God Speaks
Tom Shrader opens the second week of a 13-week doctrine series by addressing two myths: that doctrine is only for theologians, and that it is purely theoretical rather than practical. He then walks through Romans 1 and 2 Timothy 3 to explain how God reveals Himself through general revelation in creation and through special revelation in Scripture, which is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. The teaching concludes with a call to treat the Bible as an owner's manual written by God Himself, giving people what they need to understand who He is, who they are, and how to live.
“General revelation points me to the fact that there's a creator, there's a power, a force, but specific revelation tells me who he is.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Doctrine
Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 47 min
Themes: doctrine, bible, knowing god, creation, scripture, truth, faith, purpose, new believer, skeptic questioning the bible, young adult, seeker, intellectually curious christian, small group member, person doubting scripture, college student
Scripture: Romans 1:18-28, Psalm 14:1, Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 6:3, Isaiah 55:8-9, Ecclesiastes 10:19, Matthew 4, Deuteronomy 8:3, 2 Timothy 3:16, 1 Peter 1:21
Theological Themes: general revelation, special revelation, biblical authority, theopneustos, god-breathed scripture, systematic theology, scripture sufficiency, natural theology
Full Transcript
Introduction: What Is Doctrine?
If you don't have a Bible with you, raise your hand and the guys will get a copy to you. When you get a Bible, open it to page 610, which is the book of Romans. We are in the second week of what will be a 13-week series dealing with what we call doctrine.
There are two resources we have made available to you. The first is a book titled *Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe*, co-authored by Mark Driscoll. It's a $23 book available in the bookstore for $15. We ordered 500 of them and sold them all last week, got another 200 in, and when I went over there today, people were lined up getting them. The second resource is a study guide we put together that many people are using on their own, with another person, or in small groups. It's available in the bookstore for about $5 or $6. We produced 700 of these and sold about 600 of them last week, so if you did not pick up these resources, I would encourage you to do that today.
When we talk about doctrine, here is Webster's definition: something taught as a principle of a creed or a religion — a tenet, a belief, a dogma handed down as authority as true and indisputable. That is exactly what we are talking about here. We are talking about those things that we believe.
Myth One: "I'm Not a Theologian"
Now, if we were to do a word association where I said "doctrine," the response that might come back would be dull, boring — or you might go the other way and say heavy, intellectual, over my head, for theologians. So let me deal with two myths that I think are really important, both of them wrapped up in that reaction.
The first myth is the idea that "I'm not a theologian." Everyone is a theologian. It might not be trained or systematic, but everybody has a view of God, of man, and of the world around us. If I went over to Fashion Square today and arbitrarily picked ten people and started asking them about God, about what happens when you die, about their view of man — virtually everybody has a view.
I was born and raised in a Catholic grade school, high school, and college. I had the Sisters of Mercy for eight years, then Assumption High School for four years, then what could have been a four-year college but I decided to drag out to six, seven, or eight years. I would still be there if they hadn't said, "You now have 23,000 hours — you need to go." But it was a Catholic college, so by the time I moved out here, I had developed a theology. Looking back now, it was a little bit of Augustine, a little bit of Aquinas, a little bit of papal authority, and then a little bit of what I personally thought.
I took the stuff I didn't like and set it aside — a version of what Thomas Jefferson did. Jefferson took the Gospels, removed the parts he didn't like, and produced what is called the Jefferson Bible, which you can order on Amazon today. Jefferson was as smart as can be but dumb as a brick when it came to spiritual things, and that is easy to see because he did not have the Spirit of God living in him. But what he did is what a lot of people do — pick what makes sense to them, leave out the rest, and build their own version of belief. We are all theologians.
Myth Two: Doctrine Is Not Practical
The other myth that is really important to address is the idea that doctrine is not practical. In fact, the opposite is true — doctrine is enormously practical. Martin Luther wrote at length on this, and at the end of what he said, it simply came down to this: doctrine is practical.
I can tell you personally that I would not be interested in this if it were all theoretical. One of the Puritans, William Perkins, described theology this way: "the science of living blessedly forever." That is a profoundly practical statement.
What I say to students at the beginning, middle, and end of summer camp is the same thing I say so often here, and that is: here is our goal —
Transformed Hearts, Informed Minds
God transforms our hearts and then informs our minds so we live a radical life. That transformation is a work God does in our hearts. Some of you can look back and say it happened when you were five; some of you when you were twenty-five. The date is irrelevant — the fact that your heart has been transformed is what matters. Some of you are here today, and I am confident of this, and you are not Christians, not in the sense of someone who has come to Christ in repentance and faith. You may be religious — chronically religious, even — but you do not know Christ.
