Pillars support some kind of a structure. They hold it up. They also secure a structure, when said structure is lashed to the pillars. Provided that said pillars are good pillars.
There is a great picture of this - a house on Mexico Beach that survived Hurricane Michael, when all the houses around it were destroyed (just google "hurricane house"). It survived because the owner wanted a hurricane (proof) house - and when they built it, construction started with 60 foot-deep pillars.
Our faith, the faith we have and hold in Christ our Savior, is supported by pillars. The truths we believe undergird/support the trust we put in the Lord, and these pillars of truth not only support us on life’s journey but make it possible for us to weather the hurricanes of life. In the coming weeks we’re going to take a look at some of these.
[Gen 1.1] [Rom 1.21-23] A.W. Tozer [Knowledge Of The Holy]:
What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us… No people has ever risen above its religion… no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.
The most revealing thing about the Church IS her idea of God… her most significant message is what she says about Him - or leaves unsaid. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.
We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. Were we able to extract from the mind of any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes into your mind when you think about God?”, we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man… There is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying [it] that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God. Low views of God destroy the Gospel for all who hold them.
Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry… The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is…[It] substitutes for the true God”…[something other.] [When we] come to believe that God is different from what He actually is - that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.
But so then - what comes into your mind when you think about God?
Part of the challenge - which Tozer addresses in the 2nd chapter - is that this God Who we would somehow comprehend is actually rather incomprehensible. What is God like? He is not EXACTLY like anything or anyone. Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him? [The challenge is illustrated by the story about the three blindfolded guys who were trying to describe an elephant, and the one touching the trunk had something entirely different to say than the one who was touching a leg and the one touching the tail had yet another description of the elephant…]
What is God like? Words will fail us - but let’s consider what Scripture says and take stab at it. First, we understand that there is one God [Isaiah 46:9 “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me]. There are not many gods, nor any other gods. This one true God is eternal [Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.]. God has always existed, and always will. Never outdated, always is. I AM… This is not only uncharted territory, it’s an entirely different dimension. How do we even begin to try and wrap our minds around forever? We have a difficult enough time just trying to understand the opposite sex. We could go forward or back a lifetime, and ten thousand more, and we are no closer to forever. Incomprehensible. On top of this, somehow God exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit [Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; mentioned in many other places in Scripture]. One God, and yet three distinct Persons within this Godhead. The Trinity, this triune God, sets up one of the classic Heavenly Equations: 3=1. It is an antinomy - two possibilities which cannot both be true but somehow must both be true. In essence, this is what we are facing: that which is ultimately incomprehensible. [To which the skeptically-minded should consider how unlikely it is that anyone would make this stuff up...]
This one true God is also infinite. Ps 139:7-10 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. Somehow God is everywhere (and beyond - think Buzz Lightyear!)(so, limitless) and yet nowhere is He any OF the where’s or what’s. But what He is, every one of His attributes He possesses to an infinite degree. Limitless. His power - limitless. Love - limitless. Mercy, patience - limitless. His wisdom - limitless. He never needs or lacks anything. And because He is eternally infinite, He never changes. He never learns (never needs to). Never forgets. He never gets tired. He never stops loving. Always good. He always acts in a way that is consistent with Who He is [Heb 13.8]. He never makes mistakes, never messes up. Thus God is also infinitely perfect - blindingly holy, breathtakingly good, perfectly just. Incomparable. Inconceivable. Incomprehensible.
The LIE comes in and says, there IS no God. Or if there is a god, then he is what I imagine him to be. What I create and want Him to be. Which is always somehow less than, not almighty, not perfect, not infinitely holy and just, but flawed. Or maybe just not interested, disinvolved. Effectively neutered. Because if I’m honest, I don’t want to be accountable. I want to have the final say in the things that concern me. I want the remote for my life. That is the bottom line. I want to be free, absolutely free, no chains on me, and deep down, if I’m honest, the part of me that resists the truth about God is the part that wants to call the shots, the part that wants to give myself a pass.
Which brings us to one of the classic reasons to believe in the existence of God. I want to, and I do give myself a pass all the time - when I mess up. But when somebody else messes with me, then the shoe’s on the other foot. That’s when we come up against the moral code. We readily give ourselves a pass when we lie or cheat or steal or hurt, but when someone lies or cheats or steals or hurts us, we want justice, we know - THAT is wrong. CS Lewis-“It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong, but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.” There is a moral code, a universal standard, which everybody everywhere knows, yet which no one keeps perfectly. And the question comes, since this universal moral code does exist, where did it come from? It suggests a moral code Giver.
We all understand that people ought to behave and treat one another in a certain way, that the world ought to work a certain way. Sadly, the world often does NOT work this way. People do NOT treat one another the way they ought. Which also brings us to the biggest excuse for why some people don’t believe there is a God: The problem of evil. The world and people are broken - we’ll get to this in a few weeks - and so people use that as a convenient excuse to blame God. It’s God’s fault - cuz if He did exist He would fix things (maybe He’s doing that?). But it’s a tragic irony - we use the free will He gave us to first break the moral code He gave us and then to choose not to believe in Him. Again, CS Lewis: “Why, then, did God give [us] free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
[Ps 46.10 - Be still and know that I am God.] This is the question before us. Do you and I know there is a God? That He is eternally infinite, and powerful and good and patient and just? CS Lewis: “It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power -- it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.”
Because Christianity says, this God is also personal [Jn 17.3], AND He is ready to forgive [Ps 86.5]. So, why not SEEK Him…?
Psa. 86:5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.
Psa. 10:4 The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him.
All his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
Jer. 29:13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
Is. 65:1 “I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me;
I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me.
I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’
To a nation which did not call on My name.
Matt. 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Acts 17:26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Heb. 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
But with this we understand that this eternal infinite God is the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things. The very atoms and elements themselves, all things owe their origin and their continued existence to Him. Nehemiah 9:6 “You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them." Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
And what this means is that you and I are contingent. No matter how smart or tall or strong or good looking or otherwise magnificent I think I am, I am dependent. My very existence is tied to and derives from this Being Who gave me the freedom to find Him wanting and to rebel against Him and even to deny His very existence. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...
Paul wrote about this:
Romans 1:19-21 That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Closing with one more thought from CS Lewis:
“I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. ...I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life -- namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Pillar 1: There is one God, existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is breathtakingly good, wholly perfect, and infinitely powerful, and He is the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things.
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