending. But what about a line? A line has no beginning and no end. And it's easy for us, I think, in one sense to understand things like a ray. Okay, this thing began at this time and it just keeps going on forever. We kind of get that like the Energizer bunny. He starts, but he doesn't stop. But it's very difficult for our minds to understand a line in geometry that has no beginning and no end and continues on forever and ever in either direction. That's a more accurate picture of what God is like. We know God has no end, but he also has no beginning. That's also incomprehensible. We can't understand it fully. I think it's even more incomprehensible than God being immense. How could God have existed forever and ever and ever? What we might think, I've asked this question myself. Well, if he existed forever, what was he doing for all those trillions and trillions and trillions of years? Why did he wait so long to create the heavens and the earth? Only these last 6,000 years we've existed. There is no way for our feeble, limited and sin marred brains to understand something like this. We can also ask things like, was there even such a thing as time? Did the passage of time occur before the heavens and earth were created? Was there such a thing as past, present and future? Could we even speak of past, present and future before God's great work of creation? Some theologians and philosophers have asserted that time is just like space in this way. See, there was nothing material, there was no world, there was no angels, there was no heavens, there was no stars and galaxies, and then God created and it all came into being. There was no space and then there was space. So some theologians and philosophers have said that time is just like that. Just like there was no physical universe, there also was no time. Well, every Bible-believing pastor and theologian believes there was no physical universe prior to God creating it. And many say that there was also no time, that to God, everything was present. It was an unending present, that there was no past, there was no future. And we know, of course, He is the great I am. He is eternal. He does exist completely outside the bounds of time. But I will be completely honest with you. I've read the Bible a lot. I've read a lot of philosophy and theology. And at the end of the day, what I have to say about this particular question of Was there a time before time? I have to just repeat the words of the late R.C. Sproul who said, that is an interesting point for speculation. And then he moved on. And I think if he's allowed to say that, I'm allowed to say that too. So I don't know how to answer. the time-specific questions about eternity. And I know those questions do come up, but I want you to know that we don't have to have answers to those questions. And they're not the most important aspects of what it means for God to be eternal. I don't think we should have answers necessarily even. What is most important for us to know about God being an eternal God is that there was never a point when he did not exist, and there will never be a point when he will not exist. That's the most important thing. God is the original to all our being. He is the source of everything. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He is dependent on no one. God doesn't rely on anyone for his existence. We've got babies and little children in this congregation. They rely on people. And we adults will admit, if we really are being honest, we rely on people for our existence. God doesn't rely on anyone. He never gets old. Never. God never gets tired. He never has to take a nap because he's tired. He is in no way affected by the passage of time. He is pure being in himself. To use some philosophical language, God is necessary and everything else is contingent. That means that God, by him being God, must exist. That fact is always true. But we, we don't have to exist. We're contingent. We exist out of God's good grace to us. We exist because God has willed it. And if God chose not to will it, we would not exist. but God will always exist no matter what and everything else, everything else in the heavens and the earth relies on God for existence. Can anyone tell me, here's a big theological question, why God being eternally existent is necessary for the universe to exist? Why do we have to have an eternal God to have a universe? Okay, I've got Lizzie and Brittany. So whoever wants to go first. I was gonna say, if he didn't sustain us, we would just disappear. That's absolutely true. If he did not sustain us, then we would disappear. But why did he have to exist all that time before we existed? He's not made of the same substance as the universe. Exactly. He's not made of the same substance as the universe. If he were, then the universe couldn't exist. Because how could the universe create itself? The thing is, if anything exists at all, then something has to have always existed. There can't be no eternality. And this is the problem with the evolutionary theory of the Big Bang. They'll concede now there was a beginning to the universe. For a long time, the atheists believed in what's called the steady state model of the universe, that we had always existed, that the universe was the eternal reality. But then they realized, well, actually, once we did some real science and not just thinking in our minds, this is not possible. Everything points to a beginning. Then they said, well, what happens before the beginning? And atheists know that out of nothing, nothing comes. So then they had to say, well, before