October 20 I Sunday
Isaiah 59-61
2 Thessalonians 3
“How many are Your works, LORD! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.”
—Psalm 104:24
How can we know God? We must admit the question of knowing God is rather difficult. Nonetheless, there are two primary ways in which we know anything. The first way is by observation, where our five senses––things we see, hear, smell, taste and feel––feed us information all the time. The second way is by revelation, which is gaining information that could not be known purely by observation.
Using the first method, Scripture tells us there are things we can know about God by observation. David writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4). God’s fingerprints are all over His creation and multiple times in those couple of verses, David talks about the fact that creation declares and speaks. Similarly, in the New Testament, Paul tells us, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities––His eternal power and divine nature––have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). These verses develop the sort of human, rational argument for the existence of God based on observations and reasonable conclusions that we can come to as a result of that examination.
Following these observations, we may raise questions such as, what kind of God is He? What is His character like? Is he powerful or all-powerful? Is He sovereign over the universe? We, however, cannot answer these questions by simply observing His handiwork in the universe. To answer these areas, we are dependent upon the second method, what God has chosen to reveal to us.
Although we have the Bible to learn about the character of God, Moses explains that God has not chosen to reveal to us everything we would like to know about Him: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). There are things that God has not revealed and there are things He has revealed. To reduce God to some comprehensive, understandable description is actually impossible to us. We have to look at that which God has revealed and say there are lots of ends here that do not tie up to the logical, rational mind but we have to accept this as being His revelation.
Prayer: Lord Almighty, thank You that I can learn of Your existence through Your beautiful creation. Draw me to a deeper relationship with You as I seek to know You deeper through the revelation of Your word.
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