In this sermon, Brother Denny emphasizes the importance of understanding and relating to God. He describes God as the high and lofty one, sitting on a throne above the heavens. God desires to look upon those who are poor in spirit, contrite, and trembling at His word. The prophet Isaiah attempts to describe God's greatness by comparing His throne to the heavens and His footstool to the earth. Ultimately, Brother Denny encourages listeners to have a deep reverence and awe for God, recognizing His holiness and seeking to understand and worship Him.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. I cannot speak, Lord. We worship you, God, Jehovah, Lord. We stand before you and we worship you this morning. We cannot just come and give our request. We must yet stand and adore in silence before you, Lord. We love you this morning. Thank you for loving us. I don't understand it, Lord, but I thank you for loving me and saving me. Now, God, again this morning, have mercy upon me, Lord. Have mercy and bless us and make thy face to shine upon us all. And we might sing for who you are. And change us, Lord. Change us. In Jesus' holy name, I pray. Amen. You may be seated. Well, I don't know about you, but God is changing me. I was out under the open sky and the stars last evening, praying a bit. They look different last night. They look different to me. God is changing me, for which I'm very grateful. I need to be changed. All right, this morning, the title of our message this morning is this. God Mysterious. God Mysterious. The ancient writers called Him the Mysterium Tremendum of the Universe. Try that definition for a while. The Mysterium Tremendum of the Universe. And that's Latin. In these sessions, we are making a feeble attempt at explaining what God is like. We are also facing the sober reality that this, how we see what God is like, has a great effect on how we live. You cannot, you will not, get a clear vision of what God is like and not have it affect your life, the way you live every day. In light of that fact, consider this verse I found. Psalm 53 verse 1 says, Now that's the fool's vision of God. There is no God. But look how the rest of the verse goes. Corrupt are they. And have done abominable iniquity. There is none that doeth good. If you have no vision of God, you will live in corruption. According to that verse right there. Thank you, son. We must raise our understanding of God. Our very life depends upon it. My life depends upon it. The fact is, that God is not like anything that is. We must raise our understanding of God. But, the fact is, God is not like anything that is. So what are we going to do? And since we as humans, we learn new things by moving from what we already know into the realm of what we do not know. That's how we learn. From a little child, we have all learned up to the point where we are today. Adding to what we already know. Using what we already know to add new knowledge to our own life and experience. This presents a problem when we are learning about God. Because God is unlike anything that is. It is hard to understand God at times. I want you to notice that when Ezekiel saw the vision of the glory of the Lord. Notice the words that he used. It's very insightful. He didn't say, I saw a man. I saw a creature. I saw a throne. He didn't say that. He used words which are very insightful. As we look at this subject of God mysterious. He used words like likeness. The likeness of. The appearance of. As it were. He used those words. Remember? As it were. The likeness of the appearance of a man. The likeness of the appearance of a throne. Why did he do that? Because these heavenly things. That Ezekiel was gazing upon. Were so unlike what he knew. He couldn't just say. It is this. It is this. And it is this. He could simply say. It was in the likeness of the appearance of a throne. That's the closest thing that he could compare it to. In what he knew. And many times we find God. Revealing himself to us. Through these means. Zovar said to Job. In one of his admonitions to him. Canst thou by searching find out God? And canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? He was challenging Job. Job was speaking. As one who knows about God. And as one who knew God. And Zovar was challenging him. You don't know as much as you think you know. