It's great to be here with each one of you and wonderful to worship the Lord together. I have prepared probably too much as usual, but I tried to cut out as much as I could, while still satisfying the burden that I felt of what I felt that I had to share. So let's look to the Lord and pray and ask Him to meet us here in His Word and provide for us spiritual bread and food to nourish our souls, and so that I can also ask for help in the execution of this. Father, in heaven, we thank You for this opportunity to look into Your Word.
I pray that You would help us to be mentally focused and emotionally focused so that we can be spiritually in tune with Your Word and to receive from You the truth that You have for us. Lord, you know all things. You know that I love You, and You have seen how I have prepared and why I have prepared, but I pray, Lord, that I would not be a barrier towards what You want to be expressed this morning. I have in mind these things to share, but I pray that You would help me to be sensitive and listening to speak on the fly if necessary.
But also, Lord, I pray that You would help me to not misspeak, even in just a wrong shade of meaning or just a slightly wrong color. Lord, I pray that You would guard my lips, and You know that I am, like Isaiah said, a man of unclean lips. I'm not worthy, Lord, to handle Your Word. I'm not qualified, but Father, You qualify me through the Lord Jesus.
And so I just want to serve You this morning and pray that You would give help and give help to all of us to receive Your truth. So I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.
So this is called God's Infinite Glory, and the subtitle is Understanding the Nature of God Using Systematic Theology. And now, don't get too worried, but I need this laser pointer, and let's just jump into it, okay? Because I've got a long way to go. All right.
I'm going to try and go as fast as I can, because I'm going to need to be concise, I think. So God's Infinite Glory. I want to look this morning at theology and the nature of God and the infinity of God, and I want to introduce to anyone who hasn't looked at a Systematic Theology book, What Is That and How Can It Be Helpful? Or what are the dangers of such a book even?
So Jesus made this statement, I am, the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. You know it well. And that is an amazing, amazing claim.
It is like earth shattering, like mind blowing, if you really just think about it and meditate on that, and all the ways that it affects everything, because it does affect everything, that claim. It's the greatest hypothesis you could possibly make, the greatest thought you could ever entertain. God says I am the truth. It impacts everything.
So we sing that song, God of Science. You know, I'm not going to pull it out on my phone or anything, but you kind of know the first verse maybe. You started, and Quantum Physics wrote the law of gravity. You are the smartest.
You are the greatest scientist in history. Hey, that's a wonderful song and wonderful lyrics. We call it, we pretend it's for the children. It's not.
That is just awesome. That is fantastic wonderful lyrics, because they're true. And they give God rightful recognition and credit for these very important aspects of creation. Physics and math and all of these other things mentioned.
They're important, and the technical details are important. And so if science is the pursuit of truth, and God is truth, it makes a lot of sense to me that an honest and detailed and thorough assessment of reality would point you to God. And I firmly believe that is true. If you're honest and you study these things, you say, wow, there must be a creation.
There has to be. Because this is just too much. This is just too wonderful. But I think there's a tendency where Christians and non-Christians alike, and I say this pointing three fingers back at myself, both tend to equate being spiritual to something similar to being emotional.
And I think it's a valuable and important part of the whole picture, emotional things, emotional well-being, but it's not the whole picture. We can't let it become too much of the whole picture. We also need to be heavily, heavily invested in the logical aspects of faith. I think part of it may be because if you ask the question, what does it mean to be spiritual?
It's kind of a hard question. So we just round down and we're like, well, usually it kind of has something to do with being emotional. But we need to look further into the technical details, I feel. And not for me, allow myself to coast.
We need to be driven to investigate these things logically. I think it's really important. It's important to ask difficult questions and find difficult answers in the Bible. That's why it's good to study things like the book of Job for that reason.
Ask the hardest questions. We can't just pretend that these don't matter and that we don't think about these things, because quite often I find that if someone is not actively walking with the Lord, there's often some kind of unspoken question that comes up. And then you start talking about it and you say, well, just look at the Bible. But we need to ask the questions to start with and acknowledge to ourselves that they're important questions like the book of Job and many, many different parts of the Bible.
