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Well, we're going to be looking
at Chapter 7 today in our study of the Holy Scriptures. Quick
question before we get started. This is going to require some
memory. How many of you, if you think
back to when you were a kid, okay, think back to when you
were a kid, And tell me, what was your favorite
excuse when you got caught doing something wrong? Oh, you weren't caught
doing anything wrong, is that what you're telling me? Okay. When you got caught doing something
wrong, what was one of your favorite excuses? You remember? No excuse. Yeah. Anybody else? Think back. The devil made me do it. Yeah.
Yeah. And in a roundabout way, he was
right, wasn't he? In a roundabout way, in the origination
of doing wrong, Flip Wilson was certainly right. But for most
situations, though, it doesn't require a whole lot of extra
encouragement to blame something on somebody else, does it? Now,
also think back, if you have children, what is one of their
favorite excuses for doing something wrong? Yeah. Well, the question was, who did
this? And what's the pat answer? They
did, he did, or we got it from our two boys, I don't know. I
said, if I ever get a hold to I don't know, we're going to
give him a good whipping too. But we'll find out and we'll
learn that as a result of the revelation of God to humankind,
there are no excuses. there are no excuses. And so
let's start by, last week, of course, we took, with Robbie,
we took a broad look at the revelation of God. And so the author says,
looking more specifically, we're going to be looking now, the
next two chapters, two types of divine revelation, general
revelation and special revelation. I kind of like to call the special
revelation specific revelation. But general revelation, the author
says, refers to what God has revealed about himself through
nature, through human intuition, through the conscience, and through
the general course of human history. Those are the four categories
that we'll be looking at this morning, is nature or creation,
human intuition, the conscience, and the general
course of human history. This is called general revelation
because it's given to everybody. It's given to all men. It's not
given to a specific person in a specific particular situation. But there are some limitations
to this general revelation. The author says it provides only
a limited or general revelation of God. And like I say, we're
going to be looking at four categories. of general revelation, and that
is creation, intuition. How many of you are very in tune
with your intuition? Depend on it a lot? Hmm. Conscience, and that is a very
controversial subject, especially in philosophical. circles, and
also we'll be looking at human history, how God has revealed
himself throughout the history of human beings. All right, let's
first look at the creation side. We certainly know that God is
the creator of all things. There's nothing that exists that
he did not create. He created everything that we
see physically. He created everything spiritually,
okay? He also created the heavens,
the earth, and all the inhabitants. So it shouldn't be strange that
we find God's fingerprints throughout all of his creation. Now, if
you think of it, the author calls it contemplating creation. If you sit and think about creation,
that's what he's talking about there, contemplating creation.
If you think about it any length of time, you can certainly affirm
that the existence and the power of God exists because of that
creation. Now let's look first at Psalms 19, one through four,
and we're gonna ask for the question, what does this teach us about
the revelation of God through creation? All right, verse one
says, the heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their
expanse is declaring the work of his hands. Day to day it pours
forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no
speech, nor are there words. Their voice is not heard. Their
line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances
to the end of the world. In them he has placed a tent
for the sun." So how in Man can affirm the existence of God through
creation. Creation more than adequately
declares not only the existence of God, it declares his glory,
as the scripture says, it declares his handiwork, it shows his handiwork.
Interesting, it kind of looks like there's a contradiction
in the passage there, but the note we should take from that Somewhat obvious contradiction,
is there no speech or language that is hidden from the silent
voice of God's creation? The author says there, if you
read that in verse two, that day to day the creation pours
forth speech. But in verse three we read that
there is no speech, nor are there words. Although no real voice
or even sound is heard, Creation is constantly giving testimony
to the glory of God. I don't know how you can look
at a beautiful sunset and not contemplate the existence of
God. I don't know how you can look at the multiple species
and subspecies of everything in the exact order and the way
they function interactively with one another and not understand
that this is God's handiwork. I come from a background where
you like to cover your bases by giving odds on things, okay? You think about creation and
how it all fits together and the fact that the earth is on
such a sensitive axis that all it's got to do is be off one
half of a degree one way or the other and nothing exists. You
think about that. You think about the power of
God that holds all of creation together. What are the odds of
that happening accidentally? Folks, it would be astronomical. at the odds of all that happening
accidentally. And we'll get into it a little
further. Creation is constantly giving testimony to the glory
of God, even though there is no voice, audible, and there's
no words that are heard, but it's constant. Let's look in
Romans 1, 19 and 20, and we'll see what Romans 1, 19 teaches
us about all men. Because that which is known about
God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them."
