It is our privilege tonight to study the first one of these articles in the Apostles Creed. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Almighty. And I'm going to begin in the book of Job. Job chapter 11. We have in our shorter catechism, you know, the fourth question, what is God? What is God? Well, Job 11 is very interesting in relation to that question. Job 11, verse seven. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty under perfection? It is as high as heaven. What canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. Canst thou by searching find out God's? There was a renowned Greek philosopher and poet in ancient Greece. He was a pagan and he was asked by the king of Syracuse, his name was Simonides. Simonides was asked by the king to tell him what God is. Simonides said, come back tomorrow and I will tell you. So the king came back the next day, and Simonides said, come back tomorrow and I will tell you. This same thing he did for many days. Finally, the king asked, why are you putting me off? Why don't you answer me? Simonides replied, I'm trying. But the more that I think of God, the more I realize that he is altogether unknown to me. At least Simonides was an honest philosopher. The only way that we can know who God is is by the means wherein God has revealed himself to us. That is in the Holy Bible. Praise his name. He has not left us in the dark. He has told us who he is in the Holy Scriptures. We are quite used to answering our shorter catechism question number four, what is God? Our Shorter Catechism is somewhat a summary of what was published 80 years before it in the Heidelberg Catechism. And when the Westminster forefathers sat down to come up with the Shorter Catechism, they were using the Heidelberg Catechism as one of their models. And so we are going to take our shorter catechism, question number four, since we know it so well, and then examine what else the great theologian, Ercinas, taught concerning God. Now, this is very important because Ercinas was indeed a great theologian. He had studied at Wittenberg. and he was laboring in Germany as a theologian, and he was asked by the ruler to come up with a catechism that would try to unite the Lutherans and the Reformed. Well, it didn't quite work, but he did produce a tremendous catechism, as we are finding out more and more as we study it. So we are taking our question number four that we know in the Shorter Catechism, what is God? And let us go over that briefly. What is God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchanging in His being, Wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. How many attributes do we have of God here? Ten. Okay. We have ten. The first three are those incommunicable attributes of God that in His attributes are controlling each one of those. For in God's being, His being is infinite. His being is eternal. His being is unchangeable or immutable. And every one of those seven, you can say the first three with them. All right. Now, we're just going to begin with what the scripture tells us there in the proof text under that John chapter four and verse 24. God is spirit. and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." God is spirit. There is no such word as a spirit in the Greek text. It doesn't exist. God is spirit. God is pure spirit. God is not material. He does not have a body composed of matter. He is the creator of all matter, of all material. God is invisible. He is invisible spirit as we sang about in the opening hymn, as I read in that scripture in 1 Timothy 1, verse 17. Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. God cannot be perceived by our five senses, by our sight, by our hearing, by our smelling, by our tasting, by our feeling. We cannot communicate with God in that way. We do thank God that we can read his word, And we can hear his word, but we must communicate spiritually with the spirit. God who is spirit, then we must fellowship with him spiritually. And so that means we must have a spiritual birth. We must be born of God. He must breathe the spirit of spiritual life into us. So God is first spirit. Secondly, God is self-existent. He is the only eternally self-existent being. Let's remember that. He is self-existent and he is the only eternally self-existent being. He said that to Moses at the burning bush. Back in Exodus chapter three and verse 13, Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers has sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, what is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you. That is transliterated into our English language, Jehovah. And I know that there's the modern translation term Yahweh, but it is Jehovah. He declared his name Jehovah to Moses. I am that I am. He is self-existent, the only eternally self-existent being. He is not only spirit and self-existent, he is eternal. He has always lived. He has always existed. There never was a time when he was not. Psalm 90, you know it well. Psalm 90, verse two, from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God, from eternity to eternity, from eternity that has already been. an eternity that ever shall be. He is the same God. This divine attribute is really beyond us. It is so high we cannot attain to do it. We cannot wrap our minds around it because there was a time and much time when we were not. We cannot think outside of the box. outside of the