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? And the answer is an assumed no. And Job knew that. As soon as he said it, Job knew. Okay, yes. I know some things about God. But you're right. I can't find out God. And I cannot search out His perfection. Actually, the answer is yes and no. God is both unknowable and knowable. You say, now wait a minute, Brother Denny. Just stay with me. God is unknowable and knowable. Remember, He can be anything He wants. He can be anything He wants. And I'm going to stretch your imagination to its limits in the next two sessions, so fasten your seatbelts. It's going to get a little complicated. There are things that we cannot know or understand about God. There are things that God in His wisdom has kept from us. Maybe it surprised you yesterday when I opened it up for questions and you threw some questions at me and I just simply said, I don't know. I don't know. I've been studying this subject for three months. Three hours a day. For three months. And I don't know. God is mysterious. He is mysterious. Job 5.9 says these words, what does God do with great things and unsearchable? Marvelous things without number and we can't search them out. Psalm 145 verse 3 says, His greatness is unsearchable. As I understand that word, unsearchable, that means you will never plumb to the depths of God's greatness. You may gaze upon it. You may gain some of it. You may see some of it. You may understand some of it, but you will never plumb to the depths of God's greatness. It is unsearchable. And Paul said it so beautifully in Romans 11 in 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. I mean, with verses like that, it puts everything in its rightful perspective. It puts God sitting on His high and holy throne as the sovereign ruler over the universe, and it puts me down here on this earth, a finite man who doesn't know very much. And God wants it to be that way. It is good for me to sit here in wonderment about God. Let's look at one of our definitions. The definition of mysterious. It means hidden from human understanding. Hidden from human understanding. But, notice, hidden with purpose. With purpose. Surely, if the all-wise God hides something from human understanding, He hides it with purpose. And it's not to frustrate us, and it's not to confuse us. He hides it with purpose. What? To excite interest and wonder. God knows us very well, doesn't He? To excite interest and wonder. The Greek word for mysterious means to shut the mouth. There are some things that God didn't say. It is in Him, all the secrets that are hidden in God. We shall plumb the depths of them for all of eternity. But for now, there are some things God has shut His mouth. To shut the mouth, says the Greek, something beyond human comprehension until explained. And you'll find that word mystery several times in the New Testament. As the Apostle Paul, who was given the stewardship of the mystery of Jesus Christ, little by little, unfolds or pulls back the veil and begins to reveal some of the mysteries of God which have been hidden from the foundation of the world. Imagine the excitement of the Apostle Paul as these things are unveiled before his very eyes, his heart. And he realizes this has been kept secret from the foundation of the world. And now God is revealing it. There are things that God has not said about Himself. There are realms of His being hidden from us. Because we are human, there are facets of God's person that are unknowable. And thus He is the unknowable, knowable God. There are glories that we can only dimly see in this life. So while we move through these sessions and our hearts are stirred and we engage our minds to try to understand these deeper things about God, we need to remember that no matter how much we seek to understand, God will still leave us by the end of our life in wonder because of who He is. God is so far beyond us, so otherworldly that we cannot grasp Him fully. Yes, God is mysterious. And He hath designed it to be so. He wants us to be in wonder. He wants our interest to be excited and our desire to be stirred. He has purpose in His mysterious ways. You see, it was God who drew that cry out of Moses, show me Thy glory. It was God who drew that out of Moses' heart. And that's exactly how it works in our own lives. As we move on further in our understanding of God, it simply opens up more things that we don't understand. And it draws you in. God is like a mighty magnet. The closer you get to Him, the more He draws you in closer. The closer you get to Him, the more He draws your desire. And Moses was caught in the magnet of God. And there, as he dwelt in the presence of God, and he spake with God face to face, there were things that he did not see. There were attributes that he did not understand. There were mysteries about God which drew his heart. And when he found himself in that place there in Exodus where we were looking, when he found himself in that place where he knew, I have an audience with God, he said, Lord, show me Thy glory. God is near, yet so far above. God is the invisible God, yet visible to the seeking heart. He is the invisible God. Amen? Unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, the honour and glory forever and ever. Amen, says the Apostle Paul. He is the invisible God, yet visible to the seeking heart. God is unknowable, yet we can know Him through our Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! God is everywhere at the same time, yet He can be with me now. You say, Brother Dinny, I can't understand that. Neither can I. We don't need to understand it. But brethren, we need to believe