So our blanks are obvious here, aren't they? Our blanks are obvious. That which is known about God
is evident within them. And the author says this phrase,
within them, proves that God himself has imprinted this knowledge
upon the very heart of every man. Creation simply acts as a confirmation
of what men already know. You don't have to be convinced
by creation because the knowledge is already there. God imprinted
it on the hearts of men, but the creation is just a remarkable
confirmation of what men already know, that there is one true
God who's worthy of worship and obedience. And the second part
of that, for God made it evident. It's evident to all men that
God exists because God has made it evident to all men. And in
Scripture, there's two basic interpretations or meanings of
the word all. And in this case, it's defined
as every. Okay? In certain cases, let's
say, okay, money is the root of all evil. Okay? Well, it's certainly a root of
greed, you know, and that sort of thing. It can be a root of
jealousy, but there's a lot of evil that exists that has nothing
to do with money. It has nothing to do with money. That interpretation
of the word all means all sorts of. Okay, all sorts of. And so that's, it says it's evident to all men,
and in this interpretation, it means it's every man. And it's
there because God put it there. The knowledge is not dependent
upon man, just like everything else concerning the sovereignty
of God. It is a work of God. Okay. We don't have this knowledge
because it's something we learned. Okay. It's because God put it
there. It is a knowledge that is inherited
every man. And for this reason, every man
is without excuse on the day of judgment. Every man is without
excuse on the day of judgment. I don't know. I didn't know. It's not going to be an excuse.
That's the one I was after when my kids would tell me that. Who
did this? I don't know. I don't know. Well, I didn't know is not gonna
be an excuse when it comes to judgment time. All right, if
you look in Romans 1 20 now, let's go to the 20th verse here.
For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes,
his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen,
being understood through what has been made, that's creation,
so that they are without excuse. Again, no excuses, no excuses. His invisible, if you look at
that according to Romans 1 20, we can, it can be, what can be
known about God through his creation, we can know his invisible, attributes. Now, what would you think are
some of his invisible attributes? Creation, of course, is a visual,
right? Well, first of all, God is spirit,
correct? God is spirit, and no one has
seen him in the fullness of his glory. Scripture also testifies
that his attributes or characteristics can be known through what he's
made. But his eternal power and divine nature are his primary
invisible attributes. He says, it is evident that our
universe is not eternal, but had a beginning. It's evident
that our universe is not eternal, but had a beginning. What are
some of the evidence of that? Well, we see falling stars, don't
we? Part of the heavens, yeah, exactly. It's evident that our universe
did not possess the power or wisdom to bring itself out of
nothing. something from nothing. That's
what God creates. You ever tried to create anything
from nothing? Can't do it. Even the most talented artist
in the world can paint the most beautiful
picture. But what is that? Is that creating
something? I consider a remarkably talented
rearranger. The artist can take the paint
colors, they take the canvas, they take the brush, and they
rearrange all those elements to make something that's very
beautiful. But God actually created everything from absolutely nothing. Now that's divine power, is what
that is. All right, so there must have
been, the author says, a creator who preceded creation and is
not subject to his limitations. There's a God who is both eternal
and all-powerful. Interesting phrase here he uses,
an uncaused cause, an uncaused cause, an uncreated creator,
a being who simply is without beginning or end. And we learn
that, of course, in Genesis 1-1 when scripture tells us, in the
beginning, God. In the beginning, God. Now, let's
look in the book of Psalms. I don't know, do you have that
one, Will? Psalms 90 verse 2? Okay, I'll just read it. Before
the mountains were born, you gave birth to the earth and the
world, even from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. Now, it's obvious that God has
revealed himself to man through creation. This revelation ought
to lead us as humans to recognize the power of God and to worship
him as creator. But according to Romans 1, 21
through 23, the author says, how has man responded to God's
revelation through creation? Let's look at it, 21 through
23, says, for even though they knew God, they did not honor
him as God or give thanks, but they came futile in their speculations
and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became
fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for
an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds four-footed
animals and crawling creatures. They made their gods and their
idols patterned after shape, a part of God's creation. And
man refused to glorify Him, okay? This is how man responded to
God's revelation to creation. Man refused to glorify Him, even
though they were aware of who and what He was. They refused
to be thankful to God, And as a result of that, their hearts
became darkened. He said that man has hidden himself
from God. He has purposely ignored or even
denied God's revelation so that he might continue in his sinful
rebellion. So we see that God reveals himself
through the creation, and we see that in general, man has
refused to acknowledge that. and made up all sorts of different
supposed logical reasonings for everything that's made. Now let's
look at the subject of man's intuition. I had seen one hand
go up when I asked the question, do you depend on your intuitive
nature or your intuitive ability? is there's just some things that
you got figured out, man, I just, you know, there's something fishy
about this deal. Everybody else kind of goes with the flow and
says, oh man, that's good, that's right, that's good. But you have
something inside you that says, I don't know, maybe I better
take a second look at this. The intuition. You know, I had never really thought
about human intuition as being a revelation from God. Learned
that this week. The word intuition, and here's
my definition. Here's my layman definition.
