Our God is Eternal (Part 1)

And so Lord, we commit these things to you. We ask you that you would not allow these truths to be mundane or we would not get tired of them in any way.

Be our teacher, we pray, and help us. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen. All right, our God is eternal, is what we’re gonna look at today, and probably next week, our God is eternal, eternal. Psalm number 90 is where we will begin. Psalm number 90.

This verse we’re gonna look at in Psalm 90 is the text verse of this truth. In other words, if you were gonna go to one verse in the Bible that states this characteristic of God, unambiguously, plainly, it is Psalm 90, verse two. But let’s define something before we go any further. I wanna define the word eternal, eternal. The word eternal in scripture is sometimes used interchangeably with the word everlasting.

There is a little difference though between the two, and it’s mostly self-evident. When you think about the word everlasting, you’re only considering from this moment into the future, everlasting, it lasts forever, right? So that’s the idea of everlasting, and that’s perfectly fine. We can say we have everlasting life because from the moment we received it, it will persist and endure forever. So everlasting is a fine word, and I won’t want to say this clearly, everlasting is a perfectly fine way to describe the attributes of God so long as the context is right.

And in fact, we’re gonna see the word everlasting used backward in just a minute. But the idea of everlasting is from this moment into the future, this thing endures, whatever is being spoken of. But the word eternal means something a little bit different. It means this, infinite in past and future duration, infinite in past and future duration, without beginning or end, that always has existed and always will exist.

So when we talk about the word eternal, here’s what we have to understand, that the word eternal all at once is one word that refers both to the future direction as well as the past direction. And both of those are significant to our understanding of God, both of them. And when we look at the practical aspects in just a minute, or probably next week, when we look at the practical aspects of this truth of the eternity of God, that God is eternal, both the future and the past have an effect, the direct effect upon us and our relationship to the Lord.

And so that’s what the word eternal means. Let’s look at Psalm number 90, verse number one. The Bible says this, Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. Now you’re gonna see that later, all generations, that phrase there, all generations. But let’s continue, verse two. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Now, do you see what I said in just a minute ago? Which is the idea of eternal means it’s of infinite duration both in the future and in the past, or I should say future, because you guys, to your right. But anyway, in both directions, in both directions, the eternal means it’s infinite in both directions. And so that’s what’s mentioned here when it says from everlasting, that’s the past, to everlasting, which is the future.

It encompasses all of time. Okay, so here’s what I want you to see. I said that the word everlasting means from this moment into the future. But in this verse, the word everlasting is turned around backward, is it not? It’s like you had a ray. How many of you are familiar with a ray from geometry? You have a dot with a line and an arrow, right? That’s a ray.

So you take the ray, that speaks of everlasting, and then you flip it around. And now you’re pointing into the past. That’s, if we can visualize, that’s what from everlasting to everlasting means. Now, this is by no means, by no means at all, the only reference in scripture to this aspect of God’s nature. Let’s go through them. Let’s look at Psalm, starting in Psalm number 41.

Very, very clearly spoken. Psalm 41. So as I said, God’s eternal nature goes in both directions. Eternal in the past, eternal into the future. Everlasting into the past, everlasting into the future. Here are the references I wanna show you of his nature into the past, where the scripture explicitly describes it. Psalm 41, verse number 13. Says this, blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting and to everlasting.

Amen and amen. You see that? From and to. Remember, remember that. I’m not gonna come back to this verse, but I want you to know it says to everlasting because we’re gonna get back to that in a second. But the thing we wanna see in this verse for the moment is from everlasting.

All right, look at Psalm number 103. Psalm 103. Psalm 103. Look if you would at verse number 17. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children’s children. Now you notice, remember I mentioned all generations. I asked you to note that in your mind. Here we see a kind of a different way to put it.

Children’s children, right? This idea of, you know, the idea of generation. Now let’s philosophize a minute, okay? I’m gonna ask a question and I want you to help me to define this question, okay? Because it is helpful for us and informative for us as we think about God’s nature, which remember, the best thoughts that you can have are thoughts where you and I meditate on the Lord’s nature, okay?

