Sermon Tone Analysis

Revelation

Good morning.

Welcome to our second class on Bibliology, the study of the Bible.

And in case you weren’t here last week, we are going to be talking about the nature of the Bible - how God inspired it, how the individual books were assembled together, how it was transmitted, and how it was translated into different languages.

We also will spend some of our last classes talking about how to study the Bible for ourselves.

But even after our first week, I’ve already gone off course from my original schedule.

We were supposed to cover the doctrine of ‘Revelation’ last week, but I was being a bit too ambitious.

And so that will be our subject for this week.

Let’s pray.

OK.

So today we are going to talk about ‘Revelation’.

By that, I don’t mean the Book of mean that in a more general sense.

So let’s start with a definition (you can fill this in).

Revelation is: any truth which God discloses to humans that could not be known by any other way.

*Revelation deals with the WHAT and not the HOW.

In other words, revelation defines what the Bible is.

It does not necessarily say how the Bible was revealed to men.

We’ll cover that in next week’s topic of inspiration.

But really the point that you should get from today’s lesson is that if God didn’t chose to reveal Himself, we would not know Him.

That means that we are dependent on God to reveal Himself.

If the Bible had never been written, or if God chose to never speak to men, then we all would have perished with no way to reach God.

We only know what God tells us about Himself.

Now we can divide ‘revelation into two categories:

The Two Categories of Revelation

General Revelation - All that God reveals in the world around us.

It reaches all people and it is found across every part of the globe.

This kind of revelation is given to all people at all times.

Special Revelation - Truth that God has disclosed only to certain people in specific ways.

Special Revelation - Truth that God has disclosed only to certain people in specific ways.

*The first kind (general revelation) reaches all people, while the second kind (specific revelation) is only revealed to certain individuals.

The Bible is of the second type, and all types of revelation will fall into one of these two categories.

Let’s explore them…

1.

General Revelation.

(

General revelation is sufficient to condemn, insufficient to save.

*General revelation alone is limited because it does not directly reveal Christ.

However, it is useful because it is evident to all people, and therefore it is a place where you can start if you want to witness someone who does not believe in God.

Three Kinds of Evidence for the Existence of God

Creation () – Because everything we know had to have been caused by something, the whole universe had to have been created by a First Cause (God’s act of creation)

You may remember the law from science: Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

So if this is true, an atheist must admit that matter always existed.

So both Christians and atheists believe in something eternal.

The question is: Which one is it- 1.) matter, or 2.) a God who created the matter?

says this: "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse."

Conscience () - Because we have a sense of right and wrong, there must be a God who gave us that sense.

"Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."

Complexity (, ) – Because everything is so complex, there must have been a skillful Creator who made it all.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard."

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well."

So here we have two passages that illustrate this point in two different ways.

In , we see that the heavens, the skies, everything, declares the glory of God.

That goes back to our first point - you look at everything around you, on ponder the size of the universe, one is forced to ask the question, “Where did this all come from?”

The universe is massive - so massive that we can’t even contemplate it.

We often see pictures of our own solar system with all of the planets and the sun in one picture.

But I guarantee you that every single picture you’ve seen of our solar system is not to scale.

If you can see all of the planets and the sun in one picture, I guarantee you that it is wrong.

How do I know?

Because if we represent the solar system in a to-scale model, and the earth is a marble, the planet of Neptune would be about 4 miles away.

If the earth is a marble, that means that Neptune would be a different marble, over at the Lebanon Walmart.

And we are just microscopic specs on this marble.

Do you see how large the solar system is?

And not only that, but then how massive our universe must be?

When we look up at the heavens, we are forced to ask, “Where did this all come from?”

And so the answer has to be God.

God created it all.

But even more than that, not only does the existence of everything around us demonstrate God’s existence, but it also displays his glory.

For not only do we see that everything exists where it shouldn’t exist, but we see that what exists is glorious.

It is beautiful, it is massive, it is amazing.

And if the creation itself is glorious, then the God who made it must be even more glorious.

(pictures of creation)

If

Additionally, if we go back to the verse, “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” that verse speaks to how complex our bodies are.

It is truly amazing that something as complex as our bodies exists at all.

The complexity demands a Designer.

Christians have often used the example of a watch: If you took all of the individual pieces of a watch, threw them up in the air, you wouldn’t expect that by chance, they would fall to the table and assemble as a watch.

It is just as unlikely that all of the complex systems in our bodies would have developed together as well.

And just like how when we see a watch, we know there is a designer, when we see the complexity of our own bodies, it implies a designer as well.

There is another aspect to this idea of complexity that serves as evidence of a Creator.

And that is the idea of ‘irreducable complexity’.

What do I mean?

Well, there are some systems in living organisms that exist, that are so complex, they couldn’t have evolved one part at a time.

Why?

Because if you take out any single part of the system, the whole mechanism doesn’t function.

An example of this is the bacterial flagellum.

(Picture)

Here, you’ll see a close up picture of the tail (flagellum) of an e. coli bacteria.

The tail actually is made up of many parts that make a tiny motor.

But if you remove any of those parts, the motor doesn’t function.

Watch this video:

(Video).

That is irreducable complexity.

Why did I get into all of this?

It is an example of general revelation - God revealing that he exists through what he has made.

*Of course, you cannot prove the existence of God with these things.

Romans says that though men know God, because of his general revelation, they still deny His existence and do not acknowledge Him.

But even if a person does see God in these things, that knowledge is not enough to be saved.

Another, more specific kind of revelation is needed.