time and space box where we live and where we think. We can't think outside of time. We can't think outside of space because that's where we are. But God is not contained by either time or space. He is eternal. He is everlasting from everlasting to everlasting. He is spirit. He is self-existent. He is eternal. And he is incomprehensible. meaning he is so beyond us, he is so immense, so vast, so great, so massive that we cannot take him in with a full understanding. Canst thou by searching find out God? No. He is so great. Canst thou find out the Almighty under perfection? not until we are with Him. And what a wonderful experience that's gonna be. Not until we are with Him in glory will we be able to know Him in the fullest way that we can know Him. When we see Him, when we are like Him, when we see Him as He is, our knowledge of Him will then be so greatly increased. We will know even as we are known. But we have to be careful with that scripture. We are going to know in a very thorough way. We're going to have a thorough knowledge. not omniscience, but we will have as thorough knowledge as a creature can have. And God will be the only omniscient one. We will not be equal with God, but we'll know so much more than we know now. That's going to be so wonderful. He's incomprehensible. We cannot take him in fully as we would like. We do praise his name that he reveals himself to us in his word. With real knowledge, he communicates real knowledge of himself, spiritual knowledge of himself by his word and spirit. Now, he is spirit, he is self-existent, he is eternal, he is incomprehensible, but he's also perfect. Perfect. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 48, your Father in heaven is perfect. He alone possesses all that is necessary for perfect happiness. Nothing can be added to his perfect nature. He has all things in and of himself. He possesses all sufficiency for the happiness of his creatures. He possesses all sufficiency for the happiness of His creatures. And He can really make us happy to the fullest. He is able and He is willing to supply true happiness to the fullest to those who seek Him. And, you know, that one thing really haunts me continually. Tomorrow is the fast day, and oh, to know more of our Lord, even to seek Him more in prayer, in a deeper prayer even. He's that wonderful scripture. John says of his fullness have we all received. And you know the apostles received so much of that fullness and yet he has so much fullness to give to us. Oh that we would hunger and thirst for more. He is able, He is willing as the perfect all sufficient God to supply us with the truest and the highest happiness on this earth and then for all eternity. He created not because He needed anything. He was perfect already before He created. He created not because He needed anything, but because He is good and He chose to communicate His goodness to His creatures. The Scriptures speak of the Lord delighting in His people, not because He needed happiness from creatures. No, it means when He delights in His people, He looks with approval on righteousness. But he cannot look on sin with anything but repulse and hatred for evil. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil." Purer eyes. He delights in looking on righteousness. He looks on with approval. It's his element, righteousness. So he's perfect. He didn't need us to make him perfect. He receives our love in return. He receives our worship. He's very glad to because he made us for himself, not because he needed anything, but he made us to share his glory. Okay, he is immutable. He is unchanging and unchangeable in his essence and in his decreed will. When the scripture says that God repents, it is figurative language. What does it mean when it says that it repented him? It may seem that God changes his mind, but he actually doesn't. Let's turn back in the scriptures to the book of Jonah. Let's turn back to Jonah 3 and verse 4. Jonah 3 and verse 4, when Jonah got his second opportunity to go to Nineveh, he took it. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey. And he cried and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed to fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them, even to the least of them. For the word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and laid his robe from him. and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes. 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 anything. Let them not feed nor drink water, 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. Here it is, verse nine. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? When it says that it repented God or that God would repent, it means that he looks on righteousness I'm sorry, I need to drop down here. That when God threatened Nineveh through Jonah of judgment and destruction, when God threatened, his threats and his promises are conditional. Let's remember this. When God promises and when God threatens, His threats and His promises are conditions. He said, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. All right. Is that a threat or a promise? It's a promise. