Have you ever been reading the Bible and you come across a phrase that catches your attention and sticks with you in your memory? You're curious about what it means. It warms your heart and it challenges your mind. And you say, that's an amazing phrase. Years ago, I came across such a phrase, and it's found twice in the Bible, and I kept studying it and I said, one day I'm gonna preach on this. The phrase is this, the deep things of God. I invite you to come with me today for an introduction into what that phrase means and how God attracts us and lures us into the deep things of God. Here's a summary of this morning's message. It is a wonderful experience to explore the deep things of God for they expand our mind and warm our heart and move us to worship God more. First, open with me in your Bibles again to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 10. The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. Now in these verses, God says, Nobody can know what you're thinking unless you reveal it to them. In the same way, we would never know anything about God or what he's thinking unless he reveals it to us. You have secrets that nobody else knows. Sometimes you do tell other people. Can you keep a secret? Well, you share things with your spouse. God has secrets. and he has revealed some of them to us. Deuteronomy 29, 29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our children that we may do all the words of this law. You don't know everything about yourself, even your own thoughts, but God knows everything about you, and we don't know everything about God, We wouldn't even know that there is a God unless he revealed it to us. We wouldn't even raise the question, does God exist? Unless God first puts out into our minds and hearts. God reveals some things to us. He also conceals things from us. Notice that he mentions in verse 9, eye has not seen or ear heard nor has entered into the hearts of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. The things of salvation as well as the inheritance laid up for us in heaven. We are not to try to guess and project our opinions and wants. Instead we are to listen to what God says in the Bible and he will show us enough. Now notice it mentions in verse 10, God reveals certain things by the Spirit because the Spirit searches all things in the universe, including the deep things of God. Just like we have a mind where we consciously know things about ourselves, you could say the Holy Spirit being God is the consciousness of God. God knows everything about God and that includes the Holy Spirit. Next turn with me back to the Old Testament to the mysterious book of Job chapter 11. Job was going through trial after trial after trial. His wife turned on him. The devil's beating up on him. His friends are beating up on him. And Job still doesn't understand exactly why God is letting this happen. Nor did God tell him, except basically saying, Job, just trust me. You couldn't understand even if I did tell you. Same thing with us. And then toward the end of the book, God keeps asking Job questions that Job could not answer. Now there's much helpful wisdom in the book of Job, and remember Job did not have the book of Job yet, but we do. Now look at Job 11, verses 7 and 8. Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven. What can you do? Deeper than shale, that's hell. What can you know? Notice he says that the deep things of God are like higher than heaven or deeper than the sea. Higher. The highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest, approximately 29,000 feet above sea level, and of course it goes up and up and up, and occasionally people climb it, some get lost, some die. The highest point on Earth. God is higher still. Psalm 139.6 says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain it. We cannot climb the mountain to know all the secrets of God. Let me illustrate it with a story. Years ago, when I studied overseas, I decided to take a trip around Europe on a motorcycle. And I went through Belgium, France, so many. And then I went to Switzerland to see the beautiful high mountains. They're just breathtaking. And then when I was in southern Switzerland, I said, you know, according to the map, I'm not far from the Italian border. And on the other side of this mountain is the most famous mountain in Europe, the Matterhorn. And oh, I wanted to see it. So I said, you know, that mountain doesn't look too high. If I climbed it, I could get a bird's eye view of the Matterhorn. And you know, I climbed a mountain a little bit smaller than this in Scotland. And it took me about an hour to go up and an hour to come down. I think I could do this one in two hours, maybe three hours. It's not that steep. So I parked the motorcycle. I began to climb. And I climbed. And I climbed. Some of you may have climbed a mountain. And right when I was thinking I was almost at the top, I wasn't at the top. There was another ridge. So I said, oh, man, this mountain's taller than I expected. So I kept on climbing and climbing. I'd look down, and that little motorcycle looked like just a little ant at the bottom of the mountain. And I said, well, surely I'm close to the top. But if you've ever climbed a mountain, you know it's