So the heart needs to be transformed, but then what do we do? The mind needs to be informed, and the primary tool God uses for that is this book. We study it and study it.
A Note on Preparation
As I was preparing for today, I had an enormous number of quotes. My daughter Haley observed one time that if Tom has lots of quotes, he doesn't have anything to say. I think that should be important to note. I never liked her — the day she was born I looked down and said, "I don't think I like this kid very much. Sarah was always my favorite." But I had just told somebody about this the other day: there is a sense in which it is true, but it is not true today.
What I do in preparation for something like this is copy sections from the books I am working through rather than hauling a dozen books around. Thursday, when I was done — and Patty helped me — I had a stack of papers this high plus a few books. My challenge today was culling through all of that, not figuring out how much to fit in.
Six Benefits of Being Spiritually Informed
In that preparation I found some sheets I had used before in a different series. I thought I would mention them to you, though I have no idea where they originally came from. They outline six benefits of being spiritually informed — the fruit of that combination of a transformed heart and an informed mind.
Number one: knowledge gives substance to our faith. We understand this is not simply a blind leap of faith. Number two: knowledge stabilizes us during times of testing. For Aaron and Brittany today, the most comforting thing that can happen as people come around them is to experience and hear, or to recall something they have heard, the Spirit of God applying the Word of God in times that are difficult.
Number three: knowledge enables us to handle the Bible accurately. There is interpretation that needs to take place. If somebody asks me, "Do you take the Bible literally?" I will always say, "Yes — where it is meant to be taken literally." Sometimes Scripture speaks figuratively; sometimes it is poetic. When Jesus says "I am a door," I am not walking up looking for hinges on His hip. I understand the imagery. And I also understand that as we interpret Scripture, the explicit interprets the implicit, and context matters.
Here is an example. This could easily be presented as my life's verse — Ecclesiastes 10:19: "Prepare a meal for enjoyment, wine makes life merry and money is the answer to everything." I could probably get a whole room of amens to that. But you sense, when you hear it, that it might need some context.
Which brings us to number four: knowledge equips us to detect and confront error. If somebody came up to almost any of you who call Redemption Church home and said, "I have this verse from Ecclesiastes 10:19 — wine is good and money is the answer to everything," something in you would say, "That is probably not right." Knowledge does that. Number five: knowledge gives us confidence as we walk and live. Number six: knowledge allows us to filter truth and sort out error and superstition.
The Danger of Knowledge Alone
Paperclipped to those notes was this warning: knowledge alone can be dangerous. When knowledge stands on its own it can become a heady thing and a source of pride. If knowledge is simply an end in itself and not a means to live practically — if it is stored up rather than put into practice — it becomes dangerous. Knowledge should affect the way I live. It needs to be held together with love and grace, and it must not remain merely theoretical.
Knowledge Without Action
One of the points I make to the students I can make to you here as well. Every Sunday morning we have been at Point Loma, every Sunday at ten o'clock, I get out there and stand in the same spot — lower right, facing them, about the second row — and I start to cry. You see these students, and by then some of those hard hearts have started to soften. You also see some of the kids who are punks and jerks — the way some of you sit, honestly — and in the midst of all of it you see a response. Tonight is a response night.
What I try to tell the students is this: I have no problem if you have an emotional response to God. If you begin to contemplate who you are and who He is, and that does not move you emotionally, something is wrong. But if it is all emotion and there is no action, here is what I would tell them at the close: we had a great time, and you can raise your hand and praise Jesus, but if you go home and do not obey your parents and do not get along with your brothers and sisters, then either you are a terribly sinful person, a hypocrite, or you do not know Christ.
The same is true of you and me. If you are here on Sunday and —
The Danger of False Profession
Either you are a hypocrite — because we still sin, and God is going to convict you of that, which we will talk about — or you are the kind of hypocrite who is planning to be something you really are not, and that is the most dangerous position of all. If you are simply out there saying you do not buy any of this, that is relatively easy to deal with. The person who is hard to deal with is the person who says yes, yes, yes, and then goes home and is not saved at all. So there is a warning that comes with knowledge.
