'Great God of Wonders'

Maurice Roberts

Whenever men think they have fully explained God it is a sure sign that they have misexplained him. It is, of course, right and proper that we should have and love our creeds and catechisms. It is both good and profitable for us to attempt to explain and define the doctrine of God for our own and others' benefit. But a wise Christian remembers that no formula or definition of God can comprehensively state all that is to be known of God. The creeds and the catechisms are good in that they give true definitions of God, but they do not pretend to be exhaustive. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite. If a formula could be devised for defining God comprehensively it would require to be as infinite as he is himself.

To think about God aright is the most exciting occupation possible for any created being. No doubt explorers who first tread on the soil of some uninhabited land feel awe and wonder at their privilege. Understandably, the scientist peering into his microscope at some hitherto unrecognised organism, or the astronomer who gazes at some far-flung galaxy, is breathless with rapture at the sight of what is so unknown and rare to man. But what are lost continents, or stars, or micro-organisms compared to the blessed and the living God?

The instrument by which man 'looks' at God is the mind. Our mind is the precious 'telescope' created within each man by our Maker himself to enable us to peer out beyond all created things and to 'see' God. To think right thoughts of God is the sum of all blessedness. Whether we call it theology, meditation, devotion or piety, the practice of fixing our thoughts on God till our hearts are 'strangely warmed' is the best bliss we can ever experience on this side of eternity.

The mind is an in-built television by which a man may conjure up pictures which none sees but the man himself, and God. Thoughts spring up in our mind by thousands and ten thousands every hour of our waking existence. A man may train his thoughts. He may, and should, select some and shut out others. But one thought is instinctive to man - the realisation that God is. The reason why the man who says there is no God is called 'a fool' (Psa. 14:1) is because he says what is untrue and what even he himself knows full well to be untrue.

No man really believes that there is no God. His mind informs him of God's existence. His heart may be hard, his background primitive, his knowledge of the Bible nothing at all. But yet his God-given intelligence tells him that he lives in the presence of the great Unseen Being. It is the misery of the godless man that he cannot get away from God; and the unspeakable comfort of the godly that he cannot be removed from God's presence.

Since all men know intuitively that God exists it is only by an act of perverse will-power that the wicked manage to shut God out even for a moment. It is called 'holding down the truth in unrighteousness' (Rom. 1:18). The sinner's instinct informs him that God is there and God is watching. But the sinner does not like God to be there and he has no wish for God to watch him. Hence the sinner must devise means whereby God is shut out from his mind. This whole world is a veritable store-house of devices invented by men over successive generations for shutting God out from the mind. It is done, or may be done, by means of music, or mirth, or alcohol, or a thousand things. The sinfulness of sin is seen in the myriad ways in which a sinner may use God's creation to exclude him from the mind as far as possible.

The fact that all sinners know instinctively that God exists goes far to explaining why the world is the place it is. Given the basic biblical truth that the sinner wishes to hide from God and to flee from him, it is to be expected that this world is going to be a labyrinth of dark tunnels of one sort or another for escaping from God, the great 'Enemy', as sinners so wrongly perceive him.

The sinner's life-long sad labour is to dig himself deep down into some place far away from his unloved and unwanted Maker. His own mind tells him that it cannot be done. But his furtive escape-act still goes on in spite of the illogicality of it. A sinner's life is therefore a fundamentally irrational thing. It is no better than that of a mouse in its treadmill. The mouse may run furiously and the wheel turn rapidly, but it is in the same place as before. Man can no more escape from God than from his own shadow. To run away from God's presence is impossible. The sinner's whole life is one life-long lie - alas, alas!

The only way to flee from the God of wrath is to flee to the God of mercy. The rational, as well as the religious, solution to the sinner's problem lies in running to God for his friendship and love. This, by God's unspeakable grace, is what every Christian learnt at his conversion. No small part of the peace' which we experience when we come back to God is in that we now no longer need to run along the labyrinthine ways of sin to try to avoid God. Our minds no longer need to live a lie. To come back to God is the single solution to every one of a sinner's problems. Other, lesser problems may remain but they are of small importance and of short duration.

It is a very great pity that Christian men do not use their minds more to think about the blessed being of God. If they would do so they would find it both an enriching and an exciting experience. It would renew the mind, refresh the soul and ennoble the life. If we meditated on God for half an hour each day we should all be better men. For God is the supreme and the ultimate object of thought and to think aright about God is to be transformed, if we have Christ as our Saviour, into the same image.

