We're turning today to Psalm 42 for a Bible reading. Psalm 42, and we'll read this entire psalm together. Psalm 42, and we'll be reading from the opening verse. The psalmist said, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, where they continually say unto me, where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me, for I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me. Wherefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan? and from the Hermonites and from the hill Mizar. Deep calleth on to deep, at the noise of thy water spouts. O thy wheels and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me in my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy, as with a sword in my bones? Mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. Amen. What a tremendous psalm it is. Let's just unite in prayer with the word of God open before us today. Our loving Father, we come now to thee in Jesus' precious name. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to thee. Lord, we thank thee for the opportunity of gathering as a company of people around the open book Joyce, O God, for our religious and civil liberties. Lord, we cry that they will ever be preserved. Lord, we cry, O God, that even if they be not preserved, dear God, it would come that laws would infringe us and would hamper us from assembling together. O God, that we'll still do that. O God, that we'll still be faithful. Think of the Covenanters, though banished and though outlawed and their assemblies forbidden by the King, they were consciously aware that they were under a greater King, King Jesus. For Christ's crown and covenant was this rallying cry. Lord, grant us faithfulness to the very end. Lord, if it mean even death, help us to be faithful, and we shall receive the crown of life. Lord, close us in to God today. Courage our hearts, help this poor preacher, filling him with the Spirit of God and wisdom. Grant, O God, thy hand to be upon us, for we pray these petitions in and through Jesus' precious name. Amen and amen. When an American pastor asked a well-known Reformed preacher to preach in his church on the attributes of God, the pastor asked Or the preacher asked the pastor whether he had really thought that through. The pastor, as you can well imagine, asked the question, why? To which the preacher responded, because it's quite controversial. The pastor retorted, what do you mean it's controversial? It's God. The preacher replied, yes, it is God. But the God that many of us evangelicals have in our minds is not the God of the Bible. You see, would that preacher realize that whenever you begin to talk about certain aspects and certain attributes of God, people begin to say in their minds, that's not the God that I know. Sadly today, there are many people in this province and across the world who come under the evangelical banner and yet the God that they say that they seemingly know is not the God of the Bible. But without going outside our own doors and beyond the four walls of this building, I fear, I fear that there are people in this congregation, that by their conduct, their demeanor, by their flouting of God's commandments, by their words, they demonstrate very clearly that they do not know the God of the Bible. I trust that through these messages that we've already preached on this series on Behold Your God, that God has been recalibrating, God has been rebalancing, resetting your conception and your understanding of God as he is presented within the revelation of his word. The God that you love, the God that you worship and serve, and ultimately the God that you'll have to do with on the final day of judgment, accountability and reward. Last time we gathered together we thought about the being of God and I want us to return to that subject matter to note a number of other things that we can say about God's being. We have already thought about the being of God. previous occasions and as we have done so we have come to appreciate that God is a spiritual being and yet one who possesses personality and power, someone, one who is self-conscious, one who is self-determinating. We have also given consideration to the truth that God is self-existent and he is self-sufficient, one who is solitary in all of his excellency and all of his perfections, to whom no one can be compared onto or likened onto. Today we want to consider a number of other points about the being of God. The first point is a very basic, a very simple, fundamental, foundational truth. I suppose it should have been one of the truths that we thought about first of all when we came to this doctrine of God and to the being of God. But I want us to think first of all that God is a living being. He's a living being. You see, the God of the Bible is the living God. What could be simpler, what could be more basic than that fundamental truth? It is a truth that is affirmed and then reaffirmed over and over again in the scriptures of truth. 30 times in the Word of God, 15 times in the Old Testament, 15 times in the New Testament, we find the statement, living God. We read one there in Psalm 42 and the verse number 2, My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God, when shall I come and appear before God? Let me give you another couple of examples from each of the Testaments. You know, it was the honor of the living God that young David was concerned about when he listened to the reproach of Goliath on the battlefield, turning to those men that stood by him from Israel's armies. David would ask this question in 1 Samuel 17 verse 26, What shall be done to the man that killeth the Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? The living God. Prophet Jeremiah made this declaration about God in Jeremiah 10 verse 10, but the Lord is the true God. He is the living God, an everlasting King, and at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation. In response to the Savior's question, whom say ye that I am? Matthew 16 verse 16 records, and Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God, the living God. The writer of the book of Hebrews made this very stark and sobering statement in Hebrews 10 verse 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, the living God. the attributes, note the adjective that is placed before each of those particular verses. He is the living God, and being a living God, he stands in stark contrast to the gods of men's imaginations and the idols that men have fashioned by their hands. You know, the psalmist would speak of the lifeless, inept, defunct idols of men in Psalm 135, if you want to turn there, the verses 15 through to 17. The idols of the heathen, he said in Psalm 135, verse 15, the idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Neither is there any breath. in their mouths. They that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them." It is but a repetition of what he has already said in Psalm 115 and the verses 4 through to 8, and I'll read them to you. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them. So is everyone that trusteth in them. You see, the idols of men, they are dumb, mute. They're sightless and blind. They're deaf, unable to hear. But the living God, the God of the Bible, is revealed to us as one who speaks, one who sees. one who hears, because the God of the Bible is the only true and living God. Only a living God can do such things. Know the life that God possesses in and of himself. He does not derive that life from any other being, but rather he has that life within himself. We thought about that. We thought about how we are dependent upon God for our life, but God is dependent on none for his life. He has inherent life in and of and within himself. John 5 verse 26, I remind you just of that verse, for as the father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the son to have life in himself. Stephen Charnock, the great Puritan, he made this comment, God hath life in his essence, not by participation. He is a Son to give light and life to all creatures, but receives not light or life from anything, and therefore He hath unlimited life. Not a drop of life, but a fountain. Not a spark of limited life, but a life transcending all bounds. He hath life in himself. All creatures have their life in him and from him. All life is seated in God, as in its proper throne, in its most perfect purity. God is life. It is in him originally, radically, and therefore eternally. When answering the question from Thomas, God the Son made this declarative statement in John's 14 verse 6. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. By saying that He is the life, the Son of God was declaring His own self-existence and that He is a living being. We don't serve a dead God, but our God is the living God. And what God is and what the Son is, so the Father and the Holy Spirit are, because they are of the same essence. All three persons of the Godhead have the same essential life within. Let me give you a number of references. God the Father is the living God, John 6 verse 57, as the living Father. hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me shall, even he shall live by me, the living Father. But then what about the Son? John 6 verse 51, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. The Father is living, the Son is living, the Holy Spirit is living. Writing about God over there in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 6, Paul writes, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. He can only but do that if he himself possesses that life. That same apostle, the apostle Paul, he wrote to Timothy and he said this about God, who only hath immortality. Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, which no man has seen nor can see. That word immortality in that particular verse, He properly means exemption from death and it means that God in his own nature enjoys a perfect and a certain exemption from death. Being eternal, the life of God can never be extinguished. But can I say that it is not only God himself who affirms that he is a living being within the scriptures. Because even ungodly men had to testify in the Bible that God is the living God. And the individual that I'm thinking about is King Darius. You can turn to Daniel chapter 6 if you want to, but what so impressed King Darius at the deliverance of Daniel from the lion's den was that Daniel's God was the living God. So impressed was King Darius, this ungodly king, at God's intervention in the life of Daniel, that he made a decree, and he had it published to all people and nations and languages that dwelt on the earth. That decree, by Babylon's ungodly king, read as follows. Daniel chapter 6, near the end of the chapter, he said, I make this decree. In every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and steadfast forever. And his kingdom which shall not be destroyed and his dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth and rescueth. He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions? Here's an ungodly king who even himself testifies that the God of the Christian is the living God. And brethren and sisters, this God is our God. He is the living God. So let's not come to God's house Lord's day after Lord's day. in a sort of mournful spirit, in a sort of spirit that nearly indicates to our neighbors and our friends and those that meet us on the road to the house of God that God has died because God has not died. He is a living being. Now that's, we would talk about that's the theory of it or the the facts off the issue that God is a living God, but let's see what comfort we can derive from this. We need the word of God to bring us comfort, and we need the word of God to bring us challenge, or it really just becomes a lecture within God's house. We don't want that ever to be the case. So what comfort can we derive from the truth that our God is a living being or He is the living God? Well, can I say that there's comfort, first of all, in the area or in the matter of our prayers. There's comfort to know that our God is the living God in the area or in the matter of our prayers. You know, it is a truth that brings us confidence as we come to pray. No, brethren and sisters, we're not bowing down before some idol of wood or of stone. We're not bowing down