There's also a tendency to treat having faith and being spiritual as somehow unscientific. People hijack that term, science, often. And what is that really? Well, at its core, I believe that science is the logical and reasonable pursuit of truth without bias and without agenda.
I just want to know the truth. Give me the truth. Where that leads me is not my choice, but I want to have the truth. Give me the truth.
I think that is the heart of science. And many questions can't be answered empirically necessarily. There's a spiritual side of life. And to deny that is quite a denial of just willing yourself to not look at these things.
These things have to be looked at. So personally, I would love for these kinds of unfair tendencies in ourselves and in others to be deeply challenged. I think it would be way better if people said, those Christians, they're all so logical and technical. It's infuriating.
If there was a reputation for Bible nerds instead of Bible thumpers, I would actually like that a lot. So let's get into it on a technical level and on something that I think people don't necessarily find to be maybe it's somewhat dry in material, but systematic theology. I think it's super good and important. However, despite the subtitle mentioning systematic theology, I would like to keep God's word front and center because Bible study tools are good and helpful as a side dish can be good and helpful as a side dish, but never as a main dish.
I want the main dish to be the Bible. So I'm going to read some scriptures that I picked with the theme of the infinity and eternality and majesty of God. And generally reading actually doesn't take that much time. So let's just kind of relax and read these things.
And God is infinite and eternal. Let's spend some time looking at what this means. So if you want to open your Bible to Isaiah 40, that's kind of where a large chunk is going to be, then I'm just going to read and just enjoy. You can always read it later again.
And you should. So Isaiah 40, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, who has directed the spirit of the Lord or as his counselor has taught him, with whom did he take counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice, who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding, behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales. Look, he lifts up the aisles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn nor it's beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.
All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. To whom will you liken God or what likeness will you compare to him? Skip down a bit. Have you not heard?
Have you not known? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Skip down a bit. To whom then will you liken me? Or to whom shall I be equal says the holy one. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power.
Not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable. And I'd like to continue a few more verses, but they're not in my slides. He gives strength to the weary and to him who lacks might. He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary.
Amazing, amazing words. Isaiah 66 verses 1 and 2, Thus says the Lord, Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you will build me? Where is the place of my rest?
For all those things my hand has made and all those things exist. But on this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit who trembles at my word. Job chapter 11 verses 7 and 9. Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above. What can you do? They are deeper than the depths below.
What can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. Romans chapter 11 verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Psalm 145, 3, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. So that is some readings. And I feel like I could just stop there because God's word really speaks for itself.
But we went by pretty fast and let's just keep going. So what is systematic theology and how is it going to help us unpack how God is infinite and eternal? Or can it help us? What is it?
So systematic theology books, it is like a genre of a type of book and it is kind of similar to a commentary or an encyclopedia in some sense where you can look up each doctrine, each major doctrine of Christian evangelical Christianity or other systematic theologies as well. And how it works is it is studying the Bible by category or really by doctrine and not through a narrative or just verse by verse. So it is really like it talks about the Bible, the Bibleology and the whole chapters about the Bibleology. There is no stories in it or anything like that.
So these books are often more analytical and technical and the attempt is to delineate Christian doctrine efficiently. So delineate, that is a good word. It means to describe something completely. So because there is a lot of Christian doctrines in the Bible is a big book, these books also tend to be very big or several regular sized books.
So here is an example of the one that I am using. Normal, Norman Geisler, systematic theology in one volume. I really like this one for a number of reasons. But there is lots and lots of other systematic theologies, just like there is many, many commentaries.
There is a set in there from Shafer and it is like in seven volumes. So I never knew about these until I went to NVBI really. And I think these are cool books that are like cool to study because they are helpful in many ways. So that is why I wanted to kind of tell you about it because maybe like me, you didn't know about this genre of a study tool before.
So what do I think about this particular one? Well, it is vetted by someone I trust. So these are all not the Bible. They are regular books written by sinners.