like an optical illusion. You get higher, and you think you're almost there, and then there's another ridge and another. And I kept climbing. and getting tired and I began to wonder, I don't think this mountain has a top to it. It reaches into the sky. I kept climbing and finally I looked at my watch and I looked at the sun and I said, you know, The sun's going to go down in less than an hour. And in Switzerland, when the sun goes down, the temperature goes way down. I was about 40 degrees at that time. But I said, in an hour, it's going to be about zero and in the dark. And I, sure enough, don't want to be stuck on this mountain. Zero degrees, in the dark, nobody would find me. So I never made it to the top of the mountain that did not have a top. And so I scurried down on the motorcycle and went on my merry way. Now that's an illustration of what I'm trying to say. God is a mountain that does not have a top. We cannot climb the top and be satisfied and smug and say, now I know all there is about God. Anybody that says that has not even begun to climb this mountain. Isaiah 55 says, his thoughts and his ways are higher above us like the clouds in the sky. Look through a telescope. Some of these massive telescopes that are still going deeper and deeper into space. God is out there and up there and around us all around. Then you look in the microscope, even in a drop of water, God is infinitesimally small. So whether you look up or look down, God is greater than we can gauge. He's high. Proverbs 25.3, as the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so is the heart of kings is unsearchable. Now if that's the case with kings and wise men, how much more so with the king of kings, God, who is ultimately wise. So there is the height of God, but also look at the text, the depths of God, the deep things of God, not just higher than the highest high, like a mountain without a top, but deep, very deep. Now the Bible often refers to the oceans as the deep, the creatures of the deep, for example. Well, I've mentioned the highest mountain on earth. The deepest part of the ocean is the Marianas Trench in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. They've measured it as being more than 35,000 feet under the surface. Now, that is deeper down than Mount Everest is up, but there's also various Mountains under the ocean that don't come above the surface and there are certain mountains that do come up and they form certain islands. The Hawaiian Islands are simply very high mountains from the floor bed coming up above the surface of the water. And there's such mystery about the deep oceans. Did you know that approximately 80% of the world's surface is covered with water? And all sorts of scientists and oceanographers and divers love to explore the deep things of the ocean. They're looking for ways to farm it. And if they could farm it and raise certain crops down there, they could feed the world over many times. I wish they could. Then there's deep sea diving. Now that's beyond simply snorkeling and scuba diving because you need something stronger when you go down that deep, maybe 10,000 feet deep. The pressure is so strong you couldn't take it. And so the deepest explorers go in what's called a bath escape. It's very strong and they can explore the very depths of the deep. Psalm 36.6 says, your judgments are a great deep, deeper than Mariana's trench, deeper still. How deep? Well, deeper than anything we can imagine. Now, getting away from the deep oceans, went online and wondered, what's the deepest mankind has dug into the earth? The deepest oral well is something like 35,000 feet deep. What a gusher. Imagine the pressure. But then the old Soviet Union had engineers that dug one 40,000 feet deep, but that wasn't an oral well. That's pretty deep. That's very deep. God's judgments are greater deep than that. They're deeper than any philosophy we have, because philosophy is basically nonsense. God's thoughts, God's judgments, God's truths are deep. And God reveals some of that through the Bible, which is the deepest book ever written, because it's written by God himself. What God reveals in the Bible is deep, profound. And he invites us to study it and to go deep and to go deeper still. And brethren, whenever you read the Bible, and I hope it's often, I hope it's every day, you will always find something new that you had never seen before. Perhaps a phrase like the deep things of God. Not only that, you'll never know everything about the Bible. Read it all the way through and then read it again and again. We're told in 2 Peter 3 that some parts of the Bible are harder to understand than others, which means some parts are easier to understand than others. Don't just settle for the surface truths. Go deeper and find the deep things of God. Don't settle for that which is shallow. Go for the depths. And yet, The Bible reveals much, but it reveals just a tiny bit about God. It's overwhelming, but God doesn't reveal everything about himself in the Bible. It's personal, but it's not exhaustive. Job 26.14 says, indeed, these are the mere edges of his ways and how small a whisper we hear of him. You've heard the phrase, the tip of an iceberg, because probably less than 10% of that floating chunk