The author gives a, you know, a very nice definition of what
he considered it. But when it kind of got down
to it, it kind of got down simple for me. Intuition is something
that you know without having to learn it. is something that's
inside of you that you know that you didn't have to learn. It's
already given to us. The author says this refers to
the ability to know or understand something without the conscience
use of reason. I thought mine was a little more
simple. He says it is an innate knowledge that is an endowment
from God and from the scriptures and from experience. We know
that man possesses an intuitive or innate knowledge of God. He
says every nation, every people, and tribe has some concept of
deity. Now it can be very obscure, paganistic,
and things like that, but there is something within every person
that understands that there is a higher being, And, but that
concept of deity is planted within every human being. The author
says, this demonstrates that the knowledge of the divine is
firmly rooted in the heart of every human. Says even the atheist,
okay, who professes to deny God, God's existence, must admit that
he arrived at such a conclusion only after having first believed
in God. He didn't trust God, never trusted
God as his savior, but he believed in the fact that there probably
was a God, and he turned atheistic and refused to profess God's
existence. He says the theologian Augustine
explained it this way. Augustine says, you have made
us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it
rests in you. Okay, let's look at Genesis 127,
and he says, what does this confirm about the creation of man? God
created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created
him. Male and female, he created them. It's interesting. God created
Adam and Eve in his own image. And of course, we know this separates
all of mankind from all the other creatures. Should we not expect,
the author says, him to possess, man, him, man, to possess an
innate or intuitive knowledge of the one who made him? James
3.9 teaches us that in spite of the fall, the image of God
still remains in every man. Now, in that scripture, I think
it's equally divided into two thoughts there. He says, God
created man in his own image. I don't think that's as much
of a physical image as it is a spiritual image. Now the last part of that addresses
the physical side of his creation, male and female. But Wade, I
don't know. Maybe someday we will know. I
would love to know. I think it'd be remarkable to
reflect and think about the spiritual condition of man before the fall. I mean, how precious could that
have been to walk with God, to fellowship with God, and to be
totally free of anything that would keep you from having that
perfect relationship? And to me, that's a remarkable
thought. And when God created man in his
own image, and the image of God he created in him. I think that
addressed the spiritual more than it did the physical. And
of course, first of all, God is spirit. God is spirit. He says, that which is known
about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them. That's back in 119 again, we've
already said it. Because that which is known about
God is evident within them for God made it evident. Two possibilities,
the author says, with regards to the meaning of this text.
He said it could possibly mean that God has made his existence
known to all men throughout creation that he has made. We believe
that. We believe that. But secondly, the author says,
it also possibly mean that God has placed an innate or intuitive
knowledge of himself in every man, which the observable creation
just simply confirms. The knowledge is already there.