Every thought of God ends in mystery and produces wonder in our mind. It is instinctive to us to be amazed to think that God has no beginning, was not 'made', depends on nothing, but is eternally self-sufficient. It amazes us to recall that God is all around us yet remains invisible to us, that he is infinitely above us, yet infinitely present with us. It is awesome to consider that all creatures are the work of his hands, that all living things 'live and move and have their being' in him. It is breath-taking to grasp the thought that all events infallibly come to pass by God's secret decree and will, that the history of the world is slowly yet surely going to arrive at exactly the point which God eternally foreordained, and that all the powers of evil have, by their Utmost rebelliousness, only furfilled the role for which they were appointed. In a word, it is staggering to realise that we have such a God that 'of him, and through him, and to him are all things' and that his is 'the glory forever' (Rom. 11:36).

Whoever heard of the Holy Trinity who was not surprised at the thought of it? That God should be 'one' we can well understand. But the God who is 'one' is also three'. Our poor minds feel at once that we are in the presence of a Being who belongs to another and vastly higher order of things. By faith we receive the staggering revelation of a God who is three in Persons, yet one in essence. We believe and adore. But we are spellbound at the magnitude of the mystery. Our reaction is, with the angels and the great patriarchs of old, to fall down and to cover our faces.

And how deep are God's thoughts and ways! Our familiarity with Bible facts must not dull our sense of wonder. The fact is that we are spectators in this great universe. We behold the greatness and perceive something of the wisdom of God in all things. But we cannot pretend to know why God has acted as he has in all things - or, rather, we know only that everything is good and will glorify him at last. The rest we scarcely understand at all: Why a six-day creation? Why did God choose the Jews? Why so long before Christ came? Why so long before the Jews are brought into the church again? Why sin seems to prevail so much and Satan to wield so much power? In all such musings we can only say to God, 'Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight' (Matt. 11:26).

Well do the holy Scriptures state, 'It is the glory of God to conceal a thing' (Prov. 25:2)! Could any man live if he saw into the future troubles of his life? We cannot, and need not, experience our miseries till they come upon us. God leads us along like blinkered horses so that we do not shy at the things we would otherwise see. Only Christ, of all mankind, saw and knew the full extent of his coming sufferings. He saw the Cross no doubt from his childhood and had a rehearsal of Gethsemane and Calvary every time he read his Old Testament. But he, being a God-Man, could bear it. We cannot!

How wise and true God is! Yet who believes him? The Scriptures, we say, are God's revelation. But who takes them seriously? Did the Jews, who read them so assiduously, understand that their nation would reject its own Messiah? Did Judas Iscariot see his own face in those portions of Scripture which had foretold his crime (Psa. 41:9; 55:12-14; 109:5f; Zech. 11:13) and which he had read, and even sung, a hundred times? Did the disciples of Christ believe in the Cross or the resurrection before these events happened? Do apostate churches today see themselves as those who, according to the apostolic writings, would one day commit apostasy? Have the popes seen themselves in Scripture? History not only teaches that history teaches nothing, but that even the Bible teaches most men nothing. Man is blind to the light of God's Word because man is too sure that he understands what God means whereas in fact man has of en not understood at all.

We only start to understand God when we abase our proud minds before the majesty of his Word and cry out to him for light and grace. The correct attitude of mind is to treat God and all that belongs to him with proper reverence, love and fear. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God and we only begin to be wise when we begin to think of him as 'the only wise God'. We do not need to be clever to be wise. What we do need is to have a humble heart and a contrite spirit.

God reserves his best blessings for those who truly love him. To them he gives not just blessings but himself. He has made all the elect restless and they have already a foretaste of perfect joy in Christ.

God has yet many wonders and great works to perform in this world. Some of them we shall not live to see. But already we see by faith the things which are to happen when the last page of history is finally turned: An end of all evil for God's people and everlasting joy upon their heads.

Our present duty is very clear. We are to live and work by faith. The 'great God of wonders' can be depended on to do all that the Bible says that he will do. Our part is simple enough. We are to seek to love him with all our heart and to rejoice in all his great goodness.

What kind of meeting is that to be when God and his people at last come face to face and he rewards them according to the riches of his grace and glory!