Grosey's Messages

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Knowing God Chapter 1

What is at the root of much of the church's weakness?

In your own words, describe the two trends that have contributed to this problem.

How may we help remedy this situation?

How do you answer the challenge "Is theology necessary and relevant in our day?"?

State in your own words five foundational truths.

What is the danger of pursuing theological knowledge for its own sake?

What should be our ultimate aim in studying theology?

How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God?

What is meditation?

What is the result of meditation?

Knowing God Chapter 2

What is the difference between knowing God and just knowing about God?

Describe in your own words the four characteristics or evidences of people who do know God.

Think about how your own life measures up to these four characteristics.

What are your strongest and weakest?

In what two ways does Packer describe people showing great energy for God?

What would having "great energy for God" look like in your life? Describe in your own words what it looks like to "have great thoughts of God". How does that work out in your own life?

What would "great boldness for God" look like in your life? Does this depend on what others are doing?

Describe in your own words the two steps that Packer recommends for those who wish to know God. Think about and plan what you intend to do about it. Share this plan with a friend and ask them to help keep you accountable to follow this plan.

Knowing God Chapter 3

"This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (Jn 17:3).

"This is what the LORD says: 'Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me"' (Jer 9:23-24).

·         What is the most important goal in all of life?

·         How does understanding this goal help with most of life's problems?

·         "The more complex the object, the more complex is the knowing of it."

What Does Knowing God Involve?

The quality and extent of our knowledge of other people depends more on them than on us. Our knowing them is more directly the result of their allowing us to know them than of our attempting to get to know them.

John 10:25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one."

Reflect on each of these following four points. What is special about each point? What does each mean in our experience? What dangers are there in each one? What blessings are there in each one?

·         Knowing God is a matter of personal dealing

·         Knowing God is a matter of personal involvement

·         Knowing God is a matter of grace.

·         He knows me.

Knowing God Chapter 4  The Only True God

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God" (Ex 20:4-5).

What is this commandment talking about?

Charles Hodge: "idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images."

Why are visual representations of God harmful and idolatrous?

What harm is there in the worshiper's surrounding himself with statues and pictures, if they help him to lift his heart to God?

"A true image of God," wrote Calvin, "is not to be found in all the world; and hence. . . His glory is defiled, and His truth corrupted by the lie, whenever He is set before our eyes in a visible form. . . Therefore, to devise any image of God is itself impious; because by this corruption His majesty is adulterated, and. He is figured to be other than He is."

The pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of his deity, his victory on the cross, and his present kingdom. It displays his human weakness, but it conceals his divine strength; it depicts the reality of his pain, but keeps out of our sight the reality of his joy and his power.

Three arguments are brought against Packers dissuasive argument:

First, the worship of God requires Christian aesthetic expression through the visual arts no less than it requires Christian moral expression through family love and neighbor love.

Second, imagination is part of human nature as God made it and should be sanctified and expressed, rather than stigmatized and suppressed, in our communion with our Creator.

Third, images (crucifixes, icons, statues, pictures of Jesus) do in fact trigger devotion, which would be weaker without them.

How would you answer each argument?

Why is a false mental image as harmful to knowing God as a physical representation?

KNOWING GOD - CHAPTER FIVE GOD INCARNATE

The supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us, does not lie here at all: It lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man. Here are two mysteries for the price of one—the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus. "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14) read John 1:1-18.

Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.

This is the real stumbling block in Christianity. It is here that Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many of those who feel the difficulties concerning the virgin birth, the miracles, the atonement, and the resurrection have come to grief. It is from misbelief, or at least inadequate belief, about the Incarnation that difficulties at other points in the gospel story usually spring. But once the Incarnation is grasped as a reality, these other difficulties dissolve.

1. What is "the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us"?

2. Give specific illustrations of how believing in the Incarnation dissolves other difficulties in Christian doctrine.

1.      The baby born at Bethlehem was God.

What does the Bible mean when it calls Jesus the Son of God?

John tells us seven things about the divine Word. What are they?

2.      The baby born at Bethlehem was God made man.

The Word had become flesh: a real human baby.

"He had to be made like his brothers in every way. . . Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. . . For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Heb 2:17-18; 4:15-16).

