“That’s Not My God”

“Well, I don’t like that. I don’t believe that God is like that. That’s not My God!” We hear that objection so often, as if this declaration of Scripture of God’s transcendent majesty and Kingship is not at all a Biblical teaching. How far is it from the truth. It’s everywhere in Scripture!

I remember a story from John Reisinger, when he was asked by an old lady about his son who died in the war. He was asked, “Well John, where was God when your son died?” John plainly replied, “He was on the same place when His Son died.” God was still on His throne doing what He pleases.

Fleshly, human beings do not like this God, this God of the Bible, a God who is absolutely Holy, absolutely Just, Sovereign and Supreme. They want to play the “build your own diety” game, as if such a “god” would help them. They would have no problems worshiping a God of love, a God of mercy and forgiveness, a God of second-chances, a God that fills voids in human hearts. But when we begin to stress that God’s holiness is the fountainhead of His character these same people begin to rail and burst in anger. They can’t believe it. They can’t accept it.

How many God’s are there? A.W. Pink’s observation is very fitting for such professors: “In reality, they are but atheists, for there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God, and no God at all.”

In the words of Voddie Baucham, Jr., the “god” of this age, that really is no God at all, is but a “sissified, needy Jesus”. A “god” that is wishy-washy, a mere Santa hoping that people would choose and approve of Him. He supposedly yearns for you and me, he’s weepy and needful of our acceptance. He’s supposedly broken when we don’t choose him and he can’t do anything about it. No. That may be the “god” of the great majority of Christians today, but that is not the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible is worthy of worship. The God of the Bible is almighty. Nothing in this universe can come to being, move, breathe or even keep on existing in any way shape or form without the empowerment of God. The only reason you and I are still alive this very moment is because God is pleased to do so.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse!

The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

—Revelation 19:11-16

Is this the God we believe today? Does it even matter to make known this kind of God in presenting the Gospel message? Should we not just have people know about a God who loves people so much that He died for them? Why should we declare such a high and lofty God, unbending and Kingly?

Christ the Lord and Saving Faith

From a human view-point the cause of Christian religion as it is today is victoriously being advanced, strongholds are being put down and the kingdom is supposedly being established. But in reality this is not the case, all that’s being built up is pretty little churches for people to sit in as they are comforted on their way to Hell.

The gospel that is proposed by most evangelical churches is but a satanic delusion that hardens and blinds men and women further in their sin. Men and women are called to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. But it doesn’t mean anything really to their hearers. All that is required by the modern Gospel is that people would believe in Jesus. The fundamental neglect lies herein, what kind of “Jesus” are we to call people to believe in?

It is supposed that just by believing in Christ as Savior is already saving faith. But is that true? To preach Christ as Savior and not as Lord is but a lie. Never once in Scripture did the apostles bid men to simply accept Christ as their Savior and they will be saved. But it is always a twofold Person: “believe in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (Rom 10:13)! And it is not only simple belief that is required for salvation, but it is as well a twofold call: “Repent and believe the Gospel! (Mark 1:15)”

What does repentance mean? What does believing in Christ the Lord mean? Quite simply it is the Cost of Discipleship that Christ lays down in Luke 14:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

—Luke 14:26-27

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

—Luke 14:33

This is why there are so few genuine Christians today. Many, many people would rather deceive themselves in believing half a Christ, subjecting themselves to half a gospel, than surrender all of self to the Kingship of God. Often the question is asked, “Are you Saved? Is Christ your savior?”, but scarcely is the question asked, “Is Christ your Lord?”

This is the same reason why salvation is such a difficult and impossible thing. This is why the Gospel is such an offense to man. For what man would surrender all of self before the foot of the Cross?

A.W. Pink, in his book, “Studies in Saving Faith”, says:

John 1:12 shows plainly that to “believe” is to “receive,” and to be saved a sinner must receive One who is not only Saviour but “Lord,” yea, who must be received as “Lord” before He becomes the Saviour of that person. And to receive “Christ Jesus the Lord” (Col. 2:6) necessarily involves the renouncing of our own sinful lordship, the throwing down of the weapons of our warfare against Him, and the submitting to His yoke and rule.

And before any human rebel is brought to do that, a miracle of Divine grace has to be wrought within him. And this brings us more immediately to the present aspect of our theme. Saving faith is not a native product of the human heart, but a spiritual grace communicated from on high. “It is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). It is “of the operation of God” (Col. 2:12). It is by “the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:5).

Saving faith involves the crushing of self and the abandonment of sin before God. It is no wonder there are multitudes of false converts in the visible church today. Little desire for holiness, little surrendering of comforts for the supreme cause of the glory of God in the advancement of His gospel.

And yet evangelicalism today speaks little, if not at all, about such things as repentance, sin, God’s holiness and Lordship. A.W. Pink continues to solemnly say:

No, my reader, the Gospel is very, very far from making light of sin.

The Gospel shows us how unsparingly God deals with sin.

It reveals to us the terrible sword of His justice smiting His beloved Son in order that atonement might be made for the transgressions of His people.

So far from the Gospel setting aside the Law, it exhibits the Saviour enduring the curse of it. Calvary supplied the most solemn and awe-inspiring display of God’s hatred of sin that time or eternity will ever furnish.

And do you imagine that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to worldlings and telling them that they “may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their personal Saviour” while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts still in love with sin? If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.

Is Christ Your Lord?

Is Christ then your Lord? Are you a Christian today? Previously I mentioned that God is often an obscure concept in the minds of men, but when God, by His grace finally makes us aware of His presence the greatest struggle normally begins in these terms, as the poet says:

Intense the agony—When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again;
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

This is when God through the Holy Spirit in the person and work of Jesus Christ the Lord saves a man. The unconcerned conscience is now brought to dread when he considers the holiness of God. The ear hears God’s law and sees himself as a detestable moral rebel as he violates God’s precepts each moment. The eye beholds the majesty and glory of God and compares himself to His Sovereign kingship and realizes himself to be but a mere worm. The heart begins to feel the weight of the horrors of his sin, the brain begins to think and realizes the state of his soul. The soul begins to feel the flesh, and the flesh begins to feel the chains of sin.

Once a person realizes these things by the awakening of the Holy Spirit, by His grace, He grants repentance that leads unto life (Acts 11:18).

This is who God is, in each person of the trinity, Holy, Just, Wrathful, Lord, Sovereign, King. This is the person of Jesus, Prophet, Priest and King. This is the Gospel call, “repent from your sins and by faith and faith alone believe in Christ Jesus the Lord.”

The Supremacy of God and Saving Faith

i. The God-Hood of God and the Gospel

ii. The Figment of Human Imagination, An Invention of Maudlin Sentimentality

iii. The Supremacy of Jesus Christ the Lord and Saving Faith