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Muskegon SDA Church

God is Love?

Kameron DeVasher

01-Because The Bible Says So

This evening you have a worksheet you have a little pamphlet of things in your hand, so I'd like you to take those out worksheet number 1 worksheet number 1 Entitled because the Bible says so because the Bible says so That's gonna be our message this evening Before we begin any study of the Word of God, we're going to ask for His Holy Spirit to lead us, and then we're going to launch into our topic for the evening, and we'll keep together as we study God's Word.

So let's bow our heads quickly for a word of prayer and then we're off.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here with these dear people.

Thank you for the beautiful weather that finally came about today.

And as we've come into this place, Lord, please put away any distraction, any temptation, any other thing that could get in the way from understanding who you are and understanding what your word offers for us tonight.

So Lord, please guide our minds, sharpen them, and at the same time soften our hearts if there's any resistance there.

Help us to be open to whatever your word says.

Now I believe as we mentioned before we're going to be going step by step through a study of God's word.

We're going to be studying things, perhaps things that you have never seen before.

In fact, I'm going to make a guarantee tonight.

I'm going to guarantee that there's, I don't care who you are.

I don't care how biblically literate, how long you've been in a church, or whether you've been in a church at all or not.

Whatever religious background you are, from 100 years of devoted faithful service to this is the first time you've ever darkened the steps of it.

This is the first time you've creaked open the pages of the Bible.

Whatever your level of experience is, I promise you that as we go through our meetings, we're going to learn new things to you, Maybe some new ideas and a new perspective, or things completely new that you've never heard before, and you're gonna see it right from God's Word.

That's the goal, that's the end game, is to see what the Bible actually says.

But before we can do that, we need to address the issue that we're focusing on tonight.

Is believing in something simply because the Bible says so logically valid?

The last Bible author to be alive was some 2, 000 years ago.

Why would we put our faith and trust, why would we put any credibility whatsoever into a dusty book, the authors which have been dead for centuries or even millennia at this point?

How is this a logically, intellectually credible thing to do in this day and age.

Like, why in this technological age would we go back to some relic of, oh my goodness, Organized religion, old things, that's antiquitous.

Now, like I said, I believe it's incredible things, important things, but in this world, it's helpful to know why you should trust anything.

I don't know about you, but I'm guessing people in this room have been let down by someone or something before.

For instance, at some point, you know, you had this retirement set up, and all of a sudden, a bubble bursts, money's gone.

You had an investment in a property, money's gone.

Maybe you invested in a person and that person's gone.

Maybe something you set your trust in at 1 point seemed solid and then all of a sudden you blinked your eyes and it was Gone like a vapor.

And then we come along and say, trust God's word.

If the people I can see and hear and interact with daily let me down.

How about this person I've never met in my life?

Why in the world should we trust the Bible?

Now, I'm going to make a simple premise, and as we follow along with our worksheet here, you're going to see that we're going to go right just right through it.

But I believe that non-believers need a good reason to believe, need any reason in fact to believe.

They're looking for any reason to believe at all.

And furthermore people who claim to believe the Bible need a better reason to believe than they already have.

Most people, most Christians would probably, if asked, say, I believe that the Bible is trustworthy because, well, and they'll give something like, well, my family always has.

Or, I don't know, this is, I've always kind of gone to church, or, you know, Americans are genuinely Christians, so I guess, yeah, the Bible's true.

Some sort of nonsensical answer like that, something, or say something like, the worst of all, I believe the Bible is true because the Bible says so.

I believe the Bible is true because the Bible says so.

Now is that an intellectually credible position, especially a position that you're going to found the rest of your life upon?

I believe the Bible is true because the Bible tells me it's true.

I don't know if it's real, but it serves our purposes tonight.

There was some napkins left lying around at a restaurant, and on 1 of them, someone had taken a pen and scribbled these words.

It said, the napkin religion is the 1 true religion.

I know so, because it says so right here on this napkin.

Because the napkin said it, it must be true because the napkin had it written down.