it. We need to believe it. God is so not like anything that we can understand that we have a whole list of un-words to attempt to describe Him. Un-words, I will explain. The prefix UN and the prefix IN. UN is Anglo-Saxon, IN is Latin. In our English language, sometimes they took the Latin prefix IN and sometimes they took the Anglo-Saxon prefix UN. So some would say He is uncomprehensible. And someone else might say He is incomprehensible. Actually, it's the same meaning. But these are un-words. The UN and the IN puts the word into the negative. So we have description through negatives. God is many times described through negatives. And thus that leads us to another one of our definitions. The definition of negation. Negation is a declaration that something is not. Negation is a declaration that something is not. If you've ever read any of Charles Finney's writings, have you? See your hands. You will notice that he begins every one of his sermons with what it is not. That's negation. He's presenting the truth by negation. The principle of negation. But God sometimes is best described with negation. A declaration that something is not. In logic, which is a science, in logic it is description by negatives or denial. Thus we have the un-words. And you found several of them there in your glossary. The un-words. Unlimited. How can we understand God? God is unlimited. That is, without limits. God is incomprehensible. That is, He cannot be understood. God is incomparable. That is, you cannot compare Him to anything. God is unconquerable. That is, He cannot be defeated. God is unsearchable. That is, He cannot be explored to the depths. God is ineffable. That means you cannot find words to speak when you see Him. God is infinite. That is, not able to measure in any way, shape or form. God is unknowable. That is, He cannot be known to His depths. All these un-words are words which help us to grasp the reality that God is so other than we, so far above what we are, or what we can understand, that there is a certain mystery about Him. Maybe your heart says this morning as you are listening to me, Whoa! Brother Denny. Wait a minute. Let's not get mystical here. Well, I have studied the mystical side of God. Hear me now. I have studied the mystical side of God. And I have come to this conclusion. To negate the mystical side of God is to bring God down more on a level that we can understand. Leave out the mystical side of God, the side of God that we don't understand, the side of God that draws our hearts in wonder, the side of God that makes us feel very, very small, and all you have is a God that you can bring down to a level that you can understand. Or, to humanize Him. Mystical? Let me give a definition of the mystical side of God. Sacredly obscure or secret. Sacredly obscure. That means a sanctified obscurity designed by an all-wise God with very clear and definite purposes. A sanctified obscurity. Yes, God is a secret. You see, brethren, there are attributes of God that we humans can better understand. We haven't touched them yet, but we are going there. Example, God's mercy. We can understand God's mercy, at least to a measure. He even puts some of that in us. We are made in His image. We can understand God's mercy. We can understand His goodness. These are attributes that He has put in us in a measure. Even in mankind it is there. So we can understand those. And that's okay, and that's beautiful. But if you leave aside the mysterious side of God, that side of God which you cannot understand, that side of God which takes your mind further than it can go, and all you leave is this side over here of God's mercy and God's goodness, what you have is a human God when you're done. Or just a little bit higher than a human God. I don't want that kind of God. God is not a human God. We humans want a God that we can understand. It's just natural. We want to put Him in our own nice little comfortable box and leave Him there. This is not good. You know, you put God in your little box and it's your box of comfort and it's your box of how you think He is and it's your box which is an acceptable way for Him to work and you leave Him there and you go your own way. And I'm telling you, you put God in a box like that and you think you're going to control Him as long as everything is okay, stays inside my little box and He fits my suit, then it's fine. I tell you, all you've done is made a human God out of God. This is not good, brethren. Think about it. And one of you brothers shared this with me two days ago and I was right in the middle of preparing this, so I wrote it. It is hard to come in awe and worship a God that I have all figured out. Amen? But a God that I cannot figure out, it's very easy to fall on my face in adoration and worship. God is a high and lofty One that we should wonder at. This keeps us in our place before Him. We are small. He is transcendent. Far above. Forgive me for raising my hand. Far above. Raising the hand does