The Gospel Project
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Session 1 - Recap
Main Idea: God as Speaker
1. The God who speaks has authority
2. The God who speaks is merciful to reveal Himself
3. The God who speaks gives us tasks
Session 1 - Recap
Key Terms
1. General Revelation
a. God revealing himself to all people everywhere, such as
through creation
2. Special Revelation
a. God revealing himself to specific people at specific times
and in specific places.
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Introduction
1. The Truman Show & Clues to Reality
2. The World Testifies to a Creator
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
God reveals His existence through creation
(Psalm 19:1-6)
1. God through his creation is saying something
about himself
2. Features of this creational revelation (General Rev.)
a. Continual (vv.1-2)
b. Ignored OR “Indirectly” Communicated (v.3)
c. Pervasive and Inescapable (v.4)
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
God reveals His attributes through creation
(Romans 1:20)
1. The Effects & The Person
2. General revelation tells us about God’s…
a. Eternal Power
b. Divine Nature
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
God reveals His intentions through creation
(Acts 14:15-17)
1. Creation & Common Grace
a. Common Grace – In the midst of a broken world, God
continues to bless both the evil and good (Matthew 5:45)
2. The gifts are intended to point us to Him
3. When we are thankful, who are we thankful to?
4. Gospel echoes in creation
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Conclusion
1. The world as theater for the divine drama of
redemption
2. God does communicate through general
revelation, but he wants to be much clearer
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Summary
Main Idea: God reveals Himself through creation
1. Existence
2. Attributes
3. Intentions
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Key Terms
General Revelation
“[T]he disclosure of God in nature, in providential
history, and in the moral law within the heart,
whereby all persons at all times and places gain a
rudimentary understanding of the Creator and his
moral demands.” - Bruce Demarest & Gordon Lewis
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Key Terms
Common Grace
“The Lord's common grace consists of every expression of his good will and
favor, of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation from sin, which this
undeserving and sin-cursed world receives from the hand of God; but it is
primarily expressed by the perpetuation and abundant multiplication of human
life, by the restraint of his curse upon the earth, by his provision for the
sustenance, protection and enjoyment of life, by his restraint of sin through
government, conscience and providence, and by his postponement of the final
judgment; and its ultimate expression is his sincere and benevolent offer of
mercy and salvation from sin through Jesus Christ, made to sinners
indiscriminately, to elect and reprobate sinners alike, through the Gospel.” –
Second London Baptist Confession of Faith
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Key Terms
Common Grace
“[Common grace] curbs the destructive power of sin,
maintains in a measure the moral order of the
universe, thus making an orderly life possible,
distributes in varying degrees gifts and talents among
men, promotes the development of science and art,
and showers untold blessings upon the children of
men.” – Louis Berkhof
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Issues (What?!) & Implications (So What?)
Issue #1 - Universal Guilt through General Revelation
a. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and
providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and
power of God, as to leave men unexcusable (Rm. 2:14-15,
1:19-20); yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge
of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation (1
Cor. 1:21, 2:13-14). – WCF 1.1
b. The problem is not God’s lack of clarity, but our rejection of
him. It is our sinful nature that leads us to reject.
c. No one can plead not guilty - not even those who have not
heard the Gospel.
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Issues (What?!) & Implications (So What?)
Implication #1 - People have a sense of God in their
hearts
a. Evangelism & Apologetics – We can appeal this sense of God
and know that there are no “true” atheists. No one is
“neutral” or “objective”, but there is common ground.
b. “You’ve never felt more alive, you’ve never felt more
insignificant” – Nature Valley Granola Bars
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Issues (What?!) & Implications (So What?)
Implication #1 - People have a sense of God in their
hearts
Case Study
a. 18th century English Romantic poets and the “sublime” "realm of experience beyond the measurable" that is beyond
rational thought, that arises chiefly from the terrors and
awe-inspiring natural phenomena”
b. Terror and ecstasy
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Caspar David Friedrich – Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Issues (What?!) & Implications (So What?)
Implication #2 – Understanding common grace allows
us to engage rightly with the world
1. Tendency to either wholly accept or reject
2. Common Grace & Antithesis
3. The blind men and the elephant
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Issues (What?!) & Implications (So What?)
Implication #3 – General revelation makes us thankful
for special revelation and Christ
God did not leave us with only enough to
condemn…he reveals how we can be reconciled to
him, climatically through His Son.
Session 2 – God Is Not Hiding
Q&A Time!