A lot of people look at Christianity like that napkin.

Are you telling me that there's a book, a literal paper and ink book, that says it's the Word of God and therefore, oh it must be the Word of God because it says so.

People will look at the Bible like they look at that napkin and say, that's just logically inconsistent, that's ridiculous, that's silly, that's old wives tale, and they let it go.

So I believe non-believers need any reason to believe, And I believe that believers need a better reason to believe than many of them have at all.

So, because the Bible says so, I believe, is a fantastic answer to almost every question in the Christian life, except for Why should I trust the Bible?

Once you've established trustworthiness of Scripture, then you can build upon it.

But until you've gotten there, just to hear, because the Bible says so, brother.

It's like, first of all, we're not brothers.

And second of all, I don't believe the Bible.

So what we wanna do tonight is give a credible, logical, and I believe powerful reason for you to look at your Bible and say this is not just another book.

This is God's book, and it is trustworthy beyond everything else in life.

Okay, that's our end goal tonight is to talk about the reliability of Scripture.

So let's go in our Bibles to 2 Timothy, our first text we're going to look up, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16.

Now if you have those Now if you have those pew Bibles out, that's going to be page 1144, 1144, 2 Timothy, chapter 3, and verse 16.

What does the Bible act, does the Bible even claim to be the Word of God or does it claim to be a good book?

Does it make that bigger claim to be actually the Word of God?

Well let's see what it says about itself.

It says here, all scripture is given by inspiration of whom?

Okay, And how much scripture is included there?

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable.

For reproof, correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." Notice, all, thoroughly, complete, every.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Now, whether or not that claim is true we'll get back to in a minute but I want you to see right there in the scripture that the bible does not just claim to be an inspiring book it doesn't claim just to be good literature or good poetry or interesting nighttime reading or old fairy tales for children.

It claims to be the very breathed out, inspired, in fact that word means inspiration of God, means God breathed.

02-Did God Make the Devil?

Now again, the title of our entire series is God is Love, but with a big question mark.

The Bible repeatedly affirms not just that God is lovely or that God is loving from time to time, but that He is the personification.

And just like we saw the other night, just like we saw last night, the bigger the claim, the greater the evidence required to support it, to verify it, to validate it.

Last night, the claim was simply that God's Word is trustworthy, it's reliable, it can be trusted, it's accurate.

And God makes this claim and gives evidence to support it.

He simply says, I can do things that nothing else claiming to be God, nothing else you can believe in will actually do.

And that is simply tell you the end from the beginning.

If I am truly the eternal being, I should be able to say the early things and the late things before it happened.

And you should be able to sit back and watch it come true.

And sure enough, the Lord in Daniel chapter 2 gave that dream to King Nebuchadnezzar and the interpretation through his servant Daniel, where he saw Babylon and then all the subsequent empires, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, divided Rome, and were living at that time.

And he says this is the history of the world 2, 500 years before it even takes place.

And think about all the millions, billions, perhaps even trillions of people that have come and gone during that time And yet God's Word says, just keep watching, and this will happen, and then this will happen, and then this will happen, and lo and behold, exactly as He said it unfolds, it will.

So God is trustworthy, He is real, His Word is what it claims to be, the very Word of God.

But now we shift our attention to night number 2.

Okay, if God's Word is so true and accurate, and if God is truly this powerful being who he claims that he is, then why is the world around us in such a mess?

Basically, it's the difficulty that everyone faces at some point.

If God is so good, why is his world so bad?

If God is a loving God, if God really is love, and if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, if he's aware of the problem, he has the power to fix the problem, and he has the love that he wants to solve the problem, yet the problem still exists, what does this tell us about the character of the God that wrote the Bible?

I mean, think about the implications here.

If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, so he knows about the problems, he knows about cancer, he knows about natural disaster, he knows about war and all the different problems, and yet he doesn't fix them, then we're faced with a dilemma.

Is he not as powerful as he claims, and he's got a very weepy, bleeding heart, and he'd love to do something, he just can't?