The Athanasian Creed: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. . . perfect God, and perfect man. . . who although he be God and man: yet he is not two, but one Christ; one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh: but by taking of the manhood into God."

2 Corinthians 8:9, "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

Why doesn't the kenosis theory of Gore stand?  Of what did the Lord empty Himself?

Packer describes this not as deity reduced but as of divine capacities restrained. Why is this important?

Packer points to both the equality on the Godhead and the complimentary submission of each Person in the Godhead. "Though coequal with the Father in eternity, power and glory, it is natural to him to play the Son's part and to find all his joy in doing his Father's will, just as it is natural to the first person of the Trinity to plan and initiate the works of the Godhead and natural to the third person to proceed from the Father and the Son to do their joint bidding." 

Why is the Incarnation the supreme mystery of the gospel? What effects should being aware of the Incarnation have on each of us?

Chapter 6 of Knowing God. He Shall Testify to Me

Do we honour the Holy Spirit by recognizing and relying on His work? Or do we slight Him by ignoring it, and thereby dishonour not merely the Spirit but the Lord who sent him?

In our faith: Do we acknowledge the authority of the Bible, the prophetic Old Testament and the apostolic New Testament which He inspired? Do we read and hear it with the reverence and receptiveness that are due to the Word of God? If not, we dishonour the Holy Spirit.

In our life: Do we apply the authority of the Bible and live by the Bible, whatever anyone may say against it, recognizing that God's Word cannot but be true, and that what God has said He certainly means, and he will stand behind it? If not, we dishonour the Holy Spirit, who gave us the Bible.

In our witness: Do we remember that the Holy Spirit alone, by His witness, can authenticate our witness, and look to Him to do so, and trust him to do so, and show the reality of our trust, as Paul did, by eschewing the gimmicks of human cleverness? If not, we dishonour the Holy Spirit.

Can we doubt that the present barrenness of the church's life is God's judgment on us for the way in which we have dishonoured the Holy Spirit? And, in that case, what hope have we of its removal till we learn in our thinking and our praying and our practice to honour the Holy Spirit? "He shall testify. . . "

What do the various translations tell you about the idea of a "comforter"?

How is the function of the Holy Spirit related to the function of Jesus, according to Packer?

What does the Old Testament have to say about God's Word and God's Spirit?

What are the relationships described between the Spirit, Son and Father? Why is this important?

Why do you think the Holy Spirit is ignored or not understood as compared with Jesus?

What is the work of the Holy Spirit? What two general categories of work are highlighted? Why is it important?

How does Packer describe the Spirit's work of illuminating? Why is it necessary?

What implications for evangelism does Packer draw from the work of the Spirit?

Knowing God Chapter 7 The Unchanging God

God's life does not change. He is "from all eternity" (Ps 93:2), "the eternal King" (Jer 10:10), "the immortal God" (Rom 1:23), "who alone is immortal" (1 Tim 6:16). "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God" (Ps 90:2). Earth and heaven, says the psalmist, "will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end" (Ps 102:26-27). "1 am the first," says God, "and I am the last" (Is 48:12).

God's character does not change.  Exodus 34:5-7 "The LORD, the LORD (Yahweh), the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children"

God's truth does not change. "All flesh is grass. . . The grass withers. . . But the word of our God will stand for ever" (Is 40:6-8 RSV). "Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. . . All your commands are true. . . You established them to last forever" (Ps 119:89,151-52).

God's ways do not change. "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Num 23:19)

God's purposes do not change. "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind," declared Samuel, "for he is not a man, that he should change his mind" (1 Sam 15:29). "The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations" (Ps 33:11).

God's Son does not change. Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb 13:8)

What does it mean to say that God is immutable? Why is this important to you?

How does each of these truths apply to your own life and ministry? How would they change if any of these were not true?

Chapter 8  Knowing God : The Majesty of God

We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God.

What are the dangers of not knowing the majesty of God?

How is God's Person hood presented in the opening chapters of Genesis?

How is God's greatness and majesty presented to us in the opening chapters of Genesis?

How does Psalm 139 contribute to our understanding of the greatness of God?

How does Isaiah 40 contribute to our understanding of the greatness of God?

1.      "To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One" (Is 40:25 RSV). This question rebukes wrong thoughts about God.