Following the Circle of Topics
On your bulletin you will see the circle design on the outside, and the same design is on the study guide. The topics begin in the upper right-hand corner with the Trinity, and then you simply move around the circle. Today we are talking about Revelation — not the book of Revelation, meaning the last book of the Bible dealing with end times. When we cover that, it will be the thirteenth topic we deal with, and I am pretty sure I will be gone that week.
Last week we talked about the Trinity, and Tyler handled it. The same thing happens as the day goes on — that message gets stronger and more clear, and he did a great job.
What This Message Will and Will Not Cover
When I came to this topic of Revelation, what we are really talking about is God speaking to us. I made a decision: I am not going to give you a bunch of purely academic information that you can go home and Google. We have a resource in Google that means we do not need to conduct a seminary class from up here. If you go home and search "how did we get the Bible," "what is canon," or "proof the Bible is accurate," there is a wealth of information available to you. If you do not care enough to spend an hour researching it, I do not think this is the place for me to walk through all of that.
What I want to give you instead is an overview using two passages of Scripture, dealing with this idea of revelation. The word *reveal* literally means to unveil — to remove a covering from something that has been concealed. This reminds us that our faith is not based on speculation or a kind of fictitious wishful thinking, but on fact. God reveals to us who He is, who we are, and the world around us.
The Great Questions of Life
If you take those great questions of life — Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? How did we get this way? — we are going to find the answers in Scripture if God thinks we need them. God starts in the first book and the first verse and says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." He begins with the supposition that He has already created, and then He tells us why the world is the way it is.
That explanation is in Genesis 3. Genesis 2 ends with Adam and Eve in the garden — naked and in harmony. Skip to Genesis 4 and there is discord, anger, jealousy, envy, and murder, and you ask how in the world did this happen. Genesis 3 answers that: man sinned. Ultimately, we can explain everything we see in the world around us through the concept of sin, and we learn that because God reveals it to us.
General and Special Revelation
God reveals Himself in two ways. He reveals through what we call general revelation, and He reveals through what we call specific, or special, revelation. General revelation is that revelation given to all people, in all places, in all ages and all times. It is the heavens and the earth.
The psalmist declares in Psalm 14 verse 1, "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God." And yet Psalm 19 answers, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork." Isaiah chapter 6 verse 3 adds, "The whole earth is filled with His glory."
R.C. Sproul writes: *We tend to live on the surface of things. We are asleep to the wonder and awe that God provides us in His creation. We have tuned it out. We are out of touch. The sublime prevalence of God is all around us, yet we are often blind and deaf to it. We do not understand its language. It takes more than stopping to smell the flowers. The flowers contain more than a sweet aroma or fragrance. They exude the glory of the Creator. We are all in touch with divine revelation when we are in awe of God's glory.*
Romans 1 and the Suppression of Truth
The passage before you is Romans chapter 1 verse 18, and what God is saying here through the pen of the Apostle Paul is that everyone has a sense — in a general sense — that there is a Creator, a God, a higher power. They may not know the specifics, but there is a general revelation. Verse 18 reads: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness against men who are unrighteous who suppress the truth."
That word translated *suppress* carries the idea of an active, engaging, holding down. My favorite illustration of this is the jack-in-the-box that someone gave Sarah when she was a little girl. Clearly, people who either disliked Susan and me, or took a perverse pleasure in our anxiety, would give our children certain toys. Perhaps the worst toy ever invented was the popcorn popper you push around — I hated that. But someone gave Sarah a jack-in-the-box. It would simply go round and round with that little tune, building and building…
General Revelation: What Creation Tells Us
For what can be known about God is plain to them. God has shown it to them. He is talking about the whole world, every person that has ever lived, and every culture. He is talking about that person in the deepest, remotest part of a jungle who has never heard or seen anybody from the outside. "For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that he had made, so that everybody is without excuse."
"For although they knew God" — they knew about Him, they could see — "they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts became darkened." So what does a person have to do to be ungodly? What does a person have to do to be unrighteous? The answer is really nothing. Don't do anything. That is what they did.
They did not give Him honor. They did not give Him thanks. So what God did in their case is allow their hearts to grow dark. You begin to see it in verse 24: He gave them over to their lusts. You see it again in verse 26: He gave them over to their degraded passions. Verse 28: He gave them over to their depraved minds.
It is not that God actively intervened and pushed them in that direction. He simply said, "Is that what you want? Go do it." It is not that God made them do something they did not want to do. He simply said, "If that is what you want, then go for it." Consequently, they claimed to be wise — this is like many people you see around you today — but in reality, they became fools.