before some idol of silver or gold when we come to pray. Whenever we come to pray, we're coming to pray to the living God. whose eyes are upon us and whose ear is opened unto the cry. I've been reading in my own private times just Psalm 116, and the psalmist opens with these tremendous words, I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice, he hath attended unto the voice of my supplications. And I'll call upon him therefore as long as I shall live. I paraphrase. He was aware that as he prayed, he was praying to the living God. You know, as we come to pray, and I think it was asked even to me this week in a certain home, whenever you pray, what is your mind focused upon? It is focused upon this truth that my God, to whom I pray to, is the living God. He's the living God. You know, we would ask ourselves the questions when we come to pray, is there really anyone? Is there really anyone who does hear our prayers? whenever we cry from a sense of need or danger. Is there really anyone? Is there really anyone there that cares enough to help us or to bless us when we pray? Can I say that if God was only a force, He would be unable to hear the cry of His children. He would be unable to hear the pleading of the distressed. He would be unable to hear the sighing of the broken heart. And yet, brethren, sisters, He is the living God. And as such, he hears our cry, and he hears our prayers, and he answers our prayers. J.R. Miller said, our God is the living God who loves us, knows our needs, thinks upon us, and hears our feeblest prayer. And so, child of God, pray. Pray. For your living God, your living God hears your faintest cry. But there's also comfort in the area of our protection. Not only in the area of our prayers, the thought that God is the living God, but also in the area of our protection. I thought about a verse over there in Ecclesiastes 9, verse 4, where we read these words, a living dog is better than a dead lion. A living dog is better than a dead lion. The import of that inspired statement being that a living dog can do more for a person or can do more for you than a dead lion. What good is a dead lion in protecting an individual? Better have a living dog than a dead lion. And when you think of that, that which is living is of more value and more use than that which is dead. Can I say, brethren and sisters, our God is not like the dead lion. He is the living lion, the lion of the tribe of Judah. And thank God He's living to protect us. Our God, He lives, we're told in the book of Acts, He lives in the power of an endless life and He does so to protect His people, those people that He purchased at tremendous cost. It was the living God that protected an estimated 2 million Israelites as they made their way to the promised land from attack from the enemies that surround it. It was the living God that preserved the life of Rahab and her family on the walls of Jericho when every other home on that wall was destroyed. It was the living God that safeguarded those three Hebrew boys in Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace. And can I say that it will be the living God, it will be the living God that will protect us because that God also, that God safely guided Paul through the many perils that he had to face as a servant of God and He'll do the same for you and me. The God who shielded, the God who protected, the God who preserved the lives of these redeemed ones in the past will do the same for you as you make your way through each perplexing path of life. What a comfort to know that the living God is on our side, and if God, if God be for us, who can be against us? He is the living God, and He has promised, though, though I am with you, always, even on to the end of the world, or even on to the end of the age. He lives to protect His people, His blood-bought people. Put your case in His hands. Whatever it be, whatever anxiety you've come into God's house with, He'll protect you. He's promised to do so. He's our living God. But there's also comfort in the matter of our promotion. And when I speak of promotion, I'm speaking about the Christian's promotion to glory. The Lord Jesus Christ, He gave this wonderful promise to His followers in John 14 verse 19, because I live, ye shall live also. Because I live, ye shall live also. Our living Savior guarantees that all who die savingly united to Him will live eternally with Him. Because His life is the pledge, the seal, the guarantee, the surety that we shall live also. No child of God in this world, your property may be taken away from you. Your friends may forsake you. Your family may disown you. Sickness may take hold of your body. But I want to remind you that none of those things can touch your redeemed soul. Such is the keeping of the living God who is faithful and in whose hands we can never perish. Listen to these words. from Paul's letter to the Colossians 3 verse 4, when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him, where? In glory. In glory. Thank God our promotion is secure because Christ not only died for our sins but he rose again for our justification and because he lives we shall live also. Our promotion is guaranteed by Christ who is our living head and as our living head he will guarantee and he will secure our safe arrival to glory for each and every member of his body. And so I trust today that you have been engrafted into Christ. I trust that today finds you in Christ as part of the body of Christ. Because only those who are in Christ will be with Christ eternally. So in the area of our prayers, our protection, our promotion, thank God there's comfort to know that God is a living being. his life in himself, and he shall never die, never die. And though the preacher will die, and though the elders of this congregation someday will die, and though you will die, thank God he will, he'll never die. Therefore what comfort there is to know that we shall be with him. but not only can comfort be derived from the fact that God is a living being, but challenge also comes to our hearts when we recognize that God is the living God. As one who never dies, God lives. He lives, brethren