2.      "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed away from my God?" (Is 40:27 RV). This question rebukes wrong thoughts about ourselves.

3.      "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" (Is 40:28 KJV). This question rebukes our slowness to believe in God's majesty.

How do you respond to each of these questions? How should your life change as a result of these realities?

Chapter 9  Knowing God : The Wisdom of God

How does Packer define wisdom? What aspects of this definition are things you had never considered before reading this?

How is God's wisdom different than ours?

What is the main cause of people failing to recognize God's wisdom?

Describe in your own words God's immediate and ultimate goals.

Why tell the stories of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph?

What have you learned about the wisdom of God?

How does this apply to your life?

How does understanding of God's wisdom bring us aid in difficult times?

What two things should we do when we are facing a trying situation?

How can our confidence in God's wisdom be a comfort to us?

Knowing God Chapter 10  God's Wisdom and Ours

Describe in your own words the two prerequisites to obtaining wisdom from God.

What is the mistaken view of wisdom that Packer describes? Packer describes a poor way of obtaining wisdom to be like sitting in a train junction control box.

Why is this dangerous?

What does the driving illustration teach us about wisdom?

How does Ecclesiastes help us to learn and apply wisdom?

How does the book of Ecclesiastes contribute to our understanding of wisdom?

What is the type of wisdom that Ecclesiastes recommends?

Describe in your own words the wisdom that God gives. What is the effect of this wisdom?

Knowing God Chapter 11 Thy Word Is Truth

What are the two facts that Packer claims are assumed in the entire Bible? What is the relationship between these two ideas?

What are the three characteristics of Torah described by Packer? What does this tell us about the Bible?

Summarize the categories of God's communication described in Genesis chs. 1-3 in your own words. How are these categories displayed in the rest of Scripture? How do these categories apply to your life?

According to Packer (and Jer. 13:10 and Isa. 66:2) what is the mark of impiety and what is the mark of true godliness?

How can a command be true? What do God's commands teach us? How does Packer suggest we become "truly human"?

How can a promise be true? How is this connected to our life of faith?

How does Packer describe "True Christians"? To what extent does this describe your life? How should your life change so that the description fits even better?

Knowing God Chapter 12  The Love of God.

Describe in your own words the three points that Packer makes from Romans 5:5. "God's love has flooded our inmost heart."

"we know and rely on the love God has for us" (1 John 4 v. 16).

"Paul assumes that all his readers, like himself, will be living in the enjoyment of a strong and abiding sense of God's love for them." What does this mean for you today?

What do these scriptures indicate about God?

 "God is love"

 "God is spirit"

 "God is light"

What is the significance of the scriptures that stand behind each stanza of this hymn for your life?

Here is love, vast as the ocean, Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom, Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember? Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten, Throughout Heav'n's eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion, Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God's mercy Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers, Poured incessant from above,
And Heav'n's peace and perfect justice Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting, Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shalt be my glory, Nothing in the world I see.
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me, Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me By Thy Spirit through Thy Word;
And Thy grace my need is meeting, As I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring Thy great love and power on me,
Without measure, full and boundless, Drawing out my heart to Thee.

Knowing God CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE GRACE OF GOD 

God's Riches At Christ's Expense.  Read Romans 3: 9-26.

What are the presuppositions that provide the context for understanding the grace of God?

In your own words, what is the grace of God?

In your own experience, how have you found the grace of God to be meaningful to you?

Not the labours of my hand, Can fulfil Thy law's demands.

Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears for ever flow,

All for sin could not atone, Thou must save, and Thou alone.

The New Testament sets forth the grace of God in three particular connections, each of them a perpetual marvel to the Christian believer. 

Read Ephesians 1:1-2:10.

How is God's grace described?

In wonder lost, with trembling joy, We take the pardon of our God;

Pardon for crimes of deepest dye, A pardon bought with Jesu's blood:

Who is a pardoning God like Thee? Or who has grace so rich and free?

Knowing God Chapter 14 God The Judge

Last week Bill Shorten attempted to attack Scott Morrison's religious beliefs by asking him to state his view on whether gay people go to hell.

The Judgment of God is never a popular topic.

