Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

• Ecclesiastes 3:11

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

• Romans 1:18-20

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

• John 4:24

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
    To him belongs eternal praise.

• Psalm 111:10

Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling.

• Psalm 2:11

“1. The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the creator and Redeemer.
“2. This knowledge is naturally implanted in us, and the end of it ought to be the worship of God rightly performed, or reverence for the Deity accompanied by fear and love.”

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Aphorisms

John Calvin did not write these aphorisms.  They are a summarization of what he wrote in Institutes of the Christian Religion.  There are 100 aphorisms.  I will at least go for a few of them while I look through my library for another book.

I wrote the first two together in that the first aphorism defined what the second was about.

Solomon wrote that God set eternity into the human heart.  Paul wrote that we know that there is a God, and those that do evil do so knowingly.  There is no excuse because God can be known in this world.  Thus, the knowledge of God’s wisdom is inherent.  Our sense of right and wrong come from God, woven into our DNA.

Some people seem to not know these truths.  They may know them, but they deny them for their own purposes, or they have gotten very good at being bad.  In other words, they hear that internal voice, but they have learned to ignore it.

I believe the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is when they have successfully shut out the voice inside them so they can never hear it again.  They are still alive, but their stubbornness prevents God from penetrating their defenses.  God is all powerful, but He is polite.  And these people still walk, talk, breathe, but they are dead inside.

Come to Jesus before that happens.  Humble yourself before Him.  Make Him your Lord and Savior.

But this aphorism goes on.  God is a Spirit, and we should worship Him in Spirit.

Not many people attend church on the whole.  But how many of those that attend church are only there physically?  I had a friend joke with me one time – I pray it was just a joke – when he said, “Sure, I attend church every Sunday.  The best hour of sleep that I get all week!”  But you do not have to sleep for the hour to not get anything out of the sermon.  But since God is a spirit, of the subset of humanity that attends church to the subset of church attenders that are intellectually engaged in the worship service… how many of that small group who are intellectually engaged, maybe even taking notes…  How many of them are spiritually awakened by the message being given or a song being sung or an almost casual added item in the pastoral prayer?

A couple of weeks before I wrote this, I told the pastor that he brought up a connection in God’s woven tapestry that I had never thought of.  Seventy-four years of sermons and I had never made the connection.  I may write about it someday.  Or it may just be something God wanted to reveal to me.  God gives us those nudges to let us know that He is with us. Especially when we become spiritually engaged in worship.

And then there is the fear and trembling of worship.

The key word is reverence.  I have said things in my prayers (at prayer meetings, opening a Sunday school class, or closing a Sunday school class).  Of course, I have said things, but when you pray out loud, have you heard people laugh?  I said what was on my heart in a manner that was casual.  But I know that God is approachable, and some people have this oppressive sense of propriety, that they coat their prayers in formal language to the point that they do not have any “heart” left in their words.  But too casual and we forget who God is.

As sinful people, we cannot see God’s full glory.  Moses only saw a glimpse of a shadowed portion of God’s glory while in the cleft of the rock, but then Moses glowed afterwards and the Israelites were afraid.  There will be awe to the point of trembling uncontrollably, even with our new bodies – until we get used to it.  We must have two feelings about God that seem mutually exclusive.  God is Father.  God is Brother.  God is God within us.  God is family. … But, God is so awesome that there will be no sun or moon on the new earth because God is with us and His glory will give us the light that we need.  Folks, that is fear and trembling.

Family versus Fear, at the same time.

And here on earth, we cannot comprehend those simultaneously.  But we will someday.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.