not describe far above. We will see that later. But we are small and He is transcendent. Unlike anything we can understand. Paul said in 1 Timothy 6, verses 15 and 16, about the Lord Jesus, he says, He is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. Thank you, Paul. You know, as you consider this whole subject of God's attributes and then you go into the New Testament, and especially in the epistles of the Apostle Paul, it's very clear as you read in his epistles that he had a high and lofty vision of God. And I don't believe he got it from anybody else either. I don't think he got it from reading any books. Not against the books, but he got it from God. God revealed Himself to the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Paul faithfully declared His holy attributes in statements just like that, one after another, all through the epistles, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see. Glory! Yes, God is mysterious. Yet, remember 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11, God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. Praise God! For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. And the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. So here we are. We sit here today. We're being drawn as we consider the holy attributes of the living God. Our hearts are being drawn. We are beginning to unite with the cry of Moses as he said, Lord, show me Thy glory. But what can we do? These things are revealed by His Spirit. For the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God knoweth the things of God. For the Spirit of God is God. So we are dependent upon the Spirit of the living God to reveal the holy character of God to our own hearts and minds. Frederick Faber, in a hymn on majesty, said it this way, Full of glory, full of wonders, Majesty divine, Mid thine everlasting thunders, How thy lightning shine, Shoreless ocean, Who can sound thee? Thine own eternity is round thee, Majesty divine. Such lofty words to flow out of the heart of a human being. Everlasting thunders, Thy lightning shine. This is the kind of God that I want to know to serve and to worship. He is unsearchable. Tozer called Him, God incomprehensible. That is, you cannot understand Him. And gave a whole chapter to this one point. It's not a little point. We can know Him through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yet, there are things that God has chosen to conceal about Himself. And this is His right. For He is sovereign. Tozer said it well. I quote him this morning. While the name of God is secret, And His essential nature incomprehensible, He, in condescending love, Has by revelation declared certain things to be true of Himself. These we call His attributes. God, in condescending nature, Has revealed some things that are true about Himself. These we call attributes. Let's look at God's divine transcendence. Isaiah 57, 15. We keep coming back to this verse. It is one of the loftiest verses in the Bible. Thus saith the High and Lofty One, That inhabiteth eternity, Whose name is Holy. I dwell in the High and Holy Place. We keep coming back to this verse, Because it carries us far beyond our imagination. How can you inhabit eternity? We looked at eternity yesterday. We tried to grasp what it was. How far back we could go. How far to the forward we could go. And here is a God that we cannot understand, Who inhabits the whole thing all at once. I can't understand that. That doesn't make sense in my mind. Our mysterious God is exalted far above the created universe. Amen? Who has set Thy glory above the heavens. Picture that. Who has set Thy glory above the heavens. Our mysterious God is exalted far above the created universe. When we say high or far above, We think of height. But that is not what this verse is saying. It's not saying that you can get in a spaceship And go high, high, high, And finally higher and highest, And get up there where God is. It is referring to quality of being, Not of height. God is so other than all His creation, So different, That the word transcendence is needed. Let's look at that definition. Transcendence. High above all. Not in height, But the highest excellence. I love this definition. I mean, a preacher must have wrote it. High above all. Not in height, But in highest excellence. Not eminence, Not preeminence, But super eminence. Supreme excellence. That's what God is. God is a transcendent God. He is so far above, So far beyond, So other than we are, That we cannot understand everything about Him. Let's turn to Job 11. For a reading. We quoted a couple of these phrases already. But I want us to see the context now of these words. That Zophar is challenging Job with. He is trying to talk about God. Zophar is, In Job 11 verse 7 and following. He says to Job, Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven. What canst thou do? Deeper than hell. What canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth And broader than the sea. You