of ice is above the surface and ships, of course, don't want to hit it or they'll sink like the Titanic 130 years ago. It's like that with God. God has only revealed the tiny tip of an infinite iceberg called God. And that which is revealed is huge and deep, but there is far more that has not been revealed, and that is deeper still. We're invited to go deeper and deeper into the deep things of God. Psalm 92.5 says, your thoughts are very deep. Now we would call this part of the omniscience of God. God knows everything. But it's more than just simply saying, well, yeah, I guess God knows everything. Let's go deeper on that. He knows everything that is, everything that ever was, everything that it will ever be. everything that ever could be, but never shall be, all possibilities. He knows the interrelationships of everything as it goes through time. He knows the distances between all the pieces of dirt way under the surface. He knows the distances between the stars. He knows everything about everything and he doesn't have to do this by learning. He knows it already and he neither learns nor forgets or makes a mistake. Isaiah 40 verse 28 says his understanding is unsearchable. So when we're confronted with the omniscience of God we are face up with one of the deep things of God that is unsearchable. Listen to what Paul says, Romans 11 33. Oh the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Psalm 64.6 presents a somewhat of a parallel to 1 Corinthians 2.10. Listen. Both the inward thought and the heart of man are deep. We have deep thoughts. You ever sit down and think a deep thought? You could do it with mathematics and you try to think of a high number multiplied by a high number and you don't have a calculator. Or you ponder certain mysteries and you're thinking deep thoughts. There are deep thoughts that we have. God has infinitely deeper thoughts because everything about God is infinite. Now I mentioned the deep parts of the ocean, and you get into the ocean by going onto the seashore and then going deeper and deeper. Let me change the metaphor around a little bit of a swimming pool. And many of the big swimming pools will have just a little kiddie pool on the side, a little wading pool, maybe just six inches deep for the little ones to splash around in. And then when they grow up, they can go maybe a few more feet over where it gets maybe a foot deep. And then the lifeguard and the parents will say, no, don't go any further. And then they go to the next stage as they grow up. It's two feet deep, three. So that by the time they're 10 years old, perhaps they can have it all the way up to their neck. And then it gets deeper still when they become like teenagers or if they're a good swimmer before that, where they can't touch the bottom. And it's a funny feeling. And they can go deeper and deeper. And you see, that's where they get to the deepest part where the men and women on the diving boards will dive very deep. Now, concerning the depths of God, we start off like a little child in the kiddie pool. And that's probably enough for a brand new Christian. But as we grow in the Christian life, God says, get out of the kiddie pool. Come into the depths. It's kiddie pool is fine for little kids, for children to splash around in six inches of water. What would you think if you saw a grown man that's 30 years old that could easily swim and dive, but instead he wants to stay in the kiddie pool splashing around? You'd say, grow up, buddy. Come into the depths. I say this to some of you, get out of the kiddie pool. come into the depths. You've been in the kiddie pool too long. How long have you been a Christian? Have you studied your Bible enough to say, I want to go deeper into the deep things of God? About 250 years ago, Jonathan Edwards published a sermon on heaven entitled, Heaven is a World of Love. And he said, heaven is like an ocean of love that doesn't have a shore and doesn't have a bottom. It is deep and infinite. and eternal and we will swim in the ocean of God's love for all eternity. An ocean without a bottom. A bottomless ocean of God's love. And God invites us into that now and to go deeper and deeper into his love and yet we will never touch bottom in this life or the next. It's an unsearchably deep ocean of love and there's more to come. We sing about this in one of our hymns. Listen to the words. There are depths of love that I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights of joy that I may not reach till I rest in peace with thee. So brethren, one of the deep things of God is the love of God. Go into it. Don't just mouth little words like, well, God is love. Yes, Jesus loves me. What does that mean? Ponder it and swim deep and dive deep into the depths of God's love. Randy Alcorn has written more than one book about heaven and As I understand, he says in one place, the thing he looks forward to in the next life is to go snorkeling in the oceans of the new earth. And he says all this about viewing God and so forth, that's just kind of platonic philosophy. I want to go snorkeling. I think he likes snorkeling here on earth. Well, it will be nice to explore the new heavens and the new earth. But there's something even greater than that. In heaven we will be