Understanding Our Faith 003 - General Revelation 02
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
We are continuing in General Revelation this morning. General revelation, if we remember, is that which is God revealing Himself to all people everywhere. Last time it was God revealing Himself through creation.
Another way God reveals Himself to us is through human beings.
There is something within us that says that there must be a God. This is because we are made in the image of God. And there is an inner sense that He exists.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
In other words He has put within us a sense that there is something grander than us, a God-shaped hole as someone once put it. That is not the only sense within us - we also have a moral sense in the shape of our consciences. It is what gives us an awareness of right and wrong. Our conscience became active after the fall with the knowledge of good and evil and caused there to be shame which is why Adam and Eve hid in the garden.
This innate awareness is written of by Paul:
for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 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)
Our consciences are not perfect and can let us down because sin has corrupted it, defiled it and even seared it. But where did this sense of right and wrong come from? We can learn what is right and wrong from others but it is already present in us. Even if we were taught that something that was wrong was alright all along there is something telling us that it is not. It reveals to people that there is a lawgiver. But, of course, our consciences does not give us a full picture of God but it does reveal that there must be One who will hold us to account.
Another way God reveals Himself to us is through history itself.
His hand is seen in the rise and fall of nations controlling and guiding the scenes of history. And anyone who knows history can see that this is the case.
But God is the Judge:
He puts down one,
And exalts another.
Throughout Scripture we can see the way God has dealt with certain nations such as Egypt with the judgements on Pharaoh.
For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”
The book of Daniel is absolutely full of the fact that God controls history.
1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand.
3 Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.
5 In the same hour the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
13 Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke, and said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? 14 I have heard of you, that the Spirit of God is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you.
23 And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. 24 Then the fingers of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written.
25 “And this is the inscription that was written:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
26 This is the interpretation of each word. Mene: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; 27 Tekel: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; 28 Peres: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” 29 Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a chain of gold around his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
30 That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
I think that you know the story of the fall of Babylon. A city that was thought to be impregnable, invincible and unconquerable which is why Belshazzar was having such a party despite the fact that the army of the Medes were outside the front door. And they were right – the city could not be overcome through the city walls – they were so wide that you could have a two-lane dual carriageway on top. However the Medes were clever: they redirected the flow of the Euphrates River so that they could pass under the water gate and take the City, and they did so without a fight. This is something God ordained to happen – one ruler brought down, another took his place.
Further on in Daniel we are told about four kingdoms: the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. And so Daniel predicted them before they were. And then Daniel goes on to speak of further history to come including the Antichrist. Of course, all these Kingdoms were ordained by God, allowed by Him even if they were not godly. It is the same today when we look at the Kingdoms of this world. One is raised up and another is put down. All this is in God’s hands.
We can even speak of British History and the miraculous sinking of the Spanish Armada in 1588 or in WW2 how we were saved from an invasion because of a series of mistakes made by Hitler and by the Captain of a German Ship called the Bismarck which was sent to destroy the food convoys which without Britain could not survive. If the ship had not been sunk by the British in revenge for its attack against the British Flag Ship the HMS Hood America would not have joined the war and then with the British liberate Europe – so crucial was this event in 1941 that it can be seen only after the war that this was the pivotal moment which changed the outcome of the war in Europe. God did not allow Spain or Germany to take over Britain partly because we put our trust in God and in prayer to Him. And we can find similar stories in even British defeats with other nations with interventions that could only be God raising and putting down those in authority. And this is similar throughout the nations of the world.
God is in control. God ordained them to their positions. And one day another will replace them. Note that the world cannot depose someone like Robert Mugabe though they dearly want to – he is there until God says he shouldn’t be.
A nation can only take over another Kingdom if God allows it otherwise we have our boundaries set by Him and nothing we can do can change it.
8 When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel.
26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
Remember we are talking about the way God has revealed Himself to all people:
I have not yet mentioned Israel – a nation that should not exist since the Roman Empire and its armies destroyed the Jews finally in the year 135. Then in May 1948 it became a nation again fulfilling many Scriptures such as:
8 Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?
For as soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her children.
And nothing the surrounding nations or the UN can do about it. Though on the day of its independence six nations attacked Israel but God miraculously helped Israel to defeat them.
History proves time and time again that there is a power at work in the lives of people that cannot be put down to mere chance who directs the ways of people raising up unknown persons to be people of power and putting down those in power to be nobodies. The evidence is plain that there is a God at work. History is one of the ways God reveals Himself to the world.
Again, this is not enough to know God personally or to save someone but in recognising these things people should seek to find out about God. Atheists have no excuse.
It is only in the preaching of the Gospel will people come to faith in Christ. God has revealed Himself through the wonder of creation, the inner sense within human beings, and in the course of history…and next time we’ll see how God has specially revealed Himself so that we can truly know Him.