davidbowerkingwood

Beyond the Imagination of Man Lurks a Truth that is Overpowering!

I was watching “Star Wars, the Force Awakens” when the Han Solo character speaks about the “Force” and says “it’s all true, all of it.” He had discovered the truth about the fictional universe in which they all lived and was acknowledging this reality to others. I had written a while back on another Star Wars movie, “Is There a Force with You Too?,” and provided the definition of the force given there; ” “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.”

This rather anthropocentric line by the Han Solo character again made me think of the true reality in which we live; a reality on which I have previously written in “What is Reality?”. The actual truth of our reality goes far, far beyond anything that can be imagined by the mind of man!

It would appear that very few give any serious thought to the true reality in which we live. The enormity of our reality is overpowering and impossible for us to fully comprehend. I have always been deeply moved by the sermon introduction preached by a young pastor in 1855 by the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

A Sermon
(No. 1)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 7th, 1855, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

“I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”—Malachi 3:6

“It has been said by some one that “the proper study of mankind is man.” I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with the solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God. We shall be obliged to feel—

“Great God, how infinite art thou,
What worthless worms are we!”

But while the subject humbles the mind it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. He may be a naturalist, boasting of his ability to dissect a beetle, anatomize a fly, or arrange insects and animals in classes with well nigh unutterable names; he may be a geologist, able to discourse of the megatherium and the plesiosaurus, and all kinds of extinct animals; he may imagine that his science, whatever it is, ennobles and enlarges his mind. I dare say it does, but after all, the most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity. And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatary. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning.”

Such remarkable maturity from a young man; I too find the study of the Trinity very humbling but also inspiring. I would like to devote some time to exploring the reality in which we live; to briefly explore it to the extent we are able based on the revelations we have been given. This journey will be a journey of faith as the elements we will be contemplating are far beyond our ability to understand and to a large extent to even imagine; let us start at a point which I will arbitrarily label a beginning.

A Starting Point

I shall begin this with a request; I ask you to try and imagine an endless void that is totally empty and free of all material matter; there is absolutely nothing there that can be seen in what we think of as a normal fashion. Then I shall ask you to imagine an all-powerful spirit that has always existed in this void; a spirit that is one in essence but three in persons. Let us refer to this spirit as God, the first person, God, the second person, and God, the third person and for convenience sake we shall use the expression, the Trinity.

Age is irrelevant as time has no significance to the Trinity; we speak of a timeless eternity which has always been. At this point our minds stumble and lose all reference points as we are time dependent creatures; living our lives in a time frame unique to this earth. To ask how long did the void continue would be meaningless as time did not exist as we know it.

Let us travel this road of discovery together as we move on to the second of seven parts and continue our exploration of the truth of the reality in which we live.