The evidence of creation confirms it. Now let's look at Ecclesiastes
3.11. Scripture tells us, he has made
everything appropriate in his time. He has also set eternity
in their hearts. That's a key phrase here that
we're going to be looking at. He has also set eternity in their
heart so that man will not find out the work which God has done
from the beginning even to the end. God has set eternity into the
hearts of men. What do you think that means,
he set that eternity in there? Anybody? I simply narrowed it down to
a short sentence. God has placed the concept, but
not just the concept of eternity, the reality of eternity into
the hearts of every man, so that they are on the day of judgment
without excuse again. Every one of these points comes
back to that no excuse clause, okay? The author says, he has
also said eternity in their hearts. And this is just a description
of man as a special creation of God. God has put that knowledge
of eternity in the heart of man. For this reason, even though
man may gain the whole world, according to according to Matthew
16, 26, it will not satisfy the longing. In his heart for that
which is beyond the temporal and the worldly. You ever seen people just struggle
and work all their life to get as much as they can get? You know? And they put so much
faith into that and so much dependence upon that. And it doesn't matter
how much they get, they're never completely satisfied. The more
they get, the more you want. I mean, it's just as simple as
that. And just like Augustine said, he said, he has made us
for himself, and our heart is restless until it rests in him. Okay, we know that man was created
with an innate knowledge of God to which the rest of creation
bears witness. However, according to Romans
118, just like the side of creation that we talked about, Just like
in Romans 118, how has man responded to this knowledge? For the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So how has
man responded to this? creation and also the intuition
side of it that God's revealed himself through. In general,
man has responded with rebellion, ungodliness, and unrighteousness. Men have been endowed with an
innate or intuitive knowledge of God, but instead of seeking God as
a result of that, They continue to rebel and suppress this knowledge
in an attempt to shut God out of his mind so that he might
freely indulge in sin. Now let's look at the third area
that God reveals himself in general to mankind, and that's man's
conscience. Everybody's got a conscience. Everybody's got a conscience.
Now it may be to the point where it's completely seared, just
like Brother Wade was talking about last week. And it's interesting. What do you suppose conscience
means? Well, con means with, science
means knowledge. So it's with knowledge. The scripture
affirms that all men possess a conscience. An innate knowledge
of good and evil. The author says, and also a compulsion
to do good, a compulsion to do good. Does your conscience ever drive
you to do something wrong? Probably not. I don't believe
it does. I think it convicts you when
you do do something wrong, but I don't think it drives you to
that. The conscience involves more than personal desire or
personal taste. The conscience is an expression
of God's will. It is a moral law that God put
in the heart of every man. In spite of man's fallenness,
the almost infinitely variant cultures in the world, there
is a general agreement regarding good and evil in every civilization.
It can be a limited guide to direct men to God and His will.
It can be a limited guide to direct men to God and to his
will. Let's look at Romans 2, 14, 15. For when Gentiles who do not
have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these,
not having the law, are a law unto themselves. In that way they show the work
of the law written in their hearts. That's the conscience. Their
conscience bearing witness and their thoughts ultimately accusing
or else defending them. Two functions of the conscience. God has given a conscience. God
has given a conscience to every man, Romans 2.15. Now the conscience
can do two things. First of all, It enables him
to measure his conformity to the law that God's already written
on his heart. The conscience defends or approves
man when he obeys God's law. A good conscience makes you sleep
better at night. It confirms or defends when man obeys God's law. But the conscience also accuses
or condemns him in every act of disobedience. You ever had trouble sleeping
at night? Because what might be on your conscience? Could be. For this reason, it
says, all men will be held accountable on the day of judgment. I would encourage you, we just
looked at 1415, But I would encourage you to look at verse 16 in that
as well, and you'll see what he's talking about, when all
men will be accountable on the day of judgment. But the conscience
does those two things. God has revealed himself to men
through creation, through intuition, and now we see through the conscience
that we have. But according to Romans 3, 9
through 12, He asked the question, how has man responded to the
revelation of God through creation? Verse nine says, what then, are
we better than they? Not at all, for we have already
charged that both Jews and the Greeks are all under sin. As
it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There
is none who understands, there is none who seeks God, All have turned aside, together
they have become useless. There is none who does good,
there is not even one." So, what does that scripture
tell us how man has responded to the revelation of God through
creation? To me, mankind in general have chosen to reject the evidence
of God through creation. we still wouldn't be studying
in our public schools the theory of evolution if that wasn't the
case. After all these years, Mr. Darwin's opinion is still
theory. It's not fact and it's not a
proven fact. So all mankind in general have chosen to reject
the evidence of God via creation. They have denied their own conscience
in relation to what's right and wrong. He says, what can happen when
a person who continues to ignore or reject the conscience? Let's
look back in the first chapter of Romans again, 28 through 32. So what can happen when a person
who continues to ignore or reject his conscience, and just as they
did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind or a depraved mind. To do those things which
are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,
greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they
are gossips. Slanders, haters of God, insolent,
arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although
they know the ordinances of God, that those who practice such
things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also
give hearty approval to those who practice them. That's a pretty
long list, wasn't it? So what will happen? God will
give them over to a reprobate mind. if they continue along
those paths. He will give them over to a reprobate
mind, allowing them to be what they desire to be. Now, the next
scripture that confirms this is Ephesians 4, 18 and 19. Ephesians
4, 18, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from
the life of God because of ignorance that is in them. because of the
hardness of their heart. And they, having become callous,
have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of
every kind of impurity with greediness." It basically says their understanding
will become darkened. They will get to the point where
they have no more spiritual understanding. Let's look at 1 Timothy 4.2. By means of the hypocrisy of
liars, seared in their own conscience, as with a branding iron. The
other way he talked about this last week, didn't he? Sear the
conscience with a hot iron. When human flesh is cauterized
or seared, it loses all feelings or sensitivity. In a similar
but more horrifying fashion, A person's conscience can become
so cauterized that it loses all sensitivity to evil and is given
over to it without any kind of shame. All right, the last scripture
to confirm this concept is Titus 115. To the pure, all things
are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing
is pure. But both their mind and their
conscience are defiled. The mind and the conscience become
corrupted and defiled. He says the conscience is certainly
and indeed a wonderful gift from God that requires proper stewardship. If a man continues to deny the
voice of his confidence, the conscience will become polluted.