exploring the depths of God. Why not then begin now? Because it's as if God says, take me by the hand, I will lead you into the deep things of myself. The deep things of God that are unsearchable. We cannot completely grasp them. It's deeper than the deepest sea. It's higher than the highest mountain. It's an ocean without a bottom. It's a mountain without a top. And when we go deeper into these deep things of God, we experience unusual feelings. A little bit of fear, kind of like that child who is now going deeper into the pool and doesn't touch the bottom for the first time. It's a little uneasy. There's a curiosity. It's a fascination. And then we realize we can never touch the full depths in this life. But that shouldn't stop us. You know, a little child might be afraid and says, mom, I don't want to go in the deep part of the pool. Sometimes Christians are like that. They're put off by a message like this and they're overwhelmed. They get a little bit of fear. We should have a holy fear that lures us into the depths, not drives us away from it. God invites us into the depths. He desires to show us the deep things of God. Job 12, 22 says, he uncovers deep things out of the darkness. In John 4, Jesus met the woman at the well. And he says, woman, give me a drink of water. And she says, sir, you don't have a bucket. Listen to what she says, sir, the well is deep and you don't even have a bucket. What's going on? The well is deep. Well, not only research the deepest part of the ocean, but what's the deepest drilling? Well, I just mentioned that oil well in the Russian hole. But God goes deeper than the well in Samaria or in Russia or the Marianas Trench. Job 38.16 refers to the deep oceans and says this. This is fascinating. He lays up the deep in storehouses. What does that mean? Well, it talks about the storehouses of the heavens. In other words, these mysteries that God has put into his creation and that explorers and scientists are now discovering. As I said, they're exploring the bottom of the ocean beds to see, can we farm this? New kinds of animal life, new minerals perhaps. Perhaps there's gold down there or diamonds or previously undiscovered gems. There are storehouses in the deep. And they're hard to locate and to explore. It's very dangerous. And it's something like that as we explore the depths of God. There's a spiritual danger if we go into it with unconfessed sin or with presumption. If we look upon this as just a hobby or if we look at it in a lazy way, we're to explore it Job says it's like a miner digging for silver in a greedy way. We should have a sanctified holy curiosity and even a kind of a greed. I want more of the depths of God. I'm not satisfied with the surface. I want to dig deep. Here's another illustration. Luke 5. Lord Jesus walking by the seashore and sees the apostles in a little fishing boat. close to the shore. Have you caught anything, young men? No. And these are professional fishermen. So Jesus says, launch out into the deep, cast your net over, and you will catch fish. Well, they did that. And they caught so many, the nets were breaking and the ship was about to sink. But notice what he said. Launch out into the deep. You know where I'm going with this. You can catch certain kinds of fish in this shallow part of the shore. You can catch guppies and things like that. But for the big fish, you have to launch out way into the deep. That's where the whales are, and the marlin, and the swordfish. When I was a teenager growing up in New Orleans, my father, brother, and I went deep sea fishing two or three times in the Gulf of Mexico. And another man had a boat, and we went out there. And I remember one night, in two hours, the four of us caught 96 fish, none of them smaller than this Bible. We hit a school. The next day, we hardly caught anything, but I caught something interesting that Saturday afternoon. I thought that I had hooked the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. I caught a shark. And when we pulled it on board, I didn't reach my hand in there to take the hook out of its mouth. I wouldn't have had a hand. My point is this. You have to launch out into the deep to catch certain kinds of fish, and you have to launch out into the deep spiritually to discover the deep things of God that he has stored up there. And he doesn't throw on the shore or into the kiddie pool. He says, come into the deep. Launch out into the deep, children. How? By the Bible. This is our door into the deep. This is our map into the deep. I'm not talking about intellectualism. I'm not talking about philosophy. I detest philosophy. The Bible condemns it and warns us about it. And I'm certainly not talking about liberal theology. You ever picked up a book of liberal theology? And you try to figure this all out, and eventually you close and say, it must be deep. I didn't understand a word that it was saying. And maybe you've been to a liberal church like that, and you hear some guy up there pretending to preach, and he's throwing out what he says are profound truths, and nobody understands it. And they say, hon, it must have been deep and true, because I didn't understand any of it. No, it's nonsense. It's not profoundly deep. The great J. Vernon McGee said, What