The other night our Bible study finished a DVD study
produced by Dr. Tim Keller. The video series, called The Reason for God, features Keller's dialogue about the Christian faith with six unbelievers. This last study was about how a God of love
could also be a God of wrath.
The skeptics were earnest, articulate, well-educated, and polite,
and it did me good to listen to their comments. But I was particularly struck by one man's conclusion. He said the evidence for
God was inadequate, and that’s why he didn’t believe. And he figured that if God
did exist, He would realize that He really hadn’t given enough reason for
people to believe in Him, and therefore would not judge them.
That made me think of a verse from the book of Proverbs: It is
the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things
out. Proverbs 25:2.
So the unbeliever in the video said that, if God wants to be
worshiped, He should do a better job of revealing Himself. But God says that it
is "His glory" to conceal things.
Why would God ever by glorified by concealing something, especially about Himself?
- Concealing things magnifies His glory as the all-knowing Creator, the Sovereign over all things great and small.
- Concealing things humbles people, and forces us to come to Him for insight, wisdom and clarity.
- Concealing things allows Him to reveal what He wants, to whom He wants, when He wants. No one is ever saved because they were “smart enough to assemble the evidence.”
Actually there is plenty of real evidence. The evidence is Christ,
His life, death, and resurrection. But without God’s intervention, nobody ever
believes in Jesus. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them
because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
When we admire, worship, submit, obey, and share Jesus, it
is because in mysterious (concealed)
ways we may never fully understand, He has called us to Himself. If you belong
to Him, He wanted you long before you wanted Him.
And if you’re reading this, and don’t yet believe, maybe
that’s about to change. Keep investigating, pursuing, and admiring Christ. Jesus promised, All
that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never
cast out. John 6:37
