What is the most important thing to know about God?
• The hardest things for people to understand about God are not the most important things.
• (Deuteronomy 29:29 NIV) "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."
• The important things to know about God are the things that are revealed.
• Now if you think about this for a moment, you will come easily to the realization that most of the arguments about God among theologians have to do with the things that are not revealed.
• The God who reveals himself in the pages of the Bible is a person who exists in a place.
• Religious people are fond of speaking of God as omnipresent, everywhere at once, present in every blade of grass, present in all the universe.
• But they never seem to consider that in the process they depersonalize God, that they are advocating a kind of pantheism.
• No, the Bible reveals a God is a person and who presents himself to us as a person acting in time and space.
• You can think of God presenting Himself as a man standing alongside a road talking to a man named Abraham about what he is planning to do.
Now if God is a person, then it is logical that he has a personality and character.
• In point of fact, that is precisely what the Bible reveals to us about God.
• And for us, the question naturally follows, What kind of person is he? What is he like?
God himself tells us what we must know about him. In words given to Jeremiah, God has this to say about himself.
(Jeremiah 9:23-24 KJV) "Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: {24} But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."
• God is loving and kind. This implies an affectionate person.
• Judgment implies wisdom and justice, fairness, and firmness.
• righteousness implies that he has standards.
• And the existence of standards suggest that he is not whimsical, that he can be depended on to be constant.
• This is really a lot to know about God.
• And they are important things to know. Everything else we learn about God has to be related to these primary traits of Character.
• If what we think we know about God seems to be in conflict with God’s basic character, then we can safely put those things aside to be examined later.
Now, about this characteristic called Lovingkindness. How does that show itself in God?
• There is a story in the Bible illustrates this in a singularly charming way.
• The story is found in the book of Jonah.
• Once upon a time there was great city called Ninevah. Like a lot of great cities, it had become very wicked, so God told a prophet named Jonah to go preach to that great city.
• Right here we come to something very important to know about God. A different kind of God, if he were powerful enough and a city was wicked enough, would just rub it out. Why fool around?
• Okay, so why did God send a prophet to tell Ninevah what was coming? The answer to this tells us something very important about God.
• Now the first part of Jonah’s story, the part about him being swallowed by a whale, is a story for another day.
• What will occupy us today is the second part, when Jonah at last finds himself in the suburbs of Ninevah preaching, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
And here I would like to pause to ask an important question: Why is this book even in the Bible? It is clean outside the story line of the rest of the book.
• So there must be a singular reason why this book is here.
• There is, and I will tell you about that right after this important message.
So here is Jonah, walking through Ninevah preaching “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
• Now if you happen to be listening to this in Dallas, or Kansas City or Los Angeles, what effect would it have for an unknown prophet to show up in your suburbs preaching, “Yet forty days and Dallas shall be overthrown.”
• No effect at all, as long as he didn’t block traffic, right?
So what happened in Nineveh is remarkable to say the least.
Jonah 3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
• Now if you are quick on the pick up, you already know what is going on here.
• The reason why God sent Jonah to Nineveh with a prophecy was to change the outcome.
• He could have turned Nineveh to toast like he did Sodom and Gomorrah.
• But He didn’t want to do that. That is an important thing to know. God doesn’t like killing people.
So why is the book of Jonah in Bible? Because it reveals an important side to the character of God and how he works. God doesn’t like to hurt people and he doesn’t like to see us hurt ourselves
• There are people who believe that prophecy in the Bible is a kind of fortune telling and that God is like a time traveler.
• God looks into the future and sees what is going to happen and then tells us about it.
• The presumption is that the future is already written.
• But here is the problem with that. If the future is already written, then Jonah lied to Nineveh. Because Nineveh was Not overthrown in forty days. The prophecy was false.
• Now we know God did not send Jonah to lie to Nineveh because we know God doesn’t lie.
• So the future of Nineveh was not written in advance. But the outcome of the way they were living their lives was knowable. If you see someone on a collision course with disaster, would you not want to tell them?
• So here we come to the answer to another important question relative to prophecy. Why should God tell us what the future holds? So we can change the future.
• And this is an act of great kindness by a God who doesn’t want us to fall down and hurt ourselves.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
• Jonah is a little hard to figure, but I have known people like him. They take a certain relish in preaching about sin and the awful things that are going to happen to sinners.
• You can easily imagine them being a little disappointed if their worst predictions don’t come to pass.
• Back when everyone was predicting disaster over the Year 2000 because of some mistakes in computer programming, the prophets of doom were truly eloquent.
• And a day or so after January 1, when we had sailed through new year with no problems at all, one such prognosticator wrote, “Let’s not get discouraged, there is still time for something to happen.”
Sorry to say, but Jonah was that kind of guy. Seriously.
3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
• “Let’s not get discouraged, there is still time for something awful to happen.”
6 And the LORD God provided a vine, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the vine.
7 But God sent a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God provided a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the vine? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the vine, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
• And here we come to the point of this fine story.
• God’s purpose is not to kill but to save.
• Jonah felt sorry for the vine. God felt sorry for the children of Nineveh and he even felt sorry for their cows.
• And this is what it means to say that God exercises lovingkindness. God is tenderhearted.
• And that, my friends, is something well worth knowing about God.
And it brings us squarely to the second important thing to know about God:
Remember what God said was the important thing to know?
(Jeremiah 9:23-24 KJV) "Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: {24} But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."
• Once upon a time, there was another prophet in another time.
Ezekiel 33:7 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.
8 When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.
9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.
10 "Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?"'
11 Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'
12 "Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, 'The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. The righteous man, if he sins, will not be allowed to live because of his former righteousness.'
• Now I ask you folks, isn’t this fair?
13 If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done.
14 And if I say to the wicked man, 'You will surely die,' but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right--
15 if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die.
16 None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.
17 "Yet your countrymen say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But it is their way that is not just.
18 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it.
19 And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so.
20 Yet, O house of Israel, you say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But I will judge each of you according to his own ways."
• But, you see, if we had known the important things to know about God, we would never have said that he is not fair.
• The objective of telling us the future is to change the future.
And here is an important distinction to make: God is not a grandfather in the sky. God is a father.
• A grandfather can afford to be indulgent, but a father has to be firm. He can be loving. He must be kind.
• But if he is not just, his kids will never come to know right from wrong.
Then there is that third thing to know about God.
(Jeremiah 9:23-24 KJV) "Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: {24} But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."
• God has standards of right and wrong.
• They are called laws.
• And since God is not a great grandfather in the sky, what is right today is not going to be wrong tomorrow.
• God is the one great constant.
Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
(James 1:17 KJV) "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
And you can take that to the bank.