So I can't just assume that it is going to guide me correctly necessarily. I can't assume everything in another book is true and correct. But it was a textbook at NVBI. So I really trust the judgment of the teachers at school.
So I like this because it is vetted. It is easier to read than most because it is written in modern English, like this century. It gives historical context for each doctrine. So it gives you a bit of church history.
And it answers common objections for each doctrine. So do you ever search for an FAQ frequently asked questions page? What is this? Just give me it in ten words.
I am not a ton of time. Well, each chapter basically has an FAQ for each major doctrine. So that is quite helpful. Lastly, it has good introductions.
So in the introduction to theology proper, the study of God's nature explains how humans are fundamentally limited as finite beings with finite language and finite minds and how that puts us at a very big disadvantage when it comes to comprehending and discussing the nature of God. In fact, it puts a whole limiter on the whole thing. Because we can't finitely comprehend an infinite being. And just admitting that upfront is very humble and very helpful.
And it shows that the author is thinking carefully about these things. So I have been enjoying studying a very small portion of this. I haven't read the whole thing. I'm not ashamed to admit.
It's a lot there. But these are good things to look at. So what's in it? Well theology proper, typical topics.
Theology proper, the study of the character of God himself. Christology, the study of Christ, the new mythology, the study of the Holy Spirit, the study of the end times. How Martiology, the study of sin. Theological anthropology, the study of the nature of humanity, ecclesiology, the study of the church, the theology, the study of salvation, and the Bibleology, the study of the Bible.
Every single one of these is extremely important. And there's just a lot to go through. But I think it helps us to get through it a little faster using some study tools. So here's a quote from this book.
This is in the introduction to theology proper, the study of the character of God, which is what we're going to talk about a little bit. So this, virtually every major doctrine of the faith is based on the doctrine of God. For instance, the claims that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God are entirely dependent on what is meant by God, of whom the Bible is the Word and Christ the Son. It goes on.
Even doctrines like eschatology depend on a God who can infallibly predict the future and who has the omnipotent power to bring about what he desires to occur. The same is true of the doctrine of the atonement, the meanings of reconciliation, propitiation, divine satisfaction, and many other aspects of redemption depend on the kind of God who acts these are. So I really agree with this that your view of God in terms of theology and the nature of God impact everything. Like if God says, I am the truth.
That can really impact how you view what's true. Which impacts how you understand anything and everything. So these things are incredibly important to kind of examine. So God is infinite and eternal.
Let's get back to that. Well, what is infinity? Well at this moment I just got confused and I don't know what that is and I'm wondering if anyone is in the same boat as me and could you please, if you're in the same boat as me and you don't know what it is, what is infinity? Just raise your hand.
Okay, I was trying to trick people into raising their hands and some of my family members did. But for the most part I kind of expected something like that and it's fascinating because you know what it is. Infinity goes on forever. It's like it goes on forever.
It turns all like never ending. And that concept is so easy for you to put in your brain. And that's fascinating because you know what that is, I know what that is. And here we are in a room with all kinds of people, different backgrounds, different levels of education and it's not hard for anyone really I think to grasp this concept infinity goes on and on and on and on.
It turns out it just never ends. Well if you hold a secular worldview you should really pause and think about that. Because biblically it makes perfect sense that humans can just be like okay, infinity. Sure.
So what do you just like get the ability to conceive of that just through nature or just like if a dog can't understand infinity for example. There's no reason why a buddy needs to comprehend infinity. It's a uniquely human thing. And it makes sense biblically but if humans are animals why do we all have this ability to comprehend infinity?
I think it makes sense in Ecclesiastes 3.11 it says God has put eternity into man's heart yet he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Or Acts 17, 28 quoting like a pagan poem about Zeus but Paul quoted it so like in the context I think it's okay to say this is about us and God. It says in him we live and move and have our being for indeed we are his offspring. In him we live and move and have our being.