Judge is a word often applied to him. Abraham, interceding for Sodom, the sin-filled city that God was about to destroy, cried, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen 18:25). "It is God who judges," declared the psalmist (Ps 75:7); "Rise up, O God, judge the earth" (Ps 82:8). In the New Testament, the writer to the Hebrews speaks of "God the Judge of all" (Heb 12:23 KJV).

God judged Adam and Eve, expelling them from the Garden and pronouncing curses on their future earthly life (Gen 3). God judged the corrupt world of Noah's day, sending a flood to destroy humankind (Gen 6—8). God judged Sodom and Gomorrah, engulfing them in a volcanic catastrophe (Gen 18—19). In the New Testament God's judgment fell on Ananias and Sapphira for lying to God (Acts 5:1-10), on Herod, for his pride (Acts 12:21-23), on Elymas, for his opposition to the gospel (Acts 13:8-11), and on Christians at Corinth (1 Cor 11:29-32).

The one basic certainty underlying all discussion of life's problems in Job, Ecclesiastes and all the practical maxims of Proverbs is that "God will bring you to judgment," "God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil" (Eccles 11:9; 12:14).

The judge who stands before the door (Jas 5:9), "ready to judge the living and the dead" (1 Pet 4:5), "the righteous judge" who will give Paul his crown (2 Tim 4:8), is the Lord Jesus Christ. "He is the one who has been designated by God as judge of the living and the dead" (Acts 10:42 NEB). God "has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed," Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17:31); and to the Romans he wrote, "God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares" (Rom 2:16).

The character of God is the guarantee that all wrongs will be righted someday.

Our works shall be judged. Matthew 25 "We must all appear before the judgment

seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad" (2 Cor 5:10)

Our words shall be judged Mt 12:36-37. "Men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

What impact do these passages have  on your understanding of Judgment?

Revelation 20:11-15

Rom 2:1-16.

1 Cor 3:12-15

Jn 5:22-29

Describe in your own words the four characteristics of a judge. How do each of these apply to God? How does this impact your life and ministry?

Why do some people dislike the idea of God being judge? How does Packer counter this tendency?

Knowing God Chapter 15 The Wrath of God

Define "wrath" in your own words.

What is the Biblical evidence for the wrath of God?

The wrath of God seems an objectionable thing in our current society's understanding. How do we justify it?

What does the Book of Romans teach us about the wrath of God? Why are these truths important to us?

What is the connection between the doctrine of wrath and the doctrine of salvation? Why is this connection important? How can we help people see this connection?

God's wrath in the Bible is always judicial. "The day of God's wrath," Paul tells us, echoing Psalm 62:12 and Proverbs 24:12, is also the day "when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God 'will give to each person according to what he has done'" (Rom 2:5-6).

God's wrath is proportional.  "That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does riot do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Lk 12:47-48).

God's wrath is something which people choose for themselves.

"Whoever does not believe [in Jesus] stands condemned [judged] already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son," "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil" (Jn 3:18-19).

Knowing God Chapter 16   The Goodness and Severity of God

The Goodness of God

"Santa Claus Theology" and the Prosperity Gospel re pretty much the same. Why is this a problem?

Some who accept a Santa Claus liberal theology struggle with the problem of evil.  Describe their struggle. It is the same struggle Prosperity Gospel people have.  How can we help them?

Define God's goodness.   

What does Exodus 33-34 tell us about God's goodness?  "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished" (Ex 34:6-7)

What is the difference between common and special grace?

In what ways is God's generosity shown to all of creation?

Psalm 145. "The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. . . The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing" (vv. 9, I5-16; compare Acts 14:17).

Is this true all the time?

What does Psalm 107 tell us about God's goodness?

The Severity of God

Define God's severity.

"You stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you" (Rom 11:20-21).

The principle which Paul is applying here is that behind every display of divine goodness stands a threat of severity in judgment if that goodness is scorned. If we do not let it draw us to God in gratitude and responsive love, we have only ourselves to blame when God turns against us. Earlier in Romans, Paul addressed the self-satisfied non- Christian critic of human nature as follows: "God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance."

How may we "show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience" and thereby "because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself" (Rom 2:1-5)?

What is the main cause of God's severity?

How is God's patience related to His severity? 