So let’s do that right now. Somebody give me a definition of time. A measurement of existence, that sounds pretty, sounds pretty educated. Okay, all right. Anybody else? Anybody wanna take a philosophy stab? No? Well, I ain’t touching that. Oh, Jim’s gonna try. Personal recognition of all events before and after you where you may measure.

All right. Anybody else? All right. Because this is an important matter when we talk about eternity. One person I read, someone far more intelligent than I, put it like this. Time, you know, we think of time as a, you know, a measure, like for instance, seconds or days or hours or day, you know, that kind of thing. And that’s fine, but really that’s not time. Time is a, that’s a measurement of time, right?

A measurement of time. But time itself was defined by one very smart person that I read that said, it is merely the succession of events. Any event, it is one event after another event. And really you can boil it down in that way, because even before time was measured, even before time was measured, for instance, before God made the moon and the sun and the stars after he created the light, right?

From that moment, time began. You know, if you will, not the measurement of time, because that would come later, but time itself began because events began, right? And you think of eternity when you have events happening. You know, we’re not going to all be sitting on a cloud plucking harps. We might, but as far as I know, we’re not. But there will be events. And so time, as far as we understand it, the succession of events will continue everlasting, right?

Why am I saying all that? It’s because when we look at Psalm 103, notice verse number 17, “’But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting.’” Now think about that. “’The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting.’ Upon whom did he have mercy before there were people?’ Exactly. See, you ahead of me. You see, you’re getting ahead of me. Exactly. He said, it’s a character quality. So the fact that God’s mercy existed before there were people upon whom he could bestow mercy shows that mercy is a part of his own nature, right?

It’s not something he does, it’s who he is. God is merciful. God is full of compassion, which is related. Because before God created mankind, you know, if you can think in these terms, God was already a merciful God. Now, when he created mankind, and then he had people upon whom he could bestow mercy, but it also reveals something else about God’s nature and how he views time.

Before he created us, we were already there in his mind. Indeed, he himself was there, if we can say it like that. And his mercy was also present. Notice what it says in verse number 17. Again, “’But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting, to everlasting, upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children.’” The reason I brought up this question of time and this succession of events is in scripture, generation to generation, children’s children.

These terminologies indicate the kind of process of time. And what you see when you read those passages, which we’ll see a few more, you see that you see God standing above it. From generation to generation, you see the eternal God standing above it. As these succession of events and generations pass, you see God outside of it, right? From generation to generation. Now, what’s interesting is that is directly connected to another attribute of God, which we’ll cover later, which is the immutability, the fact that God cannot change.

Because from generation to generation, God is always the same because he is eternal, right? And so, and the self-sufficiency of God, the self-existence of God, the immutability of God, all those things are directly related to one another. If at any point it was possible for God to change, he would not be eternal. Because to be eternal means you are always forever, but this and that way, you are always as you are.

The moment you change, there is a succession of events. You’re in time. So they’re all interrelated, but we have to cover it one at a time. All right, Psalm 106, let’s look at that. Psalm 106.

Verse number 48. Psalm 106, verse 48. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the people say, amen. Praise ye the Lord. There again, from everlasting to everlasting. Micah, look at Micah. Micah, chapter five.

Micah, chapter five. We will come back to this verse later, but we’re just going to briefly touch on it right now. Micah five, verse two says this, but thou, but thou bestlehem, Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Now, what this verse and others will see, what they show us is they point out, remember, I told you, that the doctrine of God, the character of God is often revealed, not in a big long list, but incidental to some other thing God is saying, and this is a perfect example. This is talking about Bethlehem, but it mentions the fact that God is from everlasting. So in this case, the arrow is pointing only in the reverse, in the past, but the Lord points it out.

It’s pointed back into the past, all right? Look at Habakkuk. Habakkuk, chapter one. We’re not far from that. Habakkuk, chapter one, just a couple pages over. Habakkuk one, verse number 12.

Says this, art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine holy one? We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment, and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Again, from everlasting. So again, God’s eternal nature goes in both directions, from the eternal past, like we’ve seen in all of these verses, but it also goes into the eternal future. Let’s look at some of those, Isaiah, chapter nine.