What General Revelation Looks Like
General revelation is just that. It is the sunrise, the sunset. Look up and it is astronomy. Look down and it is biology. We see order. We see magnificence. We see the human body. We see our ability to create, to put a man into space, to do phenomenal things.
Consider this little device — somehow I can punch buttons, and a signal goes from here to somewhere, and reaches my brother driving from Chicago. Every Thursday, around 1:30, he is driving from Chicago to Davenport and I am driving home, and we talk on the phone. I do not fully understand how it works. But man's creative power is a picture of something — we are made in the image of God, and we are a picture of God as a creative God. That is general revelation.
John Calvin wrote this: "There exists in the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of deity, we hold to be beyond dispute. Since God himself has endued all men" — endued meaning invested in us — "with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges." So we get the sense that there is something out there. Even though over time it can be darkened, we carry within us a sense of right and wrong.
The Conscience Knows What It Hides
I remember one night my daughter Haley was studying math, and I suggested we go for a walk. She said she could not — she had to study. I told her math was something she would never use and encouraged her to just get her grade and move on. I went to get my things for a walk, came back, and asked her whether the answers were still in the back of the book the way they were when I was in school. She said yes, and I told her to just go back there, get the answer, and write it down.
She asked how I ever got through school. I told her I had help — that I took tutoring right into the classroom with me. She did not understand what I meant, so I explained that I would look over at a classmate's paper, see what answer he had, and figure that was a good answer. She said that was not right, and I told her I was not a Christian at the time. She said two things. First, that that was my answer for everything. Second — and this was pretty insightful, given that she was about twelve — she asked, "Did you hide when you did it?"
I was not sure what she meant. She said, "Did you hide when you did it? Did you sneak it? Or did you just stand up and look?" I told her I kind of snuck. She said, "Well, then you knew it was wrong. That is why you hid it."
That is the same one who had the insight about the quotes. I will say this — she is just like her mother. That should tell you something about what my life has been like for thirty-three years.
The Bible as Special Revelation
She stumbled onto the truth. God put in us this idea of right and wrong — that is general revelation. When we get to the New Testament, and the Old Testament, to the Bible itself, we see what we call special or specific revelation.
I want to walk on the assumption that you are like me — that you come to a Bible and you really don't know what it is, so you apply to it what you would to almost any book. You come to it and think, I guess some guy had a lot of time and wrote all this. But there are over 40 authors. The word "Bible" means book, and that singular book is made up of 66 little books or letters — 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.
In Matthew chapter four, Jesus is led into the wilderness and tempted by Satan. Satan says to Him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse three: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Vox Dei — the voice of God. That is what this book is.
The Bible was written primarily in two languages, with a little of a third: Hebrew, Greek, and a little Aramaic. It was written over 1,500 years by 40 different authors on the continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Those authors were kings and peasants, philosophers and fishermen, poets and statesmen, scholars and a doctor.
The book itself is a book of history, sermons, letters, songs, poems, and love letters. We believe it is literally God's word, telling us the story of man from creation, through the fall, and then restoration.
The Story the Bible Tells
I love to illustrate this because it really is a powerful word picture. In my Bible, Genesis one and two — one page — is the story of creation. A page and a little more is the fall. And then everything after that is God putting it back together, God restoring, giving us a picture of how things will be restored, how this earth will come to an end, and what happens when we die. It is this history of redemption and revelation laid out for us.
This is a book that became, through what we call the canon, recognized as these books written by God. And even saying "written by God" can be confusing, because when we get to the book of Romans, we say Paul wrote Romans. So who wrote Romans — Paul or God? To answer that, turn to 2 Timothy chapter three.
Translations of the Bible
Before we look at that passage, let me say a word about translations. If you receive a Bible from us here, it is the ESV — the English Standard Version. Virtually all of our pastors teach from the ESV, with the exception of me. I teach from the New American Standard. One of our elders pointed out that this may be confusing people, because we hand someone an ESV, then I read from the New American Standard, and though they are very similar, there are differences. So I am likely going to make the shift to the ESV — we will see.
When we talk about translations, there are three types. The first is word-for-word translation. These are the best translations, and both the ESV and the New American Standard belong in that category. The second type is thought-for-thought translation, which is where the NIV falls. Whenever you move to thought-for-thought, you are potentially introducing a little more danger in terms of precision. The third type is a paraphrase — the Message, the Living Bible, and the Phillips translation would fall there, with the Message being the most popular.
