2023-11-12 - 01 Doctrine, General Revelation

01 General Revelation

Intro:

Foundations are everything to a building. They also are everything to us as Christians. Jesus talked about the wise and foolish men building their houses on Rock vs. Sand.

Take for example two buildings. One has a poor foundation like the house my grandfather built. Over time the house will sink, it could fall off the foundation etc. No matter how good of a structure is put on top that bad foundation, if the foundation goes, so does the house, putting into jeopardy the whole structure.

On the other hand take the second example of the Organization in NE that I am the President of, Grace Haven. Someone donated a double-wide, an old one at that. We moved it 20 miles and were about to put it on the newly poured foundation, a solid foundation that would last century's. The building got stuck in the field b/c of how wet it was. Before the building could be placed on the foundation, straight winds came through and moved our building for us, 1/4 mile all across the field. Even if it were sitting on the new foundation, it may have blown away, it was old and it was falling apart. But the foundation was solid and wouldn't/ didn't move.

Link:

Doctrine is similar to a foundation. Of course Jesus is our foundation, hes our footing, the cornerstone. But we must have a good foundation, a good Biblical doctrine our the rest of what we do and who we say we are in Christ will be in Jeopardy.

We can’t just say we believe something b/c our parents, pastor or church do. We have got to form solid Biblically based foundation beliefs and doctrines so we can weather the storms of life.

We won’t make good Christian Apologist, defending our faith, if we don’t have solid Doctrine and know why we believe it.

This is why approximately once per month we are going to look at a different Bible doctrine.

I don’t want you to just listen to it and go home saying, oh OK that's what I should believe. But take it home and study it more. Be like an Acts 17:10–12 “Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 12. Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. Christian, a Berean and dissect what I say here, dissect it at home to see if its correct or not, correct according to the Word of God.

Definition:

Doctrine: A belief, theory, or a set of beliefs, especially political or religious, taught and accepted by a particular group

The doctrine this morning that were going to start off with is the doctrine of General Revelation.

General revelation refers to God revealing Himself through His creation and through the human conscience.

Examples of General Revelation:

General Revelation Through His Creation

Psalm 19:1-6 “To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. 2 Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, 5 Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, And rejoices like a strong man to run its race. 6 Its rising is from one end of heaven, And its circuit to the other end; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

We can see the splendor of God’s work demands a Creator, this is what we see here and we can grasp this.

Application 1: If you know Christ, and as you study the complexity of nature and His creation, we can better understand the idea of Gods vast power, complexity and love for us. When we wonder if God really is paying attention to little me or the status of Groton Baptist, the answer is astoundingly YES. Many times we step back and say does God really care and does He really include Himself or is He a hands off God? Many times we ask this backward, many times its do we really care and do we want Him included?

General Revelation Through Human Conscience

Romans 2:15–16 “who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”

Morality is written on our hearts, when were young we know right from wrong. We can see this here.

God reveals himself through nature and directly upon our hearts.

Application 2: As we better understand God’s involvement in the universe and our lives directly, we can see that God always cares about us and our church. It’s us that have a skewed idea of God and how he functions. Because we think we know Him rather then getting to know Him. (REREAD THIS) So what do we do? When we feel alone or when we seemingly think God has forgotten about us, we need to step back and realize we have drifted away from the Lord, we have an incorrect perspective of who He is b/c we haven't been drawing close to the Lord.

Apologize to God

Come back to where He is and join Him in what He’s doing

We as Christians know we can’t just go off of General revelation, however sometimes we put it in Cruise Control mode and do almost just that. But when we wake up to the Holy Spirits convictions, then we can grow individually and as a church.

With this, we can understand General Revelation and we can see the importance of it but we must never fall into staying there.

There are limitations of General Revelation:

Knowledge about God through general revelation is limited because it only communicates general knowledge about God and His character. - 99 Essential Doctrines Book

General Revelation, primes the pump if you will!

Oleo-fa, Send Someone To Tell Me - Oleo-fa recognized there must be a Good Spirit since there were bad spirits.

General revelation demands Special Revelation which will discuss in the next month or two.

General Revelation is not sufficient for Salvation or a full understanding of God.

If someone accepts God’s General Revelation they will seek out and find His Special Revelation.

General Revelation does however provide enough knowledge to hold humans accountable for suppressing God’s truth.

This means no excuses for us as individuals and the church to say I don’t need to share the Gospel with my friends, family and neighbors. We must look for ways God is inviting us to reach THE LOST.

Challenge: Knowing Christ and accepting Christ as our Savior has changed us from the inside out. B/C of General revelation we have sought out God and found Jesus. 1 Chronicles 28:9, 2 Chronicles 15:2, Proverbs 8:17, Jeremiah 29:13, Isaiah 55:6 all mention if you seek God you’ll find Him. But we must never let our guard down and put it in cruise control or we will wane away. We must stay spiritually strong as individuals and as a church. Unless we don’t want to grow in Christ. So how about you, what are you doing individually to Grow in Christ each day. I wanna challenge you where you are to say, God I need to be more focused on you. Pick one area of your life in where you are willing to say God, I’m needing to draw closer to you and here is one place I’m gonna start.

Unsaved: General revelation is the conscious God gave to you, its the complexity and beauty of nature. When you recognize this is God and not just chance, then will you listen to Him and seek Him out? ABC.

John 1:12 NKJV

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

Closing Hymn: 25 - The Great Creator