and sisters. He lives to behold all of our ways and our actions. You see, these idols that we read about, Psalm 135, Psalm 115, they had eyes, but they couldn't see. But our God can see. His eyes are in every place. Every place. Beholding the evil and the good. The eyes of the Lord are upon all the ways of men. He's a living God. He lives to behold our ways. Not a thing is hidden from our sight. Day and night are both alike unto Him. His eyes are beholding good and evil in every place. Oh, let that truth, the truth that all things are naked before the living God, let it check us. Let it check us when we're about to go somewhere or do something that is contrary to God's nature and to His will. Ah, but He's not only living to see us and behold our ways and actions, He's living to listen to all that we say. Thank God as we confess Him as believers here on earth, He does something. He confesses us before the Father. He hears that. He heard you this week confessing Him as your Savior. He heard you as you witnessed to others. And as you did so, He was naming you before the Father's face. Isn't that an amazing thought? He listens to hear that. But in the same time, He has heard every idle word. It's been recorded in the book of Remembrance. No, to know that the living God listens into every phone call we make, into every conversation that we have with the neighbor over the garden fence, every discussion, every debate that we have with one another and every other member of the human race ought to control and at times curb the words that proceed out of our mouths. God is a living God. And can I say in the third and final place, that it brings a challenge to our hearts that because He is the living God, He will bring us all to judgment as the judge of all men. How terrifying, how petrifying to think that there would be those among us today who would stand before the living God without having been dressed in the garments of salvation or in the robe of Christ's righteousness. I've already quoted the verse I want it to lay hold on your heart today. I want it to lay hold upon your heart and soul, sinner, in order that it might provoke you to seek the pardoning of your sins. The verse I refer to is, again, Hebrews 10 verse 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Oh, if He were a dead God, what could He do to us? But He is the living God. And sinner, someday you'll stand before Him and give an account of all that you've done. I believer as well, so too will you, so too will I, on that great day of accountability and reward, we're going to stand before the living God. Surely these things should cause us to live lives that are sober and God-glorifying. and not worldly, not seeking the things of the world. Oh, someday I'm going to stand before the living God. Think of it, sinner. Think of it, believer. Oh, let it guard you this week and all that you do and say. The thought that I'm going to stand before the living God who has seen all that I have done throughout my entire life, who's heard everything I've said. I'm going to stand before Him. Oh, that it would cause us to fear God. Fear Him reverentially. Not in a slavish type of fear, but fear Him reverentially. Cause us to live circumspect lives and to walk circumspectly. There is a second truth of God's being. It's not a long truth. We've thought about that God is a living being, but can I say in the second place that God is a simple being. Now, you would well know If you have listened to any of the messages on the doctrine of God, that the God of the Bible is not simple in the sense that we think that someone is simple. By simple, we do not mean that God is slow or uneducated, that's how we would think of someone being simple. Nor does it mean to say that God is easy to understand, quite the opposite. Simple as a divine attribute is opposite of compound. Young people would have heard space and chemistry of a compound nature, something that is made up of various parts. When we speak about a simple compound or a simple maybe mixture, it wouldn't be a mixture, but a simple maybe metal, we're thinking about just one thing, just one thing. It is the opposite then of compound. And when we speak of God's simplicity, we're referring to the fact that God is an indivisible being. Unlike ourselves, we're made up of different parts, different members. We're made up, it makes up our constitution, eyes, hands, ears, hair. Well, the Bible reveals to us that God is not composed of parts, but rather he is uncompounded, he is incomplex, he is indivisible. Dr. Cairns defined the simplicity of God in the following manner. He said, simplicity emphasizes that the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are not three parts of which the divine essence is composed. What he's really saying there is that the divine essence, that which makes up God, that God is spirit, that divine essence is not one-third God the Father, one-third God the Son, and one-third God the Holy Spirit. That's not God. Rather, Dr. Kearns, he goes on to explain that the simplicity of God, it also teaches that there can be no distinction between the divine essence and the divine attributes. God is not an eternal essence to which attributes have been added. He is not essence plus attributes. He is essence in attributes. I suppose the key text that sets forth the truth of God's simplicity is the one that we find there in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. One Lord. He's one Lord. Similar sentiments are found there in 1 Corinthians 8 verse 4. We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and there is none other God but one. Westminster divines, when they came to define God, they stated in the Confession of Faith that God is a most pure spirit, invisible without body, parts, or passions. Now using that phrase, without parts, think of it, without parts, those divines were emphasizing the unity or the simplicity that there is in God, that God is not made up of various parts. When the Bible speaks about God having eyes and ears and mouth and hands, These are but ways that God helps us to understand our limited understanding of him. But being spirit, he