If you want the most reliable translation, you will be in the ESV or the New American Standard.
God-Breathed Scripture
In 2 Timothy chapter three — Bible for Message, page 645 — Paul is writing to his protégé Timothy. Paul is at the end of his life and ministry; Timothy is at the beginning of his. In verse 16, Paul says, "All Scripture is God-breathed." Peter adds in 1 Peter 1:21 that no prophecy — and by that he does not mean only prophetic utterance, but teaching — came by the impulse of man, but by men moved by the Holy Spirit.
When we say God wrote the books of the Bible, we do not mean He dictated them word for word. We can see, even in the original Greek, that Paul's Greek is far more developed and professional than Peter's. It was not that God dictated and they transcribed, nor that they wrote a draft and He made corrections. Rather, as they were moving the pen, God was moving them. These are God's thoughts, taken down and given to us by these men.
The Proof of Prophecy
One of the most compelling proofs of the reliability of Scripture is the fulfillment of prophecy. There are some 2,500 prophecies given to us in the Old and New Testaments. Approximately 2,000 of them have been fulfilled — fulfilled in ways we cannot dismiss — including prophecies surrounding the birth of Jesus alone: where He would be born, how He would be born, and details that could not possibly have been arranged by human design.
The Reliability of Biblical Prophecy
One day in Priority Living, I had a guest speaker named Dr. Hugh Ross. Some of you know that name now, but he was not nearly as popular or familiar then. When I met him, he was indeed a doctor — allergic to eye contact and shy in all the most pronounced ways. He got to the podium and said, "Hello, good morning, my name is Dr. Hugh Ross. Since age seven, I've wanted to be an astrophysicist." I was sitting next to Jerry Smith, and I said, "What is an astrophysicist?" He said, "I think the guy invented AstroTurf." So we may not have had this figured out.
He went on and on, and he is remarkably smart. One of the things he left behind is a little brochure titled *Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible*, in which he took simply 13 prophecies and pointed out how they have been fulfilled perfectly. Here is his last paragraph:
"Since these 13 prophecies cover mostly separate and independent events, the probability of chance occurrence of all 13 is about one in 10 to the 138th power. 138 equals the sum of all the exponents of 10 in the probability estimates above. For the sake of putting this figure into perspective, the probability can be compared to the statistical chance that the second law of thermodynamics would reverse in a given situation — for example, that a gasoline engine would refrigerate during a combustion cycle, or that heat would flow from a cold body to a hot body. That chance is one in 10 to the 80th power."
He then writes, "Stating it simply" — and when I read that, I thought, well, this will be good — "based on these 13 prophecies alone, the Bible record may be said to be vastly more reliable than the second law of thermodynamics." The next sentence made me laugh: "Each reader should feel free to make his own reasonable estimate of the probability of chance fulfillment of the prophecies cited herein."
Every time I share this, there is someone who wants to email me or meet with me to dispute it, and I am not interested in that conversation. All I am saying is that this is a very smart man, and those are 13 of the 2,500 prophecies in Scripture. Unless you simply want to close your mind, the evidence points clearly to the conclusion that the Bible is the Word of God.
Profitable for Teaching, Reproof, Correction, and Training
The passage tells us the Bible is God-breathed, and then it says it is profitable. That word means beneficial, productive, sufficient. Paul lists four things it is profitable for: teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Here is an easy way to hold onto that. The Bible is profitable for teaching — what is right; reproof — what is not right; correction — how to get right; and training in righteousness — how to stay right. In essence, it is an owner's manual, written by God, to tell you how to get the most out of your life.
The Owner's Manual Illustration
I was doing a men's conference in Tucson, and on the drive back I stopped to call Susan — this was before cell phones. In our house, in our life, there is very little drama. I do not like drama, we did not allow it, and Susan did not allow it even with our girls. So when I called and she said she was stressed, I knew something was genuinely wrong.
She told me that while I had been gone, the hot water heater broke, the garbage disposal broke, and the garage door opener broke. I gave her some words designed to offer encouragement and comfort, though I do not think they did. I said, "I'll be home soon." Anyone who knows me knows that was not going to help, because all I was going to do when I got there was ask how she broke it and why she had not fixed it.
When I got home, she was back to herself — just great. We sat down, and there were two takeaways, one hers and one mine. Hers was this: the garbage disposal, the hot water heater, and the garage door opener break for the godly and the ungodly alike. In other words, life is life.