they are preaching looks deep because you can't see the bottom, but that's like a two-inch mud puddle. The reason you can't see through that is because of the mud and it's only two inches deep, he says, but you can go to certain pools out on ranches where the water is crystal clear and you can see a hundred feet down. He's right. So I'm not talking about intellectualism, philosophy, liberal theology. I'm talking about the deep things of God's Word that are pure water. And he says, come into the depths. You see, we explore the depths of God by revelation from God, not by speculation by our own opinions. Daniel 2.22 says he reveals deep and secret things. Now let me illustrate again with a parable. I shared this parable with you years ago when I preached on the attributes of God. Once upon a time, there was a man that loved to explore the big forests. So one day he was out there, and he came across a little meadow, and in the middle of the meadow was an old-fashioned cottage. And he says, I'll go up to the cottage. And he goes up to it, and he noticed it's a little white house with blue trimming and a gray thatched roof with a little chimney. He'd never seen such a thing, it looked cozy. So he comes up to the door and there's a sign on the door that says, welcome to the magic house, come on in. So the man goes in, hello, hello, nobody there. On the outside he did a quick measuring and said, you know the house looks about 30 feet wide and about 30 feet deep. And he gets in and he looks at the room, on the inside he says, wait a second, This room is wider than 30 feet. I believe it's 50 feet wide and 60 feet deep. How can the room on the inside be bigger than the whole house on the outside? This is a magical house indeed. So he looks off to the right and there's a hallway going as far as the eye can see with doors all along the way. Same thing on the other side, and he says, this is a magic house indeed. He sees a door in front of him, so he goes through that, and he's into another room that's still bigger, and it's filled with art from all around the world. And he says, this is beautiful. Look, there's Da Vinci and Degas and Monet. I could spend all week just looking. And then he sees paintings, the like of which he has never seen before, never been cataloged. And he says, that's mysterious. This is wonderful. He sees another door, goes through that, yet another big room. But nothing's in this room. He hears music. Beautiful music he had never heard before. Very soothing. It is complicated, but simple. It was profound. But then he said, where's it coming from? There are no musicians here. There are no speakers. He says, it's as if there's an invisible orchestra in this room. This is a wondrous, magical house. She sees another door goes through that, and now it's a tiny room. Ten feet by ten feet, nothing in it. He looks up, and it doesn't have a ceiling, and it goes way, way up into the sky and just kind of disappears. And he says, this is a magical house. He sees another door goes through there, and now he's ushered into a room bigger than all these put together, and there are doors all over, and he says, where in the world am I now? And so he just says, I'm going to run through and look very quickly through each door. So he opens one up and there's a big room filled with mirrors. Another one filled with light. Another one here filled with statues and then other things he had never seen. Another one with gems and diamonds. And he says, what kind of a house is this? Finally, he looks at one little door and he says, I wonder what, it's just a plain little wooden door. And he opens it up, goes through, close it behind him. Finds himself outside the house. Looks at the house, it's white, blue trimming, gray on top, and there's a little notice on the door that says, thank you for visiting the magic house. Come back again sometime. And the man wonders, and he wakes up and says, it was all just a dream. Kind of like a little story you tell your children. There is no magical house. But like in that parable, going into the depths of God is surprising. We had this limited view of God, like the man looking at a small house. When we go deeper into God, every depth of God is bigger than what we thought all of God was. You go into the love of God, the knowledge of God, the power of God. It's like those different rooms and it's amazing. fascinates us and draws us deeper in. God is big and bigger than we can imagine. The depths of God. God invites us into those depths, but he also warns us about two other depths. One of them is mentioned in Revelation 2.24. The depths of Satan. Satan is real, and he disguises himself, he lies, and he lures people to himself, in a way he's already got us, but he lures people into the depths of his power so that they would get into the occult, for example. You know what the word occult means? secret power or secret knowledge. It's as if Satan whispers and says, you want to know the real truths of the universe? You want real power and knowledge? Well dabble with astrology and black magic and these other religions and stuff like that. And it's very enticing, but it's very enslaving. It's very evil. That's why the Bible warns us about the depths of Satan. And he invites us