In studying for a series I will be preaching on the Doctrine of God, I rediscovered a quote in J. I. Packer’s excellent book, Knowing God. While discussing the majesty of God he states:
But this is knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is the reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby. We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God. When the person in the church, let alone the person in the street, uses the word God, the thought is rarely of divine majesty (p. 83).
Modern (or Post-modern or Ultra-modern) society is self-sufficient and self-satisfied. This spirit is contagious, even for believers. We are tempted to think human ingenuity and resourcefulness can solve almost any problem. We think we can fix poverty, the climate, and even human fallen nature, if we only applied the right technology at the right time. Whether it is political theory, pharmaceuticals, or self-sacrifice for the sake of Mother Earth, we believe we have things firmly in hand. However, such a worldview banishes God to a little corner where he is a nice piece of cultural interest, but frightfully insignificant. The Bible on the other hand presents God as majestic. The Psalms alone refer to God and his works as “great” dozens of times. The biblical picture of God is of a Great God, not some old man in the sky. He is not dwarfed by us or our technology. He is not awed by us in any way. If we know him, we know that we are the Liliputians who ought to be in awe. A small grasp of this concept would render our worship richer and our Christian lives bolder. Oh that our churches would repudiate the wordview of the moderns and align ourselves with the worldview of our Majestic Lord.
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