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The Great I Am, November 8
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the
earth and world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Psalm 90:2
.
God’s Word and His works contain the knowledge of Himself that He has seen
fit to reveal to us. We may understand the revelation that He has thus given of
Himself. But it is with fear and trembling and with a sense of our own sinfulness
that we are to take up this study, not with a desire to try to explain God, but with a
desire to gain that knowledge which will enable us to serve Him more acceptably.
Let no one venture to explain God. Human beings cannot explain themselves, and
how, then, dare they venture to explain the Omniscient One?...
To the curious I bear the message that God has instructed me not to frame
answers to the questions of those who enquire in regard to the things that have not
been revealed. The things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children.
Beyond this, human beings are not to attempt to go. We are not to attempt to
explain that which God has not revealed. We are to study the revelation that Christ,
the Great Teacher, has given of the character of God, that in spirit and word and
act we may represent Him to those who know Him not.
In regard to the personality and prerogatives of God, where He is and what
He is, this is a subject which we are not to dare to touch. On this theme silence is
eloquence. It is those who have no experimental knowledge of God who venture
to speculate in regard to Him. Did they know more of Him, they would have less
to say about what He is. The one who in the daily life holds closest communion
with God, and who has the deepest knowledge of Him, realizes most keenly the
utter inability of human beings to explain the Creator....
God always has been. He is the great I AM.... He is infinite and omnipresent.
No words of ours can describe His greatness and majesty.
The Bible teaching of God is the only teaching that is safe for human beings
to follow. We are to regulate our faith by a plain “Thus saith the Lord.” The
knowledge of Himself that God desires us to gain from His Word, will, if brought
into the daily life, make men and women strong to resist evil, and fit them to
represent Him.
We need to study the simplicity of Christ’s teachings. He urges the need of
prayer and humility. These are our safeguards against the erroneous reasoning by
which Satan seeks to lead us to turn aside to other gods, and to accept misleading
theories, clothed by him in garments of light.—
Manuscript 132, November 8,
1903
, “God’s Chosen People,” written during the pantheism crisis.
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