I have always said this back in the years and will keep on saying it: the major problem we are facing in the church today is that people don’t know God. They don’t know God because most evangelicals and false teachers who stand in the pulpit who themselves do not know the true God of the Bible. Therefore, they are preaching a God who is only known for a few select attributes such as love, goodness, grace, compassion, since these attributes of God suit their needs better. So, they selfishly embrace them and don’t care about knowing anything else.
Too many want a God who will love us just as we are, because He is love. A God who must forgive our sins, since He is full of compassion; a God who must give us all that we want: for God is good all the time! A God who won’t send people to hell because He is full of grace – and loving. This is what you will hear from most pulpits, being fed to many people who are not spending time in their bibles and on their knees, to know God for themselves. How do we learn to know God apart from the Bible, prayer and sound teaching? How will we ever know who God is if we are picking and choosing which of His attributes suits us better?
I believe it was the late, faithful bible teacher R.C Sproul who illustrated it that way: people come to the attributes of God as if they come to a buffet where they can choose to eat what they like and despise the other things that don’t seem to taste very good. In other words what he meant was this, everybody would pick and choose the love of God but not His Justice. They want the grace of God but not His sovereignty. They will always pick and choose the compassion and longsuffering of the Lord but do not want to hear about His wrath. That here is the major problem amongst evangelicals and church goers. We do not have the knowledge of the holy, therefore we will eventually perish. As it is clearly stated in the passage, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge… seeing that we have forgotten the law of God, He will forget our children. (Hosea 4:6).
One of the first things you will notice among church members that do not know God is that they trivialize sin. Yes, repentance has become an old thing, brokenness and contrition of heart have been placed in the category of psychological issues, church discipline has become a rude thing, etc. What you commonly hear is well, “we are all sinners, who are you to judge?”, “be nice and love your neighbor as yourself”, “let’s practice more tolerance towards one another…”, “Jesus loves you no matter what”, “come as you are… etc.”
Second, the preaching of the word of God is shallow and aims to be more entertaining than convicting, reproving, rebuking and instructing in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Sometimes I wonder, why so many false teachers have large audiences? There are many answers to this question. Two of them are these: false teachers who teach the doctrine of Balaam, whose God is their belly, they do not know God – or have they forgotten who God is. (Rev. 2: 14-15; Phil. 3:18-19). They have read but not believed the stricter judgement reserved for those who call themselves teachers of the word (James 3:1), they have read but not believed that they will give account for every careless word that came out of their mouths (Matt 12:36). How can you know God’s holiness and not tremble at His word? (Isaiah 66:2; Lev. 10:1-3). If one does not tremble that might be evidence that they do not know or not believed (James 2:19).
Have you forgotten God? Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth (Isaiah 40: 21)? We have lost sight of the holiness of God, to the point that we thank that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. “I am the Lord, I change not”, He said (Mal 3:6).
God is a thrice Holy God who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Isa. 6:3; Heb. 13:8), and he requires holiness from His church (1 Pet. 1:16), love and obedience to His word (John 14:15), love unto Christ (Matt. 22:37; 1 Cor. 16:22), sanctification and intimacy with him (1 Thess. 4:7; Lev. 20: 26). Therefore, He consequentially punishes disobedience, rebukes, disciplines and chastens those who are His. If not, we would have questioned His holiness. We must understand that the Triune God is neither constituted of several parts, nor are His attributes placed on a scale of different levels. No! God is essentially one. All His attributes that make him who He is such as His love, justice, compassion, goodness, wrath, sovereignty, immutability, omniscience, holy hatred… are all gloriously in harmony with each other within the Godhead, and with each person of the Trinity. Perfectly so!
Therefore, The Lord God cannot neglect one of His attributes for the sake of the other for the benefit of anyone: angels or men. A perfect God acts in and out of all His perfections and holiness. That’s the God of the Bible, whom we have been called to know intimately, serve diligently and preach faithfully.
The people are perishing for a lack of Knowledge, this is evident. Therefore, we have an urgent need for sound, bold, and unflinching preachers of the Gospel, as Steve Lawson would put it. We need Men, solid Men who know God, who will stand on the pulpit, and in the corners of the street to proclaim God to the people now more than ever.
For more on the “Simplicity” of God, the truth that He embodies all of His attributes completely and that He is not comprised of “parts”, listen here: https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/timeintheword/sermons/42219410256865/