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And in that context, If you believe that God has truly raised Christ from the dead, thou shalt be saved. It's very obvious, the promises in that passage. But in order for that promise to be enjoyed, it must be taken by faith. And the threats must be listened to and there must be repentance. And we see that even the king and all the people sat in sackcloth and ashes and cried to God and turned from their sins. His threat to Nineveh was conditional. They repented so they were not destroyed. God is immutable. He does not change. But God does speak conditional threads and conditional promises. God is immutable. God is also infinite, as we know from our shorter catechism. He is infinite. Psalm 147.5, His understanding is infinite, without limits, beyond limits. The only limits on God and on His nature are those self-imposed limits that He has placed upon Himself. There are some things that God cannot do. Although He is infinite, He cannot lie. He cannot sin. He cannot contradict himself. For to lie or to sin or to contradict yourself indicates weakness. And God has no weakness. He is infinite in his nature. He is unlimited. And one of the sins of Israel was that they limited Jehovah. Can the Lord supply a table in the wilderness? Yes, He can. But they limited His infinite power by the lack of faith that so many carcasses fell dead in the wilderness. God is infinite. God is omniscient. He knows everything past, present, and future always. He sees into our hearts. He sees into our very thoughts right at this moment. Psalm 139 verse 2, thou understandest my thought afar off. No problem for the Lord sitting right there on that throne in glory to look into our hearts here in this room tonight. Verse four, not a word comes to our tongue, but he knows it altogether. Before we even think a thought or speak a word, he knows it already. What should that do to us? We are on his day. to speak his words, not to do our own way, but to seek his way, not to think our own thoughts, but we should be thinking his thoughts. When we realize that he knows what we are thinking, and the next impulse that's coming across my brain, he's got it already. Anything's gonna come out between my nose and my chin. By the way of words, he does it before it even form it. He has beset us behind and before, like an army surrounding a city. His omniscience includes his perfect wisdom. and oh how this ought to impact the way that we live, the way that we breathe, the way that we think, the way that we speak. To know that even before I think that thought, before I say that word, he knows. Not one thought, not one word is going to escape the infinite God, all knowing, omniscient one. And I told you how shocked I was when I was driving down the interstate and my right hand tire got over on that line. It was a very long exit and I just wasn't paying attention. And all of a sudden, Mavis says, get back in the other lane. The satellite sees me, knows what I'm doing way down here, and they're way out there in space. Man made in the image of God have been given ability to do stuff like that. But the God who made the man that designed that is infinite and omniscient. He knows every thought and every word before we even bring him forth. His wisdom is included in his omniscience. Wisdom is the ability, the perfect ability to use knowledge rightly. Man doesn't do that. Many men are ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. But God gives true wisdom. He gives the wisdom of His Word and Spirit. He will reveal His mighty wisdom to us. He is omniscient, but He's also omnipotent. And you know that. In His being, wisdom, power, power, His omnipotence. God's power is infinite, eternal, and unchanging. He is the God of miracles. He is just the same today as the Lord Jesus Christ sits on the throne of the universe. As he sits on the throne of his meditatorial kingdom, he has all power in his hands on earth and in heaven. And as he sits there as our great high priest, he sits as our ruler, as our defender, as our intercessor, as our advocate. He is willing to take our prayers and to mingle them with his own virtue. with the incense of his own virtue and to present them to the Father and give us mighty answers to prayer. He is omnipotent because he sits right on that meditatorial throne of grace with omnipotence even in our behalf. All power in heaven and in earth. to use for the glory of his name and for the good of his people. Let us make use of his omnipotence, seeking him in prayer. He is just. Psalm 145 verse 17, the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his words. Righteous is one of the synonyms equal to the word just. Sometimes the Lord brings hard things to the righteous and good things to the wicked. Is he just? But remember, When sometimes God brings hard things to the righteous and good things to the wicked, there is coming a time in eternity when it will be well with the righteous and it will be ill with the wicked. Someone says it should never go ill with the good. Well, it would never go ill with the perfectly good. But there was only one good on this earth. Only one man who was perfectly good. And what did he do? Thank God he suffered the ill. He suffered to the uttermost to deliver us from our well-deserved eternal sufferings. Thank God for that. He is just. But he's also true. He is infinite, eternal, unchanging in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments. Revelation 16, 7. God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. Whatever he says, whenever he threatens, he will bring it to pass unless there is repentance. He always fulfills his promises. He's true. He is truth itself. His word is truth. He is truth. Attribute number 11. God is absolutely pure and holy, totally separate from sin and all that would defile. You remember the seraphim, the little angelic beings in Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 3 that were flying about Him with their wings, covering their faces with another set of wings, covering their feet in humility and shame before Him. And what were they crying? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. He is so separate. from sin and from anything that would defile. He is perfectly pure and holy and it is his purpose to purify his bride and to present his bride to himself a pure spotless bride. He is good and is here where we stop. Thou art good and do us good. Psalm 119 verse 68. God is good. He is good in his very nature. He is good in his bounty. He so bountifully bestows his goodness upon all. He sends rain and sunshine even upon the wicked, his wicked enemies and those that hate him. God's goodness is so full. It's multifaceted. His goodness is composed of his mercy. Mercy is a part of his goodness, which relieves misery. Man is so miserable in sin, but mercy is that part of God's goodness that offsets our misery. Mercy is God's not giving to us what we so richly deserve, which is his hottest wrath. and instant torments in hell. His mercy endureth forever. Psalm 136. He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Psalm 32 verse 10. I'm so thankful for mercy. Whenever we are blessed, when something bad does not happen to us, Okay, tell you what happened to me the other day. Maybe we better stop here today. I was over at Luke's one early morning this last week. And as I was coming home, I came down by the old Morgan's store, and I'm sitting there at the stop sign, and here comes a small Ford Ranger, a gold Ford Ranger with its blinker on to go into that road right there where I was sitting. And so, da-da, I did the wrong thing and believed him. And he slowed down to turn in, And then he decided to go on. But I was already out there in the road, and I zoomed on the cross in front of him. I didn't look back to see how close it was. But I said, thank God for that mercy. How many times has the Lord shown us his mercy, and we have not really gotten what we deserve? But God is so merciful. Yes. And then another facet of His goodness is His grace. And grace is sort of the opposite of mercy. It is God giving to us what we don't deserve. I mean, wow. God's goodness. God giving to us what we can never deserve. He bountifully pours grace upon his people. Titus 2 11, the grace of God, which bringeth salvation and bestows salvation. It is his grace that brings us salvation. It is grace, his grace that bestows upon us his salvation. Okay. And then another part of His goodness is His patience. His patience or longsuffering, it's a part of God's goodness. He's the God of patience, Romans 15, 5. The longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah. How long did the patience or longsuffering of God wait in the days of Noah? A hundred and twenty years. That is some long suffering. God is so patient. First Peter 3 and verse 20 tells us that. And then the flood came and took them all away. Do you think about that? When we saw that terrible flood, those houses being swept away, it was like that in Noah's day. We should account the long-suffering of God as salvation. 2 Peter 3.15, God's patience. Think of how long-suffering and patient he was with us for so many years. God's compassion or pity is a part of his goodness. Jesus was moved with compassion. Matthew 9 and verse 36, feeling for the miserable to relieve them. He feels for us, his compassion, his pity. Deuteronomy 30 verse 3, the Lord thy God will have compassion on thee. James chapter 5 and verse 11, the Lord is very pitiful. He is full of pity for us. Hallelujah. Okay. One last thing and we're done. I'm missing a part of His goodness. What part did I miss? The best part of all. Now abideth faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. So we come to the greatest facet of God's goodness is love. Here is the greatest and most obvious part of God's goodness. John 3, 16. For God so loved. Who did? Which person of the Godhead so loved? How did he love in this way? God the Father loved. And you know we sang it last Sunday night. We're not singing it again tonight. Boy, wasn't that a blessing. The surety, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, is not short of love. He loves beyond degree because only love could move the Lord to die for me. Ephesians 5.25, Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And oh, what love the Spirit shows. When Jesus, he reveals to men oppressed with sin and woes, he all their sorrows heals. Have your sorrows been healed? Have your woes been healed? It's so wonderful to know the love the Spirit gives in applying the great love of the Father and the love of the Son to our hearts. Let us pray together. We thank thee, O God, for who thou art. We have thought on thee in the words of scripture as thou has revealed thy beautiful attributes. We love thee Lord in return because thou has first loved us and Lord we confess that we are such sinners that we would never have loved thee if thou has not loved us first. Oh Lord, apply thy word, who thou art, to our hearts for thy glory and for our good. I pray in Jesus' name.