He'll become defiled and calloused. In the history books of every
culture are filled with countless examples of autocracies of men
and societies without conscience where they had become defiled
and seared. The Roman Empire was brought
down internally because of this. Now let's look at the last way
God has revealed himself. We saw creation, we saw the intuition,
we saw the conscience, and now we're out of time. I don't know,
what time is it? How much time we got? Okay, we're going to go real
fast. But God has revealed himself through the annals of human history,
and the two most prolific ways that we can see that through
human history is the Jewish nation, how he's preserved the Jewish
nation all through history. I will tell you, folks, those
countries in the Middle East do not want to go to war with
Israel. Israel whipped seven nations
in 14 days a few decades back, and they still remember that.
God's protecting the nation of Israel, and God has also, through
human history, through the animals of human history, protected His
church. Those two things are evidence
of the existence of God right there. Those two are the primary
evidence throughout human history Now, there is limitations of
general revelation, okay? It's limited. And next week we're
going to dig into the second side of it, which is that special
revelation, or I'd like to call it specific revelation more than
that. But one of the main things that
general revelation does not address when it comes to leading people
toward God, it does not address salvation. General revelation
to mankind does not address salvation. And as we go through the chapters,
we'll get into that. All right. I know we're pressed
for time, so I appreciate y'all. The crowd got bigger as we went
by. It did. We didn't have many folks
to start with. Let's do our prayer request.
I'm going to let you guys know that my sister-in-law, Treva
Drysdale, lives up in Kansas City. She passed away this past
week. Just pray for her family. She's
got two daughters, some grandsons, and granddaughters. Just pray
for them. Anyone else? That's right. Our niece, Lisa, starts her brain
cancer treatments Monday, tomorrow. So keep her in there. Anyone
else? Continue to pray for Monroe. He said he's not doing well this
morning. And then Georgia is asking for
continued prayers for her granddaughter, Piper. Piper. Y'all seen the
email that she does not have leukemia. Okay. Amen. Yes, Fred. Yeah, our grandson, Colton, on
there. He's got some tests coming up that's hopefully going to
narrow down to what his primary health issue is. He's a young
fellow that's gone through a lot in the last year, just 18 years
old. And just keep him in your prayers. Anyone else? All right, let's go ahead and
we'll close in prayer. Our Father, what a privilege it was to be
at your house here this morning. I thank you for everyone here.
Thank you that we have the health and the physical ability to come
to your house and to learn about you, to study about you, to look
into your word and to hopefully worship you through that study.
The prayer of our hearts is that we, as a result of what we've
said and heard today, that we'd be closer to you, Lord. we'd
be more valuable to you in your kingdom. Father, we lift up all
the ones on our prayer list. Father, you are indeed the great
physician and the keeper of us all. Father, we depend on you. We present these to you and we
just thank you in advance for the way you're going to answer
prayers. As we enter our worship hour, Father, I just pray that
the power of the Holy Spirit takes over hearts and minds and
that only you would be worshipped here today. We ask it all in
Jesus name. Amen.
General Revelation
Series Studying The Holy Scriptures
| Sermon ID | 1127221647494745 |
| Duration | 42:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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