see how these men are grasping For things which they know To explain a God That they can't understand. So they reach for that which they have And look for the biggest, The longest, The highest, The broadest, The deepest things they know of To talk about God Who is past finding out. That's our God brethren. That's who He is. But I also want us to notice As we have been gazing these few days upon God. Their illustrations are pretty feeble attempts, aren't they? The depth of the ocean Or the wideness of the earth. These are feeble attempts To describe This holy God Who is the living God Of the universe. Turn to Isaiah 66 again. We find a prophet Trying to describe. And we find God Trying to relate to us humans To understand who He is. In Isaiah 66, Verses 1 and 2, Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne And the earth is my footstool. Now picture. Imagine. That's what God wants you to do When you find a verse like that. Imagine that. Picture it. Heaven or the heavens Are my throne. That puts me up above them. Sitting over all of it. I am the earth. That's where I'm resting my foot. Says God. And He reasons with us. In light of who I am, Where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest? Where do I go to sleep at night? For all these things Hath mine hand made. And all those things have been, Saith the Lord. But, You want to know how to relate to me? You want to know how to understand me? Here's how. To this man will I look. To this man will I look. I don't know if you grasp the reality of that statement or not, But just picture it for a moment. Here He is. He's the High and Lofty One. He's sitting on a throne That sets above the heavens. And under this man will I look. I, God, Will turn my attention And look at this man. Even to him that is poor And of a contrite spirit And trembling at my word. You want God to look at you? Brother, Unto this man will I look. Again, It is a weak illustration. Can you make a house for me to fit into? God says, No. Who can find out God? What is God compared to? To try to figure out God. To try to find something to compare God to. Anything that God has made Is a weak illustration. Because those are all things that God made. Trying to compare things that God made With the God who made them Makes no sense. It's like trying to compare an ant to a human. We are so far above the nature of an ant. The quality of our being And the quality of being of an ant Is so far different from each other That there is no comparison to the two. And that's what God is trying to tell us About himself. Look what Tozer says on this subject. Hear these words. You must not compare the being of God with any other. We must not think of God as the highest In an ascending order. In an ascending order of beings. Starting with a single cell And going on up from the fish To the bird To the animal To the man To the angel To the cherubim And then to God. We must not think of God As ascending in a higher order And God is at the top of it. No, that's not right. All those things that we listed there Are created things. And God is uncreated. Remember, he is the eternal self-existent one. He stands by himself. He is absolute. He is complete. He is so other than anything that he has made. He is transcendent. Far above anything else that you can imagine. This would be to grant him eminence Even preeminence. But that is not enough. We must grant him transcendence. Amen, dozer. That's right. Eminence is not enough for God. Preeminence is not enough for God. Transcendence is the only word that fits our God. And we cannot put him in order With all the things that he has made. And put him at the top. He is altogether other than all of that. Brethren, we do not see God like this. These are some new thoughts. These are stretching thoughts. These are words which cause our hearts to ponder. They cause our hearts to wonder. They cause our hearts to even faint. But it's good that you can be here today And have your thoughts, your hearts guided a bit. Do not give up in your mind. Do not be discouraged. Do not be confounded. Do not be confused. Do not get discouraged Because you cannot find out God. It is the nature of God That you never find him out completely. So just get in your place and stay there. Don't try to figure it all out. You won't figure it all out. We do not see God like this. We have brought him down more than we realize. We have humanized him And made a God That our little minds could understand And because we have done that We do not fear him like we should. Turn to Revelation chapter 1. Who was in Revelation for their devotions this morning? Somebody said they were in Revelation. Okay. Let's just read there a little bit About God. Oh John How he loved the Savior. Oh how the Savior Revealed himself Unto John. Because John was a babe. Remember God hath revealed these things unto babes. And John was a babe. Oh in the sight of other humans He was a giant. In the sight of God He was a babe. I want to learn. I want to know. I want to walk. I want to understand. I want to serve. I want to worship. Yea I want to lay my head On your breast. Revelation 1 And verse 13. We're breaking into the middle of this chapter here. Verse 12. I'm sorry. And I turned to see The voice That spake with me. And being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks On fire. Seven golden candlesticks On fire. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks One like unto The Son of Man. Now he even said like unto. This is the best I can explain. Like unto The Son of Man. Clothed with a garment Down to the foot. Hmm And gird about the paths With a golden girdle. His head And his hairs Were white like wool. As white as snow. And his eyes Were as a flame of fire. When I looked at him Fire burned in his eyes. His eyes Were like flames of fire. And again As A flame of fire. Not fire. As A flame of fire. The nearest thing, the closest thing That I know of in my understanding In my world where I live in Is that it looked like Fire was coming out of his eyes. And his feet Were like Unto Fine brass. As if they burned In a furnace. As if They burned In a furnace. And his voice Oh, let me tell you about his voice. It was as the sound Of many waters. Look at those words that he's using there. As the sound of many waters. The nearest thing that I know of To explain this voice that I heard It sounded like The rushing of many waters. And he had in his right hand Seven stars. And out of his mouth Went a sharp two-edged sword. And his countenance Was as the sun As the sun Shineth in his strength. Here is one Glowing Radiant God. This is a theophany. An appearance of God To man. So transcendent. So other. So different. So far beyond. So far above. So high And above and beyond anything That I can imagine. Here he is. And verse 17. And when I saw him I fell at his feet As dead. Yes. That's right, John. That's right. As dead. And he laid his right hand upon me. Can you picture that? My. So precious. I fell at his feet Like a dead man. And while I lay there like a dead man He reached out his hand And put his hand on me Saying unto me Fear not I am the first And the last. God is so unlike us. So other worldly. So far above. That Moses hid his face And often fell on his face. Before God. Ezekiel Fell on his face. Daniel Lost all his strength. In Daniel chapter 10. Lost all of his strength. It just went out of him. Isaiah cried out in anguish. Woe is me. Job Abhorred himself In dust and ashes. This God is our God. My brethren. Yes. We shall talk about his mercy. Yes. We shall talk about his goodness. Yes. There are many many Attributes that we shall talk about. Which shall and will Thrill our souls. But first. We must lay the foundations Of a God. Who is so other than we are. We must. Or we bring God down. To our own human understanding. This picture Of God. In Revelation chapter 1. Causes me to turn to another One of our definitions. That is the word majesty. Tozer said we've lost the sense Of majesty in the church. And therefore we've lost The hidden jewel Of worship In the church. Majesty Greatness Of appearance Dignity Or grandeur That quality or state Of God that inspires All and reverence In the beholder. Majesty Greatness of appearance Dignity And grandeur That quality or state of God That inspires awe and reverence Oliver Wendell Holmes Wrote these words About God Lofty words Lord of all being Enthroned afar Thy glory flames From sun and star Center and soul Of every sphere Yet to each loving heart How near Lord of all life Below, above Whose light is truth Whose warmth is love Before thy Everblazing throne We ask no luster Of our own But simply bow In rapt adoration At your majesty David Overflowed With adoration At the time When he and all Israel Had gathered an offering of gold and silver And many precious jewels For the building and the beautifying Of Solomon's temple Hundreds of millions of dollars Had been given And Joshua figured this out the other day How much Solomon's temple cost I think we figured it Was it two billion dollars? Josh? Hmm? Four billion? Imagine! They had gathered Hundreds and maybe billions Of dollars to build And beautify Solomon's temple And David was overflowing With adoration at a time like that Oh! How he wanted to build A temple A house for God That would magnify God That would glorify God That would be an example Of His majesty And His transcendence And all these Millions and billions Of dollars worth of gold And silver and jewels Were all gathered together And in adoration he prayed this In 1 Chronicles 29 In verse 11 Thine O Lord Jehovah Jehovah The eternal self-existent one Thine O Lord Is the greatness And the power And the glory And the victory And the majesty For all that is in heaven And in the earth Is Thine Thine is the kingdom O Lord Jehovah Eternal self-existent one And Thou art exalted As head Above all This is a fitting verse for us To end our meditation On the divine transcendence And God mysterious