So we are cool with these concepts because they can just happen in our brains I think for a reason because we need to be able to comprehend something about God. If humans are purely finite and a product of finite interactions why do we also readily conceive of this? Is there anything in the natural visible and tangible world that brings us there? That brings us there well there shouldn't be and there isn't really but there are some that I can think of maybe you can think of some and if you want to guess you can go ahead but I think it mostly comes up in the intangible infinity.
Comes up in things not seen you might say. So what's the one thing that maybe you guessed in your head? Well I think when you gaze up at the night sky on a clear night and you view the Milky Way and all the stars it gives you a sense of feeling of the scope of infinity in the natural world and I thought of a few other ones this morning and if you want to guess out loud or guess in your head feel free. I think perhaps being in the middle of the ocean and seeing it stretch away in all directions with no signs of land that evokes perhaps a sense of eternity and infinity the ocean.
Biblically that's where I got it we were reading something about something like that. So this picture doesn't evoke a sense of infinity of the night sky and this projector is awesome and that's the highest resolution I could find from NASA's website but I think that tells me that God had something very specific in mind when he created the stars in the galaxies. Why are they there? Well Occam's razor would suggest that God created all of that for you to look at and wonder about infinity and eternity.
You look at that and you get that feeling and you wonder what is infinity and what is eternity. We don't actually know how big the universe is but current science so far as I know suggests that the universe is expanding all the time almost as if it was being stretched out like a curtain. We just read that. Yeah.
So I'm really looking forward to it. Some are night going and looking at the clear summer night sky and thinking about God's infinity. I think it's an important thing to think about. Okay.
So what is the say in terms of systematic theology? I'm like 12. Okay. Well, God is infinite in all his attributes that he has.
And so there's this the craziest part about when you really start diving into the doctrines of God's metaphysical or non-moral qualities just like the ways that he is. The most to me the most like crazy one that really starts your brain going is that God is uncomposed spirit. So he's not God is not made out of like a lot of different parts with different qualities. People like humans who have very linear I would say strengths and weaknesses in one direction.
But God is not inconsistent. God is consistent. Consistency is a good thing. So God is infinitely consistent.
And he is not irregular but rather perfect in every way. Not divided but rather one individual being. So how is God infinite? What does that mean?
Well, in a sense God is infinite in every way. At least God is infinite in all of his ways. In every positive and good and perfect way, God is the ultimate and perfect being. God is not infinitely lazy because God is perfect.
But I would say that God is infinitely diligent. He's always watching and he's always knowing. So we can see this in God's traits that are very commonly accepted. These four are like the top four commonly accepted traits of God.
And he's infinite in every one of these ways. These are all positive traits that God has. In fact, he's infinite in these traits and his other attributes. So God is infinite in time.
God is eternal. Okay, well look at that. God is infinite in power and ability. We commonly call that omnipotence.
God is infinite in presence and access spatially and dimensionally, I guess. So omnipresent, God is everywhere. God is infinite in knowledge. God is omniscient.
These are like the common ones that you would probably already have known. But when it says in Deuteronomy 6, here, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. I think there's significance to that because God is triune, yes, but God is also whole. Very whole.
He is holy himself and God is infinite. So by the way, you can do a cross product thing here and look at how God is infinite in these ways together. So by the way, just looking at omnipresence, God is infinite both in scope and intensity. Sometimes we make it easier on our brains and we just think that God can go like any one place as he pleases, as if a human could teleport or just be anywhere he wants.
Well, that's not exactly it. You could say it this way, all of God is everywhere, all the time. So right now in this space, or in this little take as small a piece as you want, all of God is present. God is omnipresent.
All of God is here. All of God is there. All of God is everywhere, all the time. And that's when all our brains are like not...
But he's more infinite. He's more ultimate than we really give him credit for, I think, until you start maybe unpacking. What does it mean? God is infinite.
God is powerful. God is infinite. And as a product, God is infinitely powerful. And God's knowledge is filled with all the force of his infinite power, infinitely.
