Is It Really Possible to Know God?

How badly do you want to know God? Tim Hansel in his book “When I Relax I feel Guilty,” writes some insights of what most people want from God. “I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of Him to make me love someone racially different or someone who is an immigrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please.” How much of God do you want?

How Knowable is God?

The Unsearchable God

  • One of the great quandaries in the Bible is this thought – that the Unsearchable God can, in fact, be searched!
  • Paul chimes in on this thought.

Romans 11:33 (ESV)
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

  • The word unsearchable in the New Testament (Romans 11:33) means unfathomable, impossible to understand.
  • It means God’s actions are not accessible to human thought or reflection. You can meditate all day long with your pea brain and you will never come up with it.
  • Job speaks to this thought also

Job 5:9 (ESV)
9 who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number:

What He does is unsearchable.

Job 36:26 (ESV)
26 Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable.

  • His existence is unsearchable
  • David adds his thought to this also

Psalm 145:3 (ESV)
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

  • His greatness is unsearchable.
  • His judgments and His ways are unsearchable.
  • God does not fit in your web browser.
  • You cannot do an internet search on God and come up with
  • What He does
  • How He exists
  • How great He is
  • How He judges
  • What are His Ways
  • God is too big for the internet or anything of human origin.
  • One person said, the Nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.

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An Idea of How Big God Is

How Big Is Your God?

Do you understand what an undertaking it was for God to take care of Israel in the wilderness?

  • Moses led the people of Israel into the desert and they had to be fed.
  • According to the U. S. Army’s Quartermaster General feeding 3-1/2 million requires
  • 1500 tons of food a day, filling two freight trains, each a mile long.
  • It took 4000 tons of firewood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long and this is only for one day to cook the food not to mention enough wood for keeping warm.
  • It takes 11,000,000 gallons of water EACH DAY—and to process the food, to drink and to wash the dishes (not to bathe) which enough to fill a train of tanker cars 1800 miles long.
  • And another thing! They had to get across the Red Sea in one night.
  • Now if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and require 35 days and nights to complete the crossing.
  • So to get it over in one night there had to be a space in the Red Sea 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5,000 abreast.
  • Think about this; every time they camped at the end of the day, a camp ground the size of Rhode Island was required, or 750 square miles.
  • The Unsearchable God met every need.

The Big News Is This Big God Has Chosen to Reveal Himself to Us.

Ways that He Reveals Himself

  • It’s not like the Billboard ‘Don’t Make Me Come Down There’. – God.
  • He wants to come down there! And show Himself to you.
  • The God that took the time to create you wants you to know Him.
  • Knowing God is not man’s idea.
  • From beginning to end it is all God’. God formed man out of the dust of the ground and then began to disclose Himself to him throughout the ages.
  • What are some of the ways He reveals Himself?

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Nature Reveals God the Father

Psalm 19:1–6 (ESV)
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. 6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

  • Verse 2 – ‘Day to day pours out speech…’
  • Every day creation speaks a language that is heard throughout the earth
  • Verse 3 – ‘ There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard’
  • The problem of creations voice not being understood does not exist.
  • Creation speaks a language that everyone understands
  • The agnostic is lying to himself/ and to herself and consequently to you.
  • Do you understand the difference between an agnostic and an atheist? An atheist says, ‘I don’t believe there is a God.’ An agnostic says, ‘If there is one I don’t know it.’ Both of them are deceived!
  • We have had the idea ‘Oh poor agnostic, you are not sure that there is God.’
  • The Bible says they are sure!!!
  • Who are you going to believe here, the agnostic or the Bible? The Bible says the voice of creation declaring the mightiness of God is understood by everyone.

Romans 1:19–23 (ESV)
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

  • How else does God reveal Himself to men?

Providence Reveals God the Father

  • Providence is God in action executing the details of His plan throughout time.

1 Peter 1:10–12 (ESV)
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

  • The prophets inquired about what God was doing providentially.
  • How many times has something happened in the Middle East and people begin to ask what that event has to do with end ties?
  • What about all the earthquakes and disasters that are occurring today, don’t they speak to us? Even unbelievers are taking note of these events.

The Creation of Man and the Ordering of Nations Reveals the Father

  • Why do you live where you live?
  • Why are we here in America and not in some other country like China, African, Netherlands, Australia or some other place?
  • It is part of the plan so that you might know God. Everyone, every nationality, every human person has been designated to be who they are (nationality wise) and where they are for one reason – to know God!

Acts 17:26–27 (TNIV)
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Miracles Reveal God the Father

  • Miracles are the Dinner Bell
  • They are the red flags on the construction road of life

John 11:11–15 (ESV)
11 After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

John 11:17, 34, 38-45 (ESV)
17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” 45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him,

John 20:30–31 (ESV)
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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Jesus Reveals God the Father

  • Jesus lived to make God known

John 14:8–9 (ESV)
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Call to Action:

We learn who God is, what God does, and what God expects from us through His Word. You cannot know God through your feelings. You cannot know God through your emotions. You can know God through His Word. Make a commitment to God’s Word today.

Question: Is knowing God the strong desire of your heart? Please leave a comment in the comments section below.