does not actually possess those bodily parts, his eyes, ears, or hands, yet he does see, he does hear, he does speak, he does exercise his power. But he is without parts. The doctrine of the simplicity of God, then, the unity of God, it guards against erroneous views of God. Firstly, God's simplicity guards us in how we think about the attributes of God. You know, as we read the scriptures, we read the many wonderful and the very varied attributes of our God. I trust this will help you to understand. We are not to think that his attributes are like ingredients in a cake. You understand that there are various ingredients put into a bowl to make a cake. And if you put all those ingredients in, then you eventually arrive at a cake or a cake mixture. Well, the attributes of God, they must not be seen like the ingredients of a cake. Well, we'll put in holiness, and justice, and goodness, and truth, and then we'll put in omnipresence, and omniscience, and omnipotence, and we'll put it all in. And like ingredients, whenever we've got them all together, that makes God. That is not how God is to be thought of. That is not how God is composed. Rather, his attributes flow out of his essence. They describe who He is, but they're not parts of Him, like gears in an engine. For example, God's love and holiness are not, they're not composite parts, separate parts, but rather these are attributes in an infinite perfection. He is God, and as God, He has all of these attributes, God alone. But the doctrine of the simplicity of God not only guards our thinking about the attributes, but it also guards in our worship of God. You know, there is a danger to overemphasize one attribute of God at the expense of others. That's often the case that happens today in evangelical circles. The love of God is emphasized, emphasized to a greater degree than the holiness of God. And there is a danger in amplifying what we like about God and ignoring maybe what we do not like about God. And whenever we do that, we are on our way to committing the sin of idolatry. Because we are forming, we're fashioning in our minds a God of our own imagination. But when we think about God as a simple being, an uncompounded being, that negates such thinking. God's simplicity assures us that God is dependent on nothing, his essence is undivided, and his perfections are infinite and complete. And so God can be infinitely loving. while at the same time infinitely holy. One attribute does not usurp another or override another attribute. He is infinitely holy, just, true, good, and all other of the attributes at the same time. We must never see a division then in either God's attributes or his essence. God's attributes flow out of his essence. There is a third truth about God's being. God is a living being, we've thought about that. God is a simple being. God is a triune being. Now you're probably thinking that it's past one o'clock. And you're probably thinking, is he really going to deal with the doctrine of the Trinity today in his closing statements? Well, I put your mind at rest, I'm not. This is where we're going to end today. It would be foolish to look at that doctrine in such a short period of time that God is a triune being, that there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so I want to return, consider the doctrine of the Trinity in coming days. I may just set out the principles or the statements within scripture that proves that God is a triune being and try and make our way through that great doctrine, but we try and do it in one week. It'll be a week whereby we'll have to bring our brains to church, we'll have to be alert. It is a great mystery that no one can fully understand or grasp, but it is a revealed truth to which we believe. We are not like the Unitarians, but we believe we are those who believe in the Trinity. We believe that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are God. They're God. But I trust that what we've thought about today with respect to the being of God has shed a little bit more light the light that we can receive with our finite minds, that it'll shed a little bit of light of the God that we come to worship, the God that we love, the God that we serve, and the God that we gladly obey. You know, if you know not the God of the Bible, it is my prayer that you'll come to know him through his Son, because this is life eternal. That they may know thee, the only true God, in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. May you come to a saving knowledge of him by turning from sin, trusting in his finished work, that work that he had accomplished for sinners on the cross of Calvary. Our God is the living God, so don't go out of this house today discouraged. Go out in faith in such a God, this living God. He lives. He lives for me. He lives to represent me before the Father. He lives to pray and protect, provide for me. Thank God he'll bring me safely home. This God is my God. May God help us to know him all through his Son in a saving manner. Let's bow our heads in prayer, let's pray. O God, our Father, we bow before Thee. We thank Thee that Thou art the God who lives forevermore, a God who never will die, but one who lives in the power of an endless life. Lord, as we leave this house today, may our hearts be lifted. Lord, may our hearts be encouraged to know that He lives for us, those who know Him savingly. Grant, O God, our hearts to be encouraged, even from the truths of thy word today. And Lord, we cry to thee that our community, which come to acknowledge as King Darius acknowledged, that our God is the living God. And Lord, turn the king's heart to thee. Turn our royal family's hearts to thee. Our government's hearts to thee. O God, our nation and our kin's men, and our neighbors' and our families' hearts to thee. Grant, O God, the living God to come in power and to close the mouth of our enemy. and to glorify His precious and wondrous name. Answer our prayers. Take us safely home. May the blessing of God be upon us. And may we know the love of God and the love of Jesus Christ. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with us all. Amen and amen.