Isaiah, chapter nine. Isaiah nine, verse number six. Isaiah nine, verse six. Isaiah nine, verse six. Says this, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father. You see that, everlasting Father. You could say, well that’s eternal, that’s talking about past. Yeah, that might be, but for our purposes, everlasting refers to that which goes into the future forever.

Now look at Revelation, chapter four. Revelation, chapter four. Revelation four, verse number 10. Speaking of the 24 elders, the Bible says, and the four in 20 elders fell down, fall down before him that sat on the throne and worshiped him that liveth for the Lord. And the Bible says, and the four in 20 elders fell down, fall down before him that sat on the throne and worshiped him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne.

And lastly, look at chapter 10 of Revelation. Chapter 10. Chapter 10, verse number six. Or verse five says, and the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth who lifted up his hand to heaven and swear by him that liveth forever and ever who created heaven and the earth and the things that therein are and the earth and things that therein are and the sea and the things which are therein that there should be time no longer.

Notice, him that liveth forever and ever. Okay, so how do you, when you remember that the eternity in scripture, the eternal nature of God points both in the past and into the future, when you’re reading the Bible and you see mentions of that, you just have to remember that the context determines whether we’re looking into the past or whether we’re looking into the future. It’s one and the same, it’s all part of God’s nature.

Now, the reason that this is an important factor is an important truth to our relationship to God is because we do not dwell in eternity like God does. We dwell in time. And so we have a past, but we also have a point. At which our beginning started, all right? So in that way, in that way, we are not eternal. But the fact of God’s eternity, remember in the succession of events, which might be a way you define time, the fact that God dwells in the eternal past as well as into the eternal future has direct reference to our lives because we live, we can look back on things that are in the past.

As an example, we can look back and read in scripture about what God has done with people in the past. We look back at that and we can see God’s presence with them and that has direct reference to our present. Does it not? Exactly, it does. And if we see the things that God did in the past in his eternal nature in the past, you know that those things are, he will do those same things in the future.

And so there’s a certain security in God being present in the past and in the future to us. Now in scripture, one of the things that is connected with the eternal nature of God and is often mentioned in association with it is God’s creation. Let’s look at that, if you would. Look at Job 38, Job 38, Job 38.

Now this is God speaking to Job, Job 38, verse number four. The Lord asked Job this question, where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. He says, where were you, Job? In other words, you go back to the foundations of the earth, which is of course biblical terminology to refer to that moment before which nothing was but God himself, that moment.

That’s the foundations of the earth, right? The Lord asked Job, where were you? Which is a statement of Job’s finitude, that is he is finite, he is not eternal. And so that contrast, I know that’s put into one simple sentence, but it’s worthy of our meditation, is it not? We should ask ourselves, when we have some time, we should ask ourselves, what is God saying to Job?

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? What does that do? That immediately limits us, right? We have to acknowledge our limitation of our knowledge, of our power. We didn’t exist, we weren’t there. And so there’s this huge gulf, this chasm between God and us and our nature, we’re totally different. But this is not, I’m just, as a practical matter, this is not the way we view the Lord.

We view the Lord in human terms so often. And I think it affects a lot of things in our lives. Look at Isaiah 40, Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40, verse number 28 says this, hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, note that, everlasting God, this is a one word statement of God’s eternal nature, both in the past and in the present, or in the future.

The Lord, notice what it says, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, there is no searching of his understanding. There is no searching of his understanding. Go back, if you would, one more time to the Psalms, Psalm 102, Psalm 102.

Psalm 102, verse number 28 says this, I said, oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days, thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. You see this hint of God’s eternal nature? In other words, those things come to an end, but God is everlasting.

Thou shalt endure, yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

Again, God’s eternal nature is connected with that which he created. So if you think in your mind, you go back to Genesis 1, verse one, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and that verse does not state it, but it clearly implies it, that before that verse, God was, and that references his eternity. Now, the reason that’s important is because this speaks directly to the idea of that God has no first cause, that God is the first cause of all things.