Here is what I learned. After paying for all three replacements, we were filling out warranty cards, and I noticed something. These are not connected products — a hot water heater, a garbage disposal, and a garage door opener have nothing in common — and yet all three came with an owner's manual written by the manufacturer himself, telling me how to get the maximum efficiency out of the product, and telling me how to reach him directly if the manual did not answer all of my questions.
That is when I realized that is exactly what the Bible is. It is written by the manufacturer Himself — God — given to us to tell us how to get maximum efficiency out of life: what is right, what is not right, how to get right, how to stay right. It even comes with an 800 number, and that is called prayer. I know this could sound demeaning and I do not mean it that way, but His customer representative in that case is the Holy Spirit. The most powerful force in your life is going to be when the Spirit of God applies the Word of God to the heart and mind of the child of God.
What the Scripture Does Not Answer
That does not mean every question is answered. What it means is that He has given us answers to every question that He either thinks we need answered, or that we can comprehend and handle the answer to. The Bible is good for teaching — and here that speaks not just of the action but of the content itself. It is good for reproof, which carries the idea of correcting or convicting.
At some point in your life, someone may come to you and say that what you are doing is not right. Your instinct is going to be to ask, "Who made you God? Who gave you the right?" — and that is exactly where we need to examine what Scripture says about reproof.
God's Word Corrects and Restores
Conviction leads to reproof, and reproof leads to correction — the idea of restoring something to its proper condition. Consider a stool with one of its legs pulled out. If you take that leg and knock it back in, then set the stool upright, that is the Greek word used in the text: to take something and put it back in its correct condition. After correction comes training in righteousness, which calls to mind the idea of training up a child in the way he should go.
Special Revelation Answers the Deepest Questions
God's special revelation — His Word — answers the questions about who He is. When someone begins describing what they think God is like, it can sound a great deal like talking to a dog. We used to have a dog named Rudy. The more you talked to Rudy, the more he would look at you, glaze over, and eventually lose interest entirely. Sometimes people share their ideas about God, and the natural question is: where did you get that? From Oprah, from a radio host, from a grandmother?
Here is how we actually know about God. General revelation points us to the fact that there is a Creator, a power, a force behind all things. But specific revelation tells us who He is. The Word teaches the whole body of truth: who God is, who we are, how we got here, where we are going, and what the meaning of life is.
It tells us what is right, what is not right, how to get right, and how to stay right. It takes the thoughts and mind of God and brings them down to something we can understand. Some mysteries are now revealed. Others are kept from us. Others may be beyond our comprehension entirely.
Isaiah 55, verses eight and nine, says: "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and my ways higher than your ways." What the Bible gives us is this: those lofty thoughts of God, some of His mysteries and secrets, are revealed. Sometimes we encounter truth that we cannot yet fully place in a box or figure out, but what we know must trump what we feel.
The Maze: A Picture of God's Guidance
Some years ago, there was a superb family vacation that included a stop at Knott's Berry Farm. At one end of the park, there was a human maze — not a ride, but a walk-through where people would wander and bump into one another. Standing up in the observatory watching, there was one child who was becoming very frustrated. He would turn and bump into a wall, turn again and bump into another, and eventually he began to cry.
It turned out his mother was standing right there in the observatory. She called out to him — "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny" — and began directing him. "Go to your left. Now go over there. Make a right, make a left, go straight ahead." In just a matter of seconds, she was able to do what he was completely incapable of doing on his own.
It is not a perfect analogy, but it captures something real. In life, we bump into wall after wall, and God comes with His Word and says, let me straighten this out for you. That is what we begin to understand when we look around: God has given us His Word for our good and for His glory.
Where to Find the Answers
Revelation is God speaking to us. General revelation comes through His creation. Specific revelation comes through His Word. If we want to know God, know who we are, and understand life and the world around us, this is where we will find it — in this book.
We know something is desperately wrong with us, and that is called sin. We also know there is a solution that God gives us, and that is Jesus. The answer to sin points us to the crucifixion and redemption, and that is what we celebrate together in communion.
Father, for this amazing truth in our life, will You open our eyes to see this reality? Thank You for Your Word that is clear and real and specific. God, thank You for revelation that shows the heart of man — who we are, what we are like, and what You are like. God, we pray that You would take this time and touch our hearts. We ask it of You, in Christ's name, amen.