God is not impatient in his severity; just the reverse. He is "slow to anger" (Neh 9:17; Ps 103:8, 145:8, Joel 2:13; Jon 4:2) and "longsuffering" (Ex 34:6; Num 14:18; Ps 86:15)

God "is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9).

1.    How may we appreciate the goodness of God?

2.    How may we appreciate the patience of God?

3.    How may we appreciate the discipline of God?

Knowing God Chapter 17

What is the Biblical evidence for God being a jealous God?

Explain in your own words the two facts that Packer mentions as helpful to understand God‟s jealousy.

What is an anthropomorphism? How does this apply to Packer‟s discussion?

What are the dangers of misunderstanding anthropomorphism? How does Packer suggest we guard against getting the "wrong end of the stick"?

What are the two types of jealousy? Why is one a sin and one a virtue? What is different between these two? Which types applies to God?

When the jealousy of God is mentioned in Moses, what reality is it in connection with? How does this connection apply to your life and ministry?

What does God‟s jealousy demand of us? How does this apply to your life and ministry?

Packer suggests that God‟s jealousy must be understood in light of which reality?

What kind of actions does God‟s jealousy lead God to undertake? Why does this matter?

What kind of response does Packer suggest we have to God‟s jealousy? How is zeal related to jealousy?

What does Ryle‟s description of the zealous man add to your understanding of Christian discipleship? What steps do you need to take to grow closer to this description? Take them.

What does God‟s message to Laodicea have to say to many modern churches? What is Packer‟s point and how can you take it to heart? How does this apply to your life?

KNOWING GOD – CHAPTER 18  The Jealousy of God   

"I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God" (20:5). A little later, God told Moses, even more strikingly, "the LORD, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God" (34:14)

"I. . . will be jealous for my holy name" (Ezek 39:25 KJV); "I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy" (Zech 1:14 KJV); "The LORD is a jealous God and avengeth" (Nahum 1:2 RV).

In the New Testament, Paul asks the presumptuous Corinthians, "Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?" (1 Cor 10:22). James 4:5 "he yearns jealously [literally "unto jealousy"] over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us."

What is the nature of this divine jealousy?

Anthropomorphism:  "when the language of human personal life is used of God, none of the limitations of human creaturehood are thereby being implied."

A good jealousy is zeal to protect a love relationship or to avenge it when broken.

In Ezekiel 16, God depicts Israel as his adulterous wife, embroiled in unholy liaisons with idols and idolators of Canaan, Egypt and Assyria, and pronounces sentence as follows, "I will judge you as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy" (v. 38; compare v. 42; 23:25).

How is this true  in the church? How is this true in our church?

John Calvin wrote "The Lord very frequently addresses us in the character of a husband. . . As He performs all the offices of a true and faithful husband, so He requires love and chastity from us; that is, that we do not prostitute our souls to Satan. . . As the purer and chaster a husband is, the more grievously he is offended when he sees his wife inclining to a rival; so the Lord, who has betrothed us to Himself in truth, declares that He burns with the hottest jealousy whenever, neglecting the purity of His holy marriage, we defile ourselves with abominable lusts, and especially when the worship of His deity, which ought to have been most carefully kept unimpaired, is transferred to another, or adulterated with some superstition; since in this way we not only violate our plighted troth, but defile the nuptial couch, by giving access to adulterers. (Institutes, II, viii, 18)"

"Covenant love is the heart of God's plan for his world. And it is in the light of God's overall plan for his world that his jealousy must, in the last analysis, be understood."

Please explain:

1. The jealousy of God requires us to be zealous for God.

"Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way." Someone zealous "He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives, or whether he dies—whether he has health, or whether he has sickness— whether he is rich, or whether he is poor-whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offence — whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish—whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise—whether he gets honour, or whether he gets shame-for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing; and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God's glory." J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion.

"None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24).

Can we say with the Master, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (Jn 4:34)?

2. The jealousy of God threatens churches which are not zealous for God.

Read Revelation 2:1-7, and Revelation 3:14-22.

Describe a luke-warm church.  Describe a zealous church.

KNOWING GOD – CHAPTER 19   What is adoption? Why is it important?

1. Is God the Father of all people? What sort of sonship can a human being experience?

2. In what phrase does Packer sum up the whole of New Testament teaching?

3. Packer says, "The revelation to the believer that God is his Father is in a sense the climax of the Bible." How does God's revelation of himself in the Old Testament compare with the New Testament revelation?