And remember that when God created everything in Genesis 1, and this is where we get into a lot of like, creation science and stuff like that, is that not only did God, on Genesis 1, not only did he create things, but he also created time, which prior to this did not exist. He created space. He made something where there was nothing. He brought something out of nothing.

That’s the idea. And this is all related to God’s eternal nature. So the question we automatically ask is, although you can’t ask it because it’s a logical fallacy, which is this, what was going on before Genesis 1, 1? What was going on before Genesis 1, 1? And I think you could make an argument that you can’t answer that question. It is fallacious to answer it. God was, how profound, right?

From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God, right? Which is, I am that I am. And so that would be the only way to say it, right? Because there was no time. God had not created it until he created it. And so we think of this, of course, we’re reminded of the fact that this truth of God’s eternity is part of his incomprehensibility, which we looked at last week.

But it’s God’s incomprehensibility in relation to what we call time. And it is directly related to his self-existence, to his immutability, and to his other attributes. God is, has always been, and always will be. And I know we’re covering, we’re overlapping some of this.

I’m just trying to understand that your example about the red and the star in point. Yeah. And then it goes primarily on the rotation. We have time in the succession of events. We do have time after America’s end in Rome, but because of the succession of events in heaven. And so, we should always say, before we did whatever, we met. And I understood time to be the succession of events within a framework, beginning with the earth, until the end of the world, and how far it is from the beginning.

And how far it is from the end. How is, that’s kind of hard to answer the question, how far is it that we know the succession of events that God doesn’t necessarily, before he made Europe, he could have done something without changing the world. Because he doesn’t have to change him. So in that sense, there was succession of events. Well, you didn’t do anything without that. Just, somehow I don’t think it’s the way.

Actually, there are scriptures in Job that refer to events happening prior to the creation. Speaking of the angelic beings and stuff like that. Again, but the succession of events is just a human, a limited human definition of time.

It’s one way to understand time, just like the ray thing is one way to understand time. It definitely has its limitations. So I acknowledge that. But I didn’t come up with it, so I don’t have to take blame for it. Ha ha ha. I don’t know if you’re back on that, but like, when we read events one once in the beginning, God created the earth, heaven sent the earth, heaven sent the earth.

Mm-hmm. What is that referring to? What kind of beginning is that? What? E, all of the above. It can’t be the beginning of God, because he had no beginning. So anything that had a beginning, that was the beginning of it, I assume. But although you could also argue from the scripture that there were, like we were saying, there were angelic beings or of some sort prior to that.

How can you say prior before time? I don’t understand. This is what people have been philosophizing about forever and ever, hundreds and thousands of years. It’s fun to think about, but I don’t know that we’re gonna get a satisfactory answer. Anybody else wanna opine? Yeah. It seems if the Bible was written to men, for us to know and understand not only the Bible, but to read his word, and learn to read his Jewish word, and prayer, then the existence of things that are in time would be for our understanding of who God is, and we write, there’s no way for a perfect definition.

The things that happened before him, if there were things going on before him, it was who he or her were, and the person to say so, would have been observed by the angels and any other angelic being created. We are only reflecting on what God has allowed us to know, right now, this is a mistake.

It’s tough for the Bible, knowing that we are here, sort of for the purpose of proving to the angels that God is a just and loving God, by offering us salvation and good repent, proving to them that he really was a just and loving God and should not rebel.

It’s a very deep subject. It is, it’s a very deep subject. So let’s look at one more verse, Isaiah 57. It’s fun to think about, it’s fun to meditate upon, because the more we think about it, it’s like something you chew and it just gets bigger. I don’t eat stuff like that, but for those of you that do, you chew on it and you just get bigger and bigger.

Isaiah 57. This is another good kind of go-to verse when we talk about God’s nature, because next week when we have a little bit more time, we’re going to look at the way the Lord views time, because that is directly related to his eternal nature. How does God view time and how does that relate to how he deals with us? Because as Jim said, and I think he’s, I actually read something when I was preparing for this that mentioned that, which is the things that are written in scripture are written not for God’s explanation, but for our understanding.