anything really, really existed, it all kind of existed in one little compressed point in space and time, and then it all exploded. Well, what caused the explosion? Ah, we're not sure about that. Well, what caused all the matter to be existing to begin with or compressed? Well, we don't know that yet. Well, it's just a infinite regressive argument. You can't have anything if something hasn't always existed. And that's a big truth, but it's true. This is what Sproul says. If anything exists, then something has always existed. If there ever was absolutely nothing, then nothing could possibly be now, because you can't get something out of nothing. Conversely, if there is something now, then that in itself demonstrates that there always was something. And that which always is, exists in and of itself. That is a great explanation for God's existence. If there is anything, there always was something. And if the universe had a beginning, it can't be the thing that always was. It has to be something outside of the universe. And of course, that is God. Yes, Benjamin. Can you tell me after? Tell me after, okay? Let's go to our third aspect here, our third attribute of God that we're gonna look at, that God is incomprehensible. And the proof text here is just one. Psalm 145 verse three, great is the Lord Yahweh and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. His greatness is unsearchable. Or as John Calvin says, the finite cannot contain the infinite. So we are finite. We are limited by so many things and we will all die one day. We cannot contain in our minds or in our beings, the infinite that is God. And I think if we had any doubt about this fact that God is so much greater than us that we cannot contain all of him, I think that our discussion of God's immensity and eternity has helped us realize that that is very true. We cannot know or contain all that God is. God is incomprehensible. Now someone might ask, well, if God is incomprehensible, then what are we doing here? Why are we studying something that's incomprehensible? Are you just making stuff up? Are we just doing our best at guessing at who this God is? Well, the Westminster divines, when they said that God was incomprehensible, they did not mean, very clearly did not mean that he is unknowable. What they meant was that no one can understand God exhaustively or completely. No one can know all that there is to know about God. You can never get to the bottom of God or to the end of God. There's always more to learn and more to see and more to wonder at. but we can have sure and certain knowledge about God. We can know who God is. Every single person in the world can know about God because of his revelation, because he has chosen to reveal himself to us. God shows us who he is every day. Now, without God revealing himself to us, he would be hidden from our eyes completely because he is so much greater than us and he is invisible. But God has chosen to reveal himself to his creatures. What are some ways that God reveals himself to us every day? What are some ways that we see God? Abby? It's tough to put into words. Yeah, he was never born. But what's a way that we can today see God's existence? Yes. Yes, that's right. God is still today forgiving us for our sins. It's not just only something he did in the past, but we can see that God is merciful. What else? Conscience. We have something within us. that natural science and atheistic philosophy can't explain. And everyone knows is in their conscience that tells us when we're doing something wrong or that reveals to us that certain things are true. Like I exist and you exist and God exists. We know that God exists because he's written it on our hearts that he exists and he requires certain things of us. Yes. Discernment. Okay. What do you mean by discernment? Yeah, yeah, your conscience for sure and the whole concept of what even is a mind that is totally inexplainable from just materialism. What about the world that we can see. What are some ways that we can see with our eyes that God exists? Yeah, through his creation. Like, how in the world could such a thing as a human being exist? Or how could, you know, something as complex as like an eye evolve over time? Or who could think of such a beautiful thing as a mountain in the fall? It's simple, but I mean, without God, this would just be, we'd have no concept of beauty. And it would almost just seem like it's gratuitous, you know, but it's beautiful because beauty exists for God's glory. So we, all these things outside of us, inside of us, every single person can see that God exists. There are two broad ways that God reveals himself to us, two broad categories that we can think about. One is what theologians call general revelation. That's through the outside creation. We can look at things and think, I mean, even the most hardened person who doesn't believe in God, when they look up at the Northern lights, or when they look out at an ocean, they're drawn to something, a feeling of worship. They're drawn to a higher power, they might say, They're drawn to something above themselves, something higher than themselves. So we see this general revelation through the outside creation and through our conscience. through what is inside us, in our heart. And then there's also special revelation. Special revelation is where God reveals himself through the prophets, the apostles, through Christ himself, through the special operations of the spirit, and of course today, ultimately and mainly, he reveals himself through his word. That's special revelation, the word of