Or is he all-powerful and he absolutely could do something, but he's not as nice as we think he's supposed to be, as he claims to be.

So tonight we're going to dive right into that question.

It's a question most people are wrestling with, and we're going to find a solid biblical and I think convincing, powerful answer to life's biggest questions.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for another opportunity to come together and to study you and your word.

Help us to understand that word and see that you are who you claim to be, not because we just want it to be that way, but because you demonstrate that this is true.

Help us to see it clearly tonight in your Word, for we pray it in Jesus' name.

Let's go to the book of Matthew, page 948 in your pew Bible, Matthew chapter 13.

The question that we just described, how can there be such a good God in a bad world, was taken up by Jesus himself.

The good thing is we don't have to make up an answer.

He actually had a parable addressing this and we're going to start tonight with Jesus addressing of this question.

Matthew chapter 13, we're going to begin with verse 24, page 948 in your pew bible.

Says another parable he put forth to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.

Of course, tares are bad seed, they're weeds.

But, verse 26, when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

Now, I've had this issue with gardening this very year.

You put out a seed and immediately it doesn't just start to take root and pop up.

Then you start questioning, did I plant anything at all?

But you don't know exactly what it is yet.

And apparently he's using this metaphor to explain this big problem in life.

Again, verse 26, But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares appeared also.

So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?

Now, this is a perfectly logical question.

According to the parable, who are the people asking this question?

They're the ones who serve or work for the employees of the sower, right?

And they come and who are they asking this question to?

They said, sir, or in our modern language, boss, how is it possible?

You said that you sowed good seed in your field.

Yet we look at the field, and once the crop has come up, we see that there is a mixture of good seed and bad seed.

And notice the implication of the question.

Did you not, notice their almost accusatory tone.

Then the servant said to him, Well, do you want us then to go and gather them up?

I mean, surely now that you're aware of the problem, you want us to solve it, right?

Now that seems a strange answer, but look at his reasoning.

No, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them.

This is gonna be a crucial thing, but even in the parable, we start getting picture of the character of the sower.

03-God On Trial

If you would, please take out your worksheet, worksheet number 3, another provocative title, God on Trial.

Is it possible that God is being examined?

In fact, I believe we're doing it right now.

Look at the title of our series, God is Love, with a great big question mark.

Is it possible that he's really who he says he is?

Now, if you recall, on our very first evening together, we talked about how the question of whether there even is a God, or if the Bible is trustworthy, is prominent in most people's minds.

And what we decided, what we discovered from that book is that God himself anticipated that question and said if there's any other God let him come before me and do something that only God can do, which is tell the future.

And God says, I'll not only claim to know the future, but I'll tell you in advance the things that are coming.

And from the time of Babylon, we found that in Daniel chapter 2, he gives an outline, step by step, of the political history of the world until Jesus comes.

And we're living on this end of it, and we have the benefit of history, the hindsight that's 2020, that can look back and see that every single step that God said has come true exactly as He said it would.

So now we can demonstrate, objectively, that God's word is trustworthy.

But then we open and read it and we find out, wait a minute, if this is such a good God, as the Bible claims, not only that he says that he's loving, but he is love himself, then how come The claims of the Bible about the character of God don't seem to be met in the world.

How come there's so much natural disaster?

How come it's a political unrest and wars and famines and all these awful things?

How can there be a good, powerful, loving God in a terrible, awful world?

Well that's what we looked at last night was Matthew chapter 13, the parable of the wheat and the tares and how he said, I take no responsibility for the presence of evil.

I created a perfect being in a perfect place with every opportunity and he chose to rebel.

Evil was started by the choice of a perfect being in rebellion.

And now that it has started, he said, we're going to let it run its course so that all can see.

So now we're gonna take a look at this worksheet number 3, God on Trial.

But before we begin our study tonight, let's begin with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much For the safe travels you've given everyone here, I thank you for the opportunity to be here and to study your word.