4. How does Packer refute the statement that the fatherhood of God "can mean nothing to those whose human father was inadequate"?

5. How has God made the meaning of his fatherhood clear?

What are four essential elements of it?

6. What does Packer mean when he says that adoption is "the highest privilege that the gospel offers"?

7. Packer says that the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of adoption. From the Sermon on the Mount, what three things does adoption serve as the basis for? How does it provide this basis?

8. Why is the phrase adoption through propitiation such a rich summary of the gospel?

9. How does our adoption show us the greatness of God's grace?

How does adoption show the glory of the Christian hope?

How does adoption show the key to understanding the ministry of the Holy Spirit?

How does adoption show the meaning and motive of "gospel holiness"?

How does adoption show the solution to the problem of assurance?

10. What impressions are you left with about your own understanding of adoption and your relation to your heavenly Father?

KNOWING GOD – CHAPTER 20 Thou Our Guide

There are two aspects to knowing the will of God: the reality of God's plan for us; second, the ability of God to communicate with us.

He has formed an "eternal purpose" (literally, a "plan of the ages"), "a plan for the fulness of time," in accordance with which he "accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will" (Eph 3:11; 1:10-11).

"I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go, I will counsel you with my eye upon you," says God to David (Ps 32:8).

"Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way . . . Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him" (vv. 8-9, 12). So in Proverbs 3:6, "In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."

Paul's prayer that the Colossians might be filled "with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding," and Epaphras's prayer that they might "stand firm in all the will of God" (Col 1:9; 4:12), clearly assume that God is ready and willing to make his will known.

James 1:5—"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him"

2 Tim 3:16-17

Psalm 23:3 "he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

 What is the basic mistake about guidance?

The true way to honor the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honor the holy Scriptures through which he guides us.  What scriptural truths are moral guidance that affect the confusing times when we need guidance?

What are Six Common Pitfalls?

Reflect on the impact of each of these verses:

"O that they were wise ... that they would consider their latter end!" (Deut 32:29)

"The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice" (Prov 12:15).

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps 139:23-24).

"Test everything. Hold on to the good" (1 Thess 5:21).

"Wait on the Lord" Psalm 27

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous" (Ps 34:19).

Knowing God bible Study Chapter 21 These Inward Trials

How does short beds and narrow blankets (Is 28:20) illustrate some ministries today?

Reality in Christian living includes:

What would you expect to see as an individual matures spiritually?

Read 2 Corinthians 1:1-11.. Why do trials come?

What does Packer mean by "the method and purpose of grace"?

grace clearly denotes God's loving work in a believer: what does this mean?

The ultimate reason why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another: it is to ensure that we shall learn to hold him fast.

What does it mean to "wait on the Lord"?

I asked the Lord, that I might grow

In faith, and love, and every grace;

Might more of His salvation know,

And seek more earnestly His face.

I hoped that in some favoured hour

At once He'd answer my request,

And by His love's constraining power

Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart;

And let the angry powers of hell

Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed

Intent to aggravate my woe,

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

"Lord, why is this?" I trembling cried,

"Wilt thou pursue Thy worm to death?"

" 'Tis in this way," the Lord replied,

"I answer prayer for grace and faith.

"These inward trials I employ

From self and pride to set thee free;

And break thy schemes of earthly joy,

That thou may'st seek thy all in me."  John Newton

Romans 8 and the Believer's Confidence in God.

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

³³ Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died---more than that, who was raised---who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

³⁶ As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31-39 Paul calls on his readers to react to what he has said. "What, then, shall we say in response to this?" (v. 31). He goes on to spell out the reaction which is his and should also be ours, and as he does so his theme shifts slightly and becomes the adequacy of the God of grace. Interest moves from the gift to the Giver, from the thought of deliverance from evil to the thought of God being to each Christian what he said he would be to Abraham —"your shield, your very great reward" (Gen 15:1). If -verses 1-30 are saying, "You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory," then verses 31-39 are saying, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (Ps 73:24-26).

A person who knows God will be more than conqueror, and will live in Romans 8, exulting with Paul in the adequacy of God. And here we have to stop, for this is as high in the knowledge of God as we can go this side of glory.