And God's power is backed by all of his limitless knowledge. So as a result, you maybe could conceive of a being who is so infinite in all of these ways together at once that he could conceivably create the universe by spoken word and exercise of will. And his power is backed by limitless knowledge. So he could say, let there be light, and then go study Maxwell's equations and understand those differential equations.
And then you can say, okay, well, God said let there be light, and the subtext of what he meant by that was immense. Go study physics, go study the speed of light, go study what light is, go study how light behaves. And you see, God created a lot of stuff when he said that. Infinite.
These words are not just powerful in intensity, they're powerful in scope. It's like everything is just like all the time, more ultimate than we really can just get. So let's look at some more Bible verses because it's just so awesome. God is so awesome.
Psalm 147 verses 4 to 6. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding has no limit.
The Lord sustains the humble, but casts the wicked to the ground. So here we see determining the number of stars. Omnipotence, yes. He created like, you know how big the stars are?
He just created those. He knows about them, calls them each by name. Omnipotence, omnipotence, mighty in power. Understanding has no limit.
Unlimited, no limit. Omnipotence. Psalm 92, before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even then from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. So you see eternality, everlasting to everlasting.
That's usually kind of how we think of it, but it's not exactly necessarily that. Because yes, it's true, God is there ever lasting to everlasting. And forming the earth and the world, I mean, that's like omnipotence. But Isaiah 57, 15 says this, for thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy.
I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. By the way, another attribute of God is omnibevilence. He's benevolent. He's omnibevilent.
In every way, God is gracious. Those who are contrite and humble in spirit. But it says he inhabits eternity, inhabits. Think about the verb tense.
So right now, God inhabits eternity. We simplify that, I think, often in our brains to spare ourselves, the migraine or whatever, that God lasts forever in time and perhaps was present forever in time, but otherwise, pretty much, perceives time and experiences the same way we do. Well, no. Right now, God is inhabiting and looking at things from the perspective of eternity.
I think God can just be in time all of it all at once. That one hurts my brain. But right now, God isn't just walking along with us looking at the clock like, oh, yeah, the second, that second. No, God inhabits eternity right now.
Don't get like that. OK, no, just relax. Appreciate how cool this picture just looks without worrying about what it says up there, or the numbers or anything. It just looks cool, colors, that's neat.
God is the God of science. And that includes math. And I really, really, really believe that mathematics glorifies God in much the same way that music glorifies God when you study it, experience it, and just get into it. Two very, very different ways of exploring reality on the surface.
But in my experience, they both feel like a beautiful gift that God has intentionally left just out of sight underneath the surface of the visible world for us to discover and unlock. And as you experience and discover and unlock these things in music and these things in math, you understand these gifts from God and you learn something about God, because he created it. He thought of it. And so I think I'm trying to draw that bridge because I do the music stuff, and I do the math stuff.
And I think just let's not undervalue the technical. Get into it. It's awesome. It's so awesome.
Yeah, OK, it's scary, and you didn't like high school math. But I give it another chance. And so let's try and use our math brains and the tool that God has given us in math to try and understand and explore what does infinity mean. And so maybe you explore trigonometry basics in grade eight or nine or 10, and you would encounter some of these functions, sine, cosine, tangent.
Don't worry about the other ones. OK, so sine is here in blue. And starting at zero, it starts at zero, and it goes up to one, and then back down to zero. And then cosine is here, and at zero it starts at one, and then it goes down to zero at pi by two, where 90 degrees.
And then it goes on. So these are sine and cosine, and they're not aligned. They don't see i to i. They are out of phase by 90 degrees or pi by two.
They're kind of in opposition. And it results in something very mathy and special here out of this relationship between sine and cosine, you get tangent, which is here as well. But now you can see it. OK, so this is a very fascinating function.
It has asymptotes. It's a fun word, asymptotes. All right, so let's explore this function a little. And then you, so in high school this is probably the first time you really saw infinity as you encountered it naturally in math.