Lord, I would ask that your Holy Spirit be here now, not just in a vague kind of general sense, but very specifically, Lord, send your Holy Spirit to open your word to our minds and soften our hearts where there might be stubbornness.

The Lord, give us a picture of who you really are so that we may see for ourselves the contrast between good and evil.

Let's begin tonight in the book of Exodus, the Old Testament book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, Exodus chapter 33, and that's going to be page 85 in your pew Bible.

Exodus chapter 33, And we're going to start with verse 18.

Here we find Moses, that great leader of God who the Lord used to call his people out of Egypt and to lead them to the promised land.

Exodus chapter 33 and verse 18, this Moses has a very particular request of the Lord and he says, please show me your, and what is the word he wants?

Now, I don't know about you, but oftentimes, at least growing up, when I heard the word glory, I would think of something shiny or something sparkly like, oh bright, luminescent, glory.

And I'm guessing that's what Moses he's had conversation with God, he's had the law of God, but he says, Lord, I want to see you.

Verse 19, then he said, that is God in return, I will make all of my, what's that word?

Now we're setting up a biblical equivalence here.

Moses asked to see the Lord's glory and God says, I will show you all of my goodness.

The glory of the Lord apparently is his goodness.

And he notices, he says again, verse 19, then he said, I will make all of my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

But he said, you cannot see my face, and no man can see my face and live.

He said, I want to see your glory, and God says, I'll show you my goodness.

And then we see it actually occur in the very next chapter Starting with verse 5 exodus 34 starting with verse 5 now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

So all these positive attributes, He's patient, He's kind.

In fact, this sounds exactly like 1 Corinthians 13's definition of love.

Again, verse 6, he proclaimed the name of the Lord, gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

And then he also includes, but by no means clearing the guilty, right?

So he's like, I'm gonna have mercy and patience and kindness and all of those good attributes, right?

But also, don't think that I'm a pushover and I won't let things just, I'll let things just go on and on and on, but by no means clearing the guilty.

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generations.

Is that going to be thorough in my work of judgment, but at the same time I'm going to be fair and just and I'm going to be merciful and gracious.

He describes in response to a question about seeing the glory of the Lord, he responds by explaining and revealing the character of the Lord.

Which brings us to our first fill in the blank.

When Moses asked to see God's glory, the Lord described his character.

Now, notice it said here that no man can see my face and live.

Why can we not just approach this glorious, merciful, gracious, loving God and come right up face to face?

What is the actual Now, what is the actual problem?

Isaiah chapter 59, page 716 in your pew Bible, Isaiah chapter 59, verses 1 and 2, Notice what it says here.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.

But notice verse 2, but your iniquities, and what's another word for iniquities?

Your sin has separated you from your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.

So notice the issue is not that God can't talk to us or doesn't want to talk to us, but the issue is we have a sin problem.

We have cut ourselves off from direct access with the Lord.

Now the Lord doesn't just give up, praise the Lord, and say, oh man that's too bad, and then just leave.

He said, no, no, no, I'll be gracious, I'll be merciful, I'm gonna woo you and try to get you back, but we cannot have this just pretend everything's okay kind of relationship.

But I love you and I want to be long-suffering and patient and kind at the same time.

Moses asked to see his glory and God said, let me tell you about my character, who I am.

Now, that's the Lord's description of himself from his word.

Merciful, gracious, kind, long-suffering, all of those wonderful things, and at the same time fair and just.

Now, let's contrast that with Satan's representation of God's character.

Series

God is Love?

22-Temple Maintenance

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Keys of Revelation

15. The Return of the King

1h

True Love: Mission or Myth?

Stop Playing Games

59m

Emotional Health

Two-Thirds Blessed

52m

Revelation’s Endtime Message

1h

The Major Teachings of Scripture

03 The Blessed Hope

19m

The Great Object of Life

52m

Character Climb

45m

Reaching Up

46m

Unity

26m

God is Love?

10-The Return of the King

55m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

22 Living in the Day of Atonement

57m

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2022: Beyond Death

04 Absent from the Body—When?

28m

Sound Doctrine