“So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent,” Acts 17:30
Second Indictment: An Ignorance of God
At times I am asked, “Brother Paul, please come and do a weeklong series on the attributes of God.” And many times I will say this: “Well, brother, have you thought this through?”
I remember one specific conversation, and the pastor replied, “What do you mean have I thought this through?”
“Well, it is quite controversial, the subject that you are giving me to go teach in your church.”
“What do you mean it is controversial? I mean it is God. We are Christians. This is a church. What do mean it is controversial?”
I said, “Dear pastor, when I begin instructing your people on the justice of God, the sovereignty of God, the wrath of God, the supremacy of God, the glory of God, you are going to have some of your finest and oldest church members stand up and say something like this. ‘That is not my God. I could never love a God like that.’ Why? –because they have a god they have made with their own mind, and they love what they have made.”

“Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me.” Jeremiah 9:23-24
“You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.” Psalm 50:21-22

Now, what is the problem here? There is a lack of the knowledge of God. Many of you, possibly think, “Oh, talking about the attributes of God and theology, it is all ivory tower stuff that has no practical application.”
Listen to yourself speak, saying, “The knowledge of God has no practical application.” Do you know why all your Christian bookstores are filled up with self help books and five ways to do this or that, and six ways to be godly, and 10 ways not to fall? – Because people don’t know God! And so they have to be given all sorts of trivial little devices of the flesh to keep them walking as sheep ought to walk! “Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame” (1 Cor 15:34). Why the rampant sinning even among God’s people? It is a lack of the knowledge of the God!
Now let me ask you a question. When was the last time you attended a conference on the attributes of God? When was the last time, as a pastor, you taught for a solid year on who God is? How much of all the teaching that goes on in America all week has anything to do with who God is? Isn’t it so easy to go with the flow, to just follow everybody else? And then one day you hear something like this and all of the sudden, you realize, “I can’t even remember when anybody taught on the attributes of God”? No wonder we are a people as we are!


To know him, that is what everything is about; that is eternal life. And eternal life doesn’t begin when you pass through the gates of glory; eternal life begins with conversion. Eternal life is to know him. Do you honestly think you are going to be thrilled about swinging on gates of pearl and walking down streets of gold for an eternity? There is One there who is infinite in glory, and you will spend an eternity of eternities and never get your arms even around the foothill of His mountain!
Start now. There are so many different things you want to know and do, and so many books you want to read. Get out a book on God – this one, the Bible – and study it to know Him, to know Him!
Because of all of this, I would submit to you that it would be better not even to have a Sunday morning service. Sunday morning is the greatest hour of idolatry in the entire week of America, because the great mass of people are not worshipping the one true God. They instead are worshipping a god formed out of their own hearts by their own flesh, satanic devices, and worldly intelligence. They have made a god just like themselves – and he looks more like Santa Claus than he does Yahweh. There can be no fear of the Lord among us because there is no knowledge of the Lord among us!