OK, let's explore this a little. And walking along from zero up to pi by two, we're going to walk along that line and try and experience and understand what happens as you get closer and closer and closer to this asymptote, and you go up towards infinity. OK, I'm going to explain this numerically by breaking out all of these steps one by one towards positive infinity. So here's the steps that we're walking.
Each one of these is a step along. And we're walking towards positive infinity. And as you can see, each step gets smaller and smaller and smaller, because you get further and farther deeper down into the decimals. So each step is smaller than the last one.
And in fact, the first step here is bigger than all of the other steps combined forever. OK, so there's that. Now here's the product that we're going up. There's the product of that going through the tan function.
So I've rounded to kind of a near order of magnitude here. And as you can see, each time the amount that we go up as we go forward gets bigger. And it gets bigger. And it gets bigger.
And it gets bigger. Each time, it's bigger than all the rest of them combined. So one trillion is bigger than all the rest of these that came before combined. And then the one after that will be bigger than everything that came before together, cumulatively.
So it's really blowing up here. It's really getting bigger and faster. A massive, a massive acceleration. It's going.
It's going. Infinity. It's huge. Do you get the feeling?
Do you get the feeling when you kind of look at that numerically? Like it's just like, what is this? I built this little spreadsheet to the limits of what Google sheets can handle. If you want to go further, you need more powerful software.
And you can go a lot further if you want in a normal computer these days. But this doesn't even scratch the surface. I was like, oh, I can only get like 10 decimal points. It's like nothing.
This is nothing. This doesn't even begin in terms of infinity. So this is just like, I want to try and convey these things because honestly, when I think of God being infinite, I basically think that God is somewhere above the end of this line that has no end. Now mathematically, that's impossible.
But this is just an analogy. This is just an illustration. This function has nothing to do with. This is my illustration.
This has nothing to do with theology or morality. This is just a tangent function. It's like circles and triangles. So don't misinterpret that I'm saying that there's something moral about tan function.
No. But mathematically, it's impossible to reach the end of this. But I think just God is greater. And I can kind of think about this line and how it works.
Well, God is greater than what I can think of. In reality, we can't possibly conceive of how amazing our God really is. Our brains cannot do it. Language cannot describe it.
If you can imagine it categorically, God is more supreme than whatever you just imagined. So if you explore these limits of how great is our God, it's so amazing. It's appropriate to break out in doxology. Now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, the honor and glory forever and ever, amen.
Praise the Lord. And I'm not done even though it was a doxology. I'm sorry. So, okay, application.
Does this matter to me personally? Like boring math things, okay, fine, like whatever. Does this matter practically or is this all just theoretical? Well, it's a leading question.
Yes. It matters a lot. It matters a lot. It matters a lot because God is also infinitely righteous.
One of his attributes is righteousness. And because God is uncomposed and all of his ways are infinite ways, God is infinitely righteous. So, you know, if we're looking at this and saying God is infinitely righteous, well, he's very, very, very righteous in a way that perhaps we have difficulty comprehending. Isaiah chapter 6 says this, in the year of Isaiah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted with the train of his robe, filling the temple.
Seraphim, we're standing above him, each having six wings and with two each covering his face and two each covering his feet and two each flew. With two each they flew. And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies. The whole earth is full of his glory, including math.
And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling smoke. And then I said, whoa to me for I am ruined. That's an appropriate response when you're faced with God's infinite righteousness. Holy, holy, holy, that cry.
I wonder how Isaiah heard that, what was that like? I tried to put some women bigger into that. Holy, holy, holy. Think about the biggest rock concert you've ever been at, the loudest holy, holy, holy, you could possibly conceive of.
Well, it's probably angels are just doing that bigger and better. I don't know. But I'm sure that vision must have been something. Isaiah's response was very appropriate for a finite being.
So, we can ask the question, how many sins result in condemnation theoretically? Because we get a hard time with this often because people tend to be like, well, one sin? Like, that's kind of harsh. I'm not that bad of a person, you know?
I'm just average. Hell, for me, really? Average guy? Like, why is that such a big deal?