into the deep things of God. But another depth that God warns us about is hell. In the book of Revelation, it's called the abyssos. That's the Greek word translated the abyss or the bottomless pit. It has a depth to it. Isaiah 30, 33 mentions it and says, it is deep and wide, filled with fire and firewood, and it's kindled by the breath of God's wrath. Hell is deep. Hell is as deep and as eternal as heaven is. And God invites us to heaven and he warns us about the depths of the devil. And of hell, so we put it to you, which one will you choose? The depths of God, the deep things of God, or the deep things of Satan? Don't go to that depth, go to the other. Question. If this is such a wonderful thing to explore the deep things of God, I put it to you, why then do so few Christians want to do this. Why do they stay in this kiddie end of the pool, the waiting area? Why are they put off by this? Some are just not interested. It seems irrelevant to them. They're more interested in other things that they think are really depth. The computer, sitting there by the hour. God is greater than any computer you could ever look at. People are not interested. Or as the Bible says, they're caught up in the cares of this life. Work, taking care of the family, cleaning the house. And so all their interest is somewhere else other than God. Or some people think they know enough about God. To which I say, you fool. Nobody knows enough about God, not even the angels in heaven. Other ones can almost be forgiven because they go to a church where The preaching is like that kiddie pool, it's just really shallow and people splash around and have fun. They say, we got our praise on and they haven't even gone more than two inches deep into the depths of God. And so some people can almost be forgiven because they've never been told about the deep things of God. The preacher has never preached faithfully through the word of God or they do it in just a shallow way. The people get spoiled. I hope you're not spiritually spoiled and that you just want to stay in the kiddie end of the pool. Come into the deep things and dive deep into the depths of God. Now the deepest, deep things of God are not such things as predestination, election, providence. Those are wonderful. Could you answer this question? What are the deep things, excuse me, the deepest things of God? I'll tell you. The deepest things of God have to do with God Himself. His being, His attributes, His nature. Let me just briefly mention these and picture yourself again like in the magic house and going into this room or that one. How about this? The infinity of God. The infinity of God is more than simply the omnipresence of God. You say, well, God's everywhere. And people don't want to go any deeper on that subject than that. Yes, God is everywhere. He's deep in the seas. He's beyond the cosmos. He's everywhere. But also, He is beyond everywhere, if you can begin to grasp that. The universe is not infinite. God is. Look up 1 Chronicles 29, 11. The heavens and the heavens cannot contain you. God is greater than that. You come to the very edge, out there, up there, down there. What's beyond that? God is beyond that. The infinity of God. Psalm 145.3 says, His greatness is unsearchable. Then there is the eternity of God. And people say, well, what does that mean? Does that mean time without end? Yes. But it also means before time began. Now that's not just pre-history. That is pre-recorded history. The Bible twice uses the phrase, before time began. You look at that, you're beginning to go into the deep things of God. How can God exist before there's time? Augustine said the first two things God created in Genesis 1 were time and space. And before that, what was there? There's this eternal now of God where he's not limited to time. That's the eternity of God. Have you pondered that? I invite you into the depths of the eternity of God. And then there's the holiness of God, another wonderful room. The Bible mentions holy, holiness. Can you even define the word holy? You'd say, well, it means clean and without sin, yes, and lots more than that. The holiness of God is an internal fire within God. It is an energy that's burning, and it's positive, but it reacts negatively to anything that is against it, and that then becomes the wrath of God, the holiness and the holy wrath of God. Ponder that and go deep into it. We've mentioned the love of God, and that begins within God. People will just say, yeah, God is love, Jesus loves me. That's true. But what does that mean, God is love? You've heard me preach on it. It gets back to the Trinity, the Father loves the Son and the Spirit, and there's that dynamo of holiness within God, His self-love. And that's where love begins, and then God shows his love. And his love for us is not just, well, it's undeserved, as people will say, or they'll say it's unconditional. It's more than that, going to the depths of the love of God. And you know what you find? It is not only undeserved, it is anti-deserved. In the book of Ephesians tells us, you know, explore the height and the depth and the width of God and to know the love of God which is beyond knowledge. It is like the mountain without a top or the ocean without a bottom, the love