God. Different. than God revealing himself through watching a tree grow or looking at the vastness of the sea. But they're both ways that God reveals himself. But we know that we cannot come close to mastering or learning every nook and cranny of the creation. We cannot come close to knowing all that there is to know in the Bible. The Bible is not a terribly large thing. But we all will attest that you're never going to get to the bottom of this mine of gold. You're never going to get all the treasure out of here in this life. But even if we did, even if we knew the entire Bible by heart and had the perfect interpretation of every single passage, we would only have fully comprehended that special revelation. which God's word in Deuteronomy 29 says that is for us and for our children forever. But even if we had all of the Bible mastered perfectly, Deuteronomy 29 also says very clearly that there are still secret things that belong to God, that he has kept to himself, that he has not revealed to any one of us. So even a perfect knowledge, even of the Bible would not be a complete knowledge of everything that could be known about God. There are things that are not in the Bible that are true of God. You know that, right? The Bible is everything we need for faith, for godliness, for living the life that God has granted us, but he has not put every single knowledge of his character in this book. And it's one of the great things about heaven is that we'll keep learning more and more and more about God. We won't just be in a stasis where we only know what we knew on earth, or we only know what was revealed in his word, but we'll learn some of those secret things. A lot of times when I'm out doing evangelism, I point out this fact to people that we all can know certain things about God. Everyone. If you are evangelizing, there are a lot of great places in the Bible to start off. You can start with creation. You can start with the fact that we're all sinners. Or you can start with the fact that God exists and we can know it. Romans 1 tells us this, that what may be known of God is manifest to men for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse. Paul says that even wicked men and even men who have never once heard the name of Jesus Christ can clearly see that an eternal, powerful, and personal God exists and is worthy of worship. Everyone can look at the created world and realize clearly that this couldn't have all come from nothing. Someone powerful had to create this. Because to create a universe, you'd have to be unbelievably powerful. And you'd have to exist, you'd have to be eternal, because number one, to create the physical world, you have to exist before the physical world existed. And then number two, like we discussed earlier, this God would have always had to exist. Because if he didn't always exist, then nothing would have come. So everyone can know, even the hardened unbeliever living in another country that doesn't have a Bible translated in their language, they can know that God's eternal. They can know that God is all powerful. They can know that God is personal. He's not just some imminent, vague force. He's not just some distant and aloof higher power. Everyone within their conscience can know that there's a personal God with whom they will have to give an account one day. You can know this by, like we said earlier, looking outside of the world, looking at the fine-tuning of creation, looking within yourself when it witnesses to the truth, even when you don't want to believe it. Just by living life with other people made in His image, you can know that this God is a personal, powerful God. The knowledge, power, freedom, creativity, and consciousness needed to design and make and sustain and govern our world would be truly impossible with an impersonal force, with something vague. So God being incomprehensible does not mean that he is unknowable. It just means that we will never know it all. Even in eternity, this is the amazing thing, even though we will live those trillions and trillions of years in eternity, we'll never Stop learning about God. We'll never graduate. And ah, I know everything there is to possibly be known about God and His creation. There will always be more because God is infinite in His being and in His perfection. He is immense. He is eternal. He is incomprehensible. Think about our Old Testament reading from the last Lord's Day. We read, for those of us who are not here with us, we read Job 38, and God's just describing to Job all these things that Job doesn't know. Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Have you seen the storehouses of hail and snow that I have? Have you seen the mountain goats give birth? Have you seen the waters in the great deep? Have you seen all these things? Do you know where I send forth the rain and the lightning? Of course, these are all rhetorical. Job doesn't know a single one of them. God is incomprehensible. All the secrets that he has have not been revealed to us, but they still serve his glory, and they still serve to make him worthy of worship, and they still serve to sustain us in this life and in our faith. The intricacy and beauty and power of God is an amazing thing. Even the parts that we don't know, we can still glorify God and thank him for. So surely our God is an immense, Eternal and incomprehensible God. All right. What questions do we have about any of that whatsoever? Maybe there's a point that you're confused about and you don't even know how to frame a question. You can just lob out. I don't understand this. All right.