Why is one sin a big deal? Well, an infinite God who is infinitely righteous delivers infinite judgments. It is not about the size of the sin. It's about the size of the God we sin against.
Psalm 21, 27 says this, nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. So how many sins result in condemnation? Well, we need to understand who God is to start with and then that will inform the rest of it. We need to start with how we view God and really just keep looking there for every other kind of thought that we have because it's going to inform everything.
If God says I am the truth, that informs everything. If God is infinite, that informs everything. Everything how we think. It informs how we should think.
So people say like, oh, just one sin. It's not fair or whatever. Okay, well, actually I'll stand by that. Not only will I stand by that.
I'll do you one better. Just being neutral and normal is still an infinite distance from God. So like a dog, for example, I mean, I'm not, if you're a dog lover, just make a parrot or whatever in your head, but a dog is infinitely far from God's glory and it's not the dog's fault. The dog is a good boy.
He's doing the best he can with what he's got, but he does not sit above the circle of the earth outside of time and look down at the sum total of all of humanity, of all the nations of the earth and think, huh, that is like a single drop in a bucket to me. So even just being neutral, if you understand who God is, it takes away that misconception of like, is it okay for me to just be average and be around this other being who's so awesome? No. Let me explain like this.
There's someone who's dearly loved and disassembly. Let me explain like these. Regular, standard issue, human being, God. Okay, if you got that well.
Yeah. So it's worse. It's worse than you thought it was. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
We're not even neutral. Everyone has sinned. None is righteous. No, not one.
No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. We've actually, all of us, trespassed against an infinite, holy, righteous God and we're spiritually dead.
We're enemies with God. We're not even neutral and that would be bad enough. Our relationship by default is in a position of a sin nature and a debt to God. We are born with a sin nature.
We're born in opposition. We don't see eye to eye. You might say possibly that we're out of phase with God. Let's bring this picture back and go the other way because it's valuable to think about.
On the other side, you get negative infinity and it's very worth considering what that means. Now, this picture has nothing to do with morality. It's just an analogy. It's just a metaphor borrowed by me from trigonometry.
Don't read into it too much. Don't take it too far. But negative infinity is worth thinking about. We're all sinners and that excuse of like, well, it's just one sin.
Well, it never is just one sin because sins create more sins. And if God's nature is like this line going up and up in infinity, human nature, sin nature is going the other direction, I think. Because sin begets more sin. And it's not even linear.
It's worse. So if you lie and you want to stay consistent with your first lie, then usually it takes bigger and more complicated lies and then you need bigger and more complicated lies to cover up your second lie and then it just gets worse and worse and worse. It's not just like one, two, three. It's like one, ten, a hundred.
It leads so quickly to just hypocrisy, duplicity. And you're just like, how did that happen so fast? Addiction tends to become more and more extreme, not stay at the same level. So each time you crave or I crave, whatever it is, it has to be a little bit bigger and better.
So your brain is just trying to crank out more and more dopamine fighting against these diminishing returns and it's just like more, more, more, that's sin. It takes you down. Greed, for example, can blow up your life and it can just start with thought. A very small and subtle shift in attitude.
First it's like, okay, entitlement. I actually deserve now a nice car, a nice TV, a nice house. I deserve an upgrade. I'm actually, you know what, I'm going to make that my priority.
And it's like pride, people must see my car and be like, oh, wow, that guy's a nice car. And they're like, okay, I'm feeding the pride machine now. This guy's successful, well I am successful, look at all my stuff. And then it's like, well, nothing is never enough.
Now I'm just feeding the greed machine. And now I'm worshiping my stuff instead of my creator. And it's like, it goes, just like, take your eyes off God for one second and it's the most dangerous second of your life. It's never just one sin, but it always starts with just one sin, even if it's just a thought.
One step away from God. One step, 10 steps, 10 steps turns into 100, 100 turns into 1000. And you're going, suddenly you're just like riding the slip and slide down this line, faster and faster and faster. A million, a trillion steps away from God.