of God. And then there's the omnipotence of God. Ephesians 1 11 said, God works all things after the counsel of his own will. God is not only everywhere, but he is the mysterious force in everything. Keeps the electrons whizzing around the nucleus and the atoms. He keeps the energy flowing. He governs everything. The power of God. Job 26, 14. Here's a phrase I want to throw you away and maybe it'll stick, like the deep things of God. It says, but who can understand The thunder of his power. The thunder we hear is just a small echo of the eternal, infinite thunder of God's power. So those are just a few of the doors that lead us into the deep things of God. There are two more that are the greatest of all. And every Orthodox theologian knows this. Do you know it? Number one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he? I am ashamed to admit there are people that have attended churches that boast of being evangelical, Bible-believing, gospel-preaching churches, and sometimes they have nothing but cliches about who Jesus is. I asked one man that had attended such a church for 30 years, I said, who is Jesus Christ? And he shrugged and said, uh, is he the Son of God? And I'm thinking, oy vey, what is he, but he heard gospel preaching, but it just never sunk in. He was not interested. It didn't faze him. He was still lost. Could you answer the question, who is Jesus? He's God and man. Yes. Go deeper. How can he be both God and man? He's God that became a man in the miracle of the virgin birth. How? What does that mean? Now you're going deeper into the deep things of Jesus. And then the great theologians will always admit the greatest deep thing of God, the highest, the deepest, the most profound, has to do with God as God, the Trinity. And you might say, oh, well, I know what that means. Or do you? Give it to me. Well, it's one God in three persons, yes. Go deeper than that. What does that mean, one God? Now, when you say three persons, are you saying there are three gods? And you say, well, Father, Son, and Spirit, are they the same? How are they different? And the average Christian says, I never thought about that. Well, think about it. That's the deepest thing of God. Get out of the kiddie pool. Go into the deep things of the Trinity. Brethren, the deeper you go into the deep things of God, the more you will realize There are still greater depths than you could have imagined previously. Like that magic house, the more you go in, the bigger it gets, the more fascinating and wonderful. It does something to you. A holy fear, you have to do it with a holy curiosity. You see, you explore with your mind and your heart. It's not just simply an objective chat. It's not like you're Googling God. You cannot Google God on a computer. Or as what the great Al Martin said many, many years ago when computers were first becoming well known, he says, well, remember my brethren, you can never program God. You can never say I've got enough. No, it's a holy curiosity with a holy humility and fascination as you contemplate God himself. But eventually, dear brethren, as you go into this, you realize, this is more than I can take. You feel filled up like after a Thanksgiving turkey meal and you want to go take a nap. You say, I couldn't eat another bite. After exploring some of the deep things of God, eventually you say, this is overwhelming. I'd never imagined it. And you experience something new there. You feel like that diver that says, I have to finally come up, or the mountain climber says, I have to come down from the mountain eventually. It's just too much. And you say, Lord, stop. I can't handle any more of this. And God says, I'll take you into some more depths another time. You see, when you go into the depths, you find yourself deeper and deeper spiritually intoxicated on God. This is why God created us. He redeemed us so that we would know him deeper and deeper, the deep things of God. And you will be spiritually fascinated and move to worship God deeper and higher. And then when we leave this life, people say, well, what's heaven like? In heaven, dear brethren, Since God is infinite, he invites us to explore him through all eternity. A. W. Toza, one of my favorite writers, said people waste their time and their energies and their curiosities on things that don't mean ten cents. And they get a cheap thrill out of that. Going to a football match, looking at a computer, stuff like that. And it's as if God says, if you want real meaning, you want to explore something really deep, God puts his arms out and says, come to me, explore me. And that's what we will do in eternity. We'll swim in that infinite ocean of his love. We will explore all the rooms of God's being and as he is infinite, we will not explore at all. even unto eternity. Oh, but what a wonderful experience it will be to go deeper into the deep things of God. Let us pray. Father, we are overwhelmed by what you have revealed to us. Draw us deeper into your knowledge, into you. Help us to explore the deep things of yourself. Give us the holy desires, the humility and the faith, the diligence to search your word like that miner digging for silver. Lead us by your spirit into the deep things of yourself. through Christ our Lord. Amen.