Those who know God in Christ have found the secret of true freedom and true humanity. The true priority for every human being is learning to know God in Christ.

"Thou hast said, 'Seek ye my face.' My heart says to thee, 'Thy face, LORD, do I seek'" (Ps 27:8)

Knowing God Bible Study Chapter 22  The Adequacy of God.

Summarise Paul's argument in the book of Romans.

Read Romans 8.  What are the separate parts that make up this chapter?

"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22).

What hardships are mentioned in Romans 8?

How do we let  evangelical thinking correct emotional thinking?

"If God is for us, who is against us?" No opposition can finally crush us. Because of the adequacy of God as our sovereign protector, and the decisiveness of his covenant commitment to us.

Unpack what this means.

Read Psalm 56: how is this Psalm a source for this first question and what implications can be drawn from it?

A sovereign protector I have,

Unseen, yet for ever at hand;

Unchangeably faithful to save,

Almighty to rule and command.

He smiles, and my comforts abound;

His grace as the dew shall descend,

And walls of salvation surround

The soul He delights to defend.

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" No good thing will finally be withheld from us because of the adequacy of God as our sovereign benefactor and to the decisiveness of his redeeming work for us.

Unpack what this means.

"Psychologically, faith is our own act, but the theological truth about it is that it is God's work in us: our faith, and our new relationship with God as believers, and all the divine gifts that are enjoyed within this relationship, were all alike secured for us by Jesus' death on the cross."  What does Packer mean?  What do we understand by the term "particular redemption"?

Unbelief fears that God lacks strength or wisdom, strength of purpose or constancy.

Your God is faithful to you, and he is adequate for you. You will never need more than he can supply, and what he supplies, both materially and spiritually, will always be enough for the present. "No good thing does the LORD withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Ps 84:11 RSV). "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor 10:13 RSV). "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9). Think on these things!— and let your thoughts drive out your inhibitions about serving your Master.

"Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?"

No accusation can ever disinherit us because of the adequacy of God as our sovereign champion and the decisiveness of his justifying verdict upon us. He writes this verse to counter fear of rejection by God.

Unpack what this means.

First, Paul brings in a reminder of God's grace in election.

Second, Paul brings in a reminder of God's sovereignty in judgment.

Third, Paul brings in a reminder of Christ's effectiveness in mediation.

"Who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?"

From whence this fear and unbelief?

Hath not the Father put to grief

His Spotless Son for me?

And will the righteous Judge of men

Condemn me for that debt of sin

Which, Lord, was charged on Thee?

Complete atonement Thou hast made,

And to the utmost farthing paid

Whate'er Thy people owed;

Nor can His wrath on me take place,

If sheltered in Thy righteousness

And sprinkled with Thy blood.

If Thou hast my discharge procured,

And freely in my room endured

The whole of wrath divine,

Payment God cannot twice demand,

First at my bleeding Surety's hand,

And then again at mine.

Turn then, my soul, unto thy rest;

The merits of thy great High Priest

Have bought thy liberty;

Trust in His efficacious blood,

Nor fear thy banishment from God,

Since Jesus died for thee!

 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

Because God, the Father and the Son, our sovereign keeper,  makes plain the decisiveness of divine love in settling our destiny.

Divine love is a function of omnipotence, and has at its heart an almighty purpose to bless which cannot be thwarted. This sovereign resolve is referred to here as both "the love of Christ" and "the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord".

Unpack what this means:

First, God is adequate as our keeper. "Nothing. . . can separate us from the love of God," because the love of God holds us fast. Christians "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation" (1 Pet 1:5)

Second, God is adequate as our end.

"Christ is the path, and Christ the prize."

Paul is countering fear of the unknown,

The work which His goodness began

The arm of His strength will complete;

His promise is Yea and Amen,

And never was forfeited yet;

Things future, nor things that are now,

Nor all things below nor above

Can make Him His purpose forgo,

Or sever my soul from His love.

My name from the palms of His hands

Eternity will not erase;

Impressed on His heart it remains

In marks of indelible grace,

Yes, I to the end shall endure,

As sure as the earnest is given,

More happy, but not more secure,

The glorified spirits in heaven!