Week 2: God Reveals Himself to Us - Charlaine Martin
Read: Romans 1:18-25 NIV
Secondary Passages: The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Psalm 19:1-2, 7-9 NKJV
In my last post, I shared how God created us and reveals Himself through His Creation. This week we delve into another way God reveals Himself to us: His Word. Recently, My Boaz and I saw the movie Jesus Revolution. Interestingly, this movie and the Asbury Revival are spreading like wildfire across our nation reaching people hungry for Truth. It’s no coincidence that The Chosen, finishing its third season, is a highly acclaimed crowd-funded series gone mainstream. We see how God has been setting the stage for people to come to know Jesus as their Savior amid rampant sinfulness around us.
Meanwhile, a good number of churches have become comfortable with the way they are. They leave their congregants biblically illiterate. We have churches full of people who don’t fully know their First Love, thus being spiritually benign in their communities. Young people, frustrated and hurt by Christians have been leaving the church in droves as we face threats of nuclear war. Back in the hippie era, the churches were sleepers, losing people hungry to know Jesus more. In the movie, a true-life account, Pastor Greg Laurie, a young man, met Lonnie Frisbee, a young hippie, who changed the world by preaching a Jesus of love and freedom during the peace protests against the Vietnam War. This Jesus movement shook up those churches because the Bible was seen through fresh, hungry eyes. Is it really much different now than in the late sixties to mid-seventies? Is God shaking us up in our slumber? Let’s dig in.
Digging Deep
The time of Paul’s writing to the Roman church was much like our own. The ruling thoughts were paganism, multiple gods, the selfish pursuit of personal gain, sexual exploitation, and the lack of human value. Paul’s teaching about Christ was a breath of fresh air among the stench of spiritual death. The Jews, in their stoic religious rule-keeping, caused many to run in the opposite direction–into the arms of idols. Paul wanted the Roman church to have a good foundation of Truth in Jesus Christ. Here he shares how God reveals Himself through creation clearly seen, but He also revealed Himself, Jesus Christ, who is Truth, the Word in the Beginning (John 1:1).
In Psalm 19:1-2, 7-9 passage, this psalter speaks to the Jews about how God reveals His glory in the Heavens and that the Law, God’s commandments, are perfect, sure, right, pure, and clean. His judgments are true and righteous. These words were spoken to them several centuries before Paul wrote the book of Romans. The Jews were without excuse. Yet, God continued reaching out to His people as well as the Gentiles, first through nature, next through Jesus, and then through God’s Word. I dare say God continues to reach out to us today, bringing life and truth to us. What shall we do with this continuous revelation?
Then and Now
Our time now is rife with so many stresses around the globe. We’ve experienced a worldwide pandemic claiming millions of lives, an economy falling apart at the seams, rampant violence, and a looming war that threatens to vaporize us. Children are being exploited and killed for selfish reasons. Mass shootings claim lives in schools, churches, and shopping malls. History is being erased if it isn’t “woke” enough. Archeological wonders are damaged by people making a “statement.” This all sets the stage for hungry people searching for Truth, freedom, and love yet can’t seem to find it in church. As a result, they have begun deconstructing their faith, chasing after anything that tickles their itching ears to hear what they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3). We are ripe for Revival, yet in the wake of great Revival will come tremendous distress, and persecution.
I wonder how people cannot see God. Do you realize that a few years before, God placed His revelation through media like the Left Behind series, published between 1995 through 2007, while 9/11 occurred in 2001? Campus Crusade for Christ launched the Jesus video campaign around the same time, using the gospel of Luke to share Jesus with people. Also, people began asking questions about the Bible and the end times. Now, they search through various means like astrology, New Age, Wicca, Zen, Islam, and general Pantheism. Those who follow these practices search for Truth, for God, yet look in the wrong places, much like the hippies of Lonnie Frisbee’s day while The Age of Aquarius blared on radios. Drug-riddled musicians tickled the ears of wasted hippies wanting to make love, not war at Woodstock. Now, people OD on Fentanyl, marijuana is for sale on almost every street corner shop, and rival gangs terrorize major cities. Hippies called their parents “square”, but today millennials and GenZers call their parents “Boomers”, neither term in respect of the ones who raised them. Are people really any different today? For those who are bent on the wrong path, they are deceived by Satan, for
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4 NIV
They will miss the blessings of knowing God intimately through a relationship with Jesus Christ if they don’t turn to Him. God reveals Himself through His creation, which explains why so many nature religions are revived yet again. Dead corpses breathe spiritual death into their followers. So why do believers become jaded and leave the faith? The Armenians would say that God will always take them back, while the Calvinists asked if they were ever really saved. It boils down to Truth—general revelation needs specific revelation through God’s Truth to make sense.
God reveals Himself to us through His Word, the Bible. We may see God in His creation, but a lot of confusion clears up by learning about Him from His Word. God not only reveals Himself through Creation (general revelation) but also reveals Himself through His Word (specific revelation). So, when we see God through His creation, we can learn more about His character, His will for humankind, and His immense love for us through the Bible. These all point us to our Savior, Jesus Christ. He offers us new life today and eternal life yet to come. We can experience our True God as we come to know Him through His Creation and His Word. Rather than deconstructing our faith, let’s only strip away anything that doesn’t match His Truth. Now, we can experience His love and freedom through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That is the substance of Revival. Let’s refresh our faith to live in love and freedom. It’s the only way we can weather the storms that loom on the horizon.
Do you seek the love, freedom, and peace Jesus offers? Feel free to contact me at charlaine_martin@yahoo.com.