And it's like, when, I never thought this would happen to me. Christians and non-Christians alike. Sin has consequence. I've heard that phrase.
I never thought it would be me. Sin will drag you down so fast if you even just give it the time of day. The Bible says that Satan roams around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He's a thief.
He's a robber. Nothing more than to destroy every good thing in your life and his primary weapon is sin. And all he has to do is get you to sin just one time and then just one more step and then just one more step and down it goes. I think really, since we have such trouble comprehending infinity, we cannot comprehend the infinite vast gulf of distance between us and God.
I know this is just an illustration. This is just a metaphor. It's not like this. This is trigonometry.
But use it to think if it helps. Think about it some more. Run some numbers. Do your calculations.
Crunch your own numbers. Go to the Word of God. Read your Bible. Do your own thing that helps you.
And ask the questions. I think this begs the question, this discussion. What is hell like? I think it begs the question.
We're talking about sin. I think what is sin like? It begs the question. What is hell like?
Well, I believe that it is infinitely bad at least in terms of duration. And I know from personal experience that it is painful to be somewhat far from God as a living person. And so what is hell like? Well, I have my personal convictions.
And I'm not going to go there because I think that it's important for everyone to just do these things for themselves. Go look at God's Word. What does it say? And think about it.
And think about it in detail as technical as you can be. You have to do it for yourself. Run your own numbers. Do your own business with God.
And so I'm over time. But I'll leave you with icon material, I promise. I'll leave you with some questions. I just want to ask questions that you can just think about.
Think about God's infinity. And think about other things. Think about questions. Think about theology.
Read your Bible. It's amazing. What is the cost of sin? What's a good question to ask?
There's a song that we sing. Yee-hoo, think of sin, but lightly nor suppose the evil great. Here may view its nature rightly. Here its guilt may estimate.
Think the sacrifice appointed. See who bears the awful load. Not always easy to take things to their logical limits. What is the cost of sin?
What is that awful load that that song mentions? Why did God choose the sacrifice on the cross to be his own son? Philippians 2, 5 says this. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
So what is it exactly that made Jesus cry out after those three hours of darkness? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's a good question to ask. How great is the gift of salvation?
Good question to ask. Ephesians 2, 4 to 10 says, but God being rich and mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Not a result of work, so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Do your own computations.
How great is the gift of salvation? So if you're here listening online and you think about sin, your sin, my sin, sin in general, and the main thing that comes back is a feeling of unresolved guilt, and if you think about hell and what is hell like and how big is the suffering in hell and that scares you, you're not saved. If those are the things that come back when you think about sin and hell, but you can be by placing your faith in an infinite Savior, the Son of God who has no sin sacrificed for us on a cross bearing the penalty for our sins in our place as a substitute, place your faith in that infinite man. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed for Skeeter 2, 24.
It's very encouraging sometimes also. Think about this, how far has God removed our sins from us? Psalm 103 verses 10 to 12. He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. That doesn't mean 360 degrees longitude. So not too bad, made it to the end. In summary, systematic theology.
What is it? A Bible study tool. It's just a tool that groups verses into doctrines or topics. It's a topical type study.
An example from theological theology proper, the study of God's character. God is infinite in power, presence, knowledge, and time, also infinite in righteous inness and holiness. Sin is viewed rightly when you look at God, not humanity. Sin creates an infinite distance between us and God.
God provided an infinite solution by an infinite Savior himself. So I'd like to sing before we go boldly. I want to sing praise the one who made an end to all my sin. I think that would be nice to sing.
So I'll just close in prayer and then music people can come and then we'll be finished. Thank you for the attentiveness. Father, we thank you for the riches that you have given us through Christ and that we have a way to be redeemed from our own wretchedness. I pray, Lord, that you would help each and every one of us and myself, most of all, God, we need food from your hand, food from your word, to be nourished, to be spiritually alive.
Please help God and give us grace because we are weak. We're a weak people. We need you to uphold us, Father. I pray that you would give help to each one in the point of his need and the point of her need.
And we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.