So it’s not supposed to be a full-fledged, exhaustive understanding of the way the Lord is in this matter, but it’s to help us understand. It’s written for our intelligence. So Isaiah 57, verse number 15 says this, for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Note what the verse says in verse 15, inhabiteth eternity. Now that gives us, to our mind, it gives us a little more information. We understand God is eternal into the past, eternal into the future, but here it describes him as inhabiting something that is hard for us to even understand, he inhabits eternity. And what that does, at least in my mind, maybe you have a different kind of viewpoint.

Again, we’re all just trying to make sense of these incomprehensible ideas, but the idea of him inhabiting eternity, in my mind, speaks to his being outside of time. In other words, his realm is totally different, totally different. One of the best, and this deals with God’s view of time, and one of the kind of best illustrations, if you will, of this, that I’ve heard about the way that the Lord views time is a parade.

So to a human being, we view time as a spectator in a parade. We’re standing on the side of the street watching the floats go by, right? And we see one float in succession after another, one float after another. And that’s the way we view time. But imagine if you were in a blimp over the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade or something, and you were on 10,000 feet looking down.

What you see is the same succession of events, but you see it all at once. You see the beginning, you see the end. And even that has limitations. Even that has limitations. But the idea is that the one who inhabits eternity doesn’t see it on the street level. He sees it up here. And if we understand time in kind of a linear fashion, but see, I don’t think that’s the way the Lord sees it.

Obviously, I’ve spent a little bit of time, pardon the pun, thinking on how to describe these things. And one of the ways, another, and again, this is just for kicks. We think of time, to us, as linear. And so we think, well, God was in the past, but we’re describing God in linear terms. He wasn’t in the past. That’s not the way he views it. I think that one way you might be able to describe it is instead of looking at time as a line, imagine it’s a blob, and everything’s in it, and you see it once.

It’s just a big blob. All the events of the universe, all at once. Inhabits eternity, maybe that’s a way that you can describe it. Anybody else have another idea? All right, Andrew’s got one. Well, the way I’ve, previously, kind of understood time internally, I think, was that everything’s a reference. Like, if it’s an awful reference, it would be great to remember. So, for instance, the huge things, he was the son of the, he was the son of that thing, and I understood everything from that message.

He was the grandson of whatever, but there’s no ultimate reference. So we look back, we’re trying to nail down when in history, that 180, when’s the ultimate reference? So when did he actually exist? There are no references to Christian here. I want to see what the other five systems are. So, in eternity, when we get to heaven, we’ll have kind of the Jewish reference of a relation of what just happened, or what happened before that, what happened before that.

There is no ultimate reference, because we know he did. So, you could eternally know what happened before that, before that, before that, before that. You can’t have ultimate references, so I think that’s how we, that doesn’t find the time. He’s not, yeah, sure, there’s time in the sense that there’s a relation to everything, but he’s not found the time, since he has the beginning. This is so old, there is a relation.

You’re making my brain hurt worse. Anybody else? Okay. I picture it kind of like God is the same. All time and universe and everything. You can’t know what the universe is, out past what you can see. When he looks at something, for him to look this way is the same as looking this way. He sees what happened in our past, as happening now. Yeah. The eternal present.

What’s happening in the future, what’s happening now. You know, he’s in the sooner. Mm-hmm. It’s like he should be in the sooner, right? Mm-hmm. You know, what’s interesting is, if you do any study of science and you look at like, some of the theoretical sciences in physics and things, the way that they describe space and time, which are apparently like now hyphenated, space-time, the way that they describe space-time is in some way has characteristics of deity.

The idea that, the way it’s been described is, if you were able to get on a rocket and fly somewhere at the speed of light, then you would instantly be at that place.

I encourage you to do some research. Get on one of the AI chat things and just talk to it. Some of you are like, get that. But that’s almost like an inhabit eternity type of thing that’s being applied to the material universe instead of to God. And there is kind of a dovetailing with characteristics of deity with explanations of the material universe and we’ve seen this before, self-existence, that kind of thing, the eternality, these things are things that science is trying to say apply to the material universe.

Anyway, we’re over time now, so we’ll pray and have our service in just a little bit.