In his sermon, Mike Davenport emphasizes the necessity of faith and diligent seeking in approaching God, drawing from Hebrews 11:6 and the example of Enoch. He highlights the importance of knowing God intimately as outlined in Daniel 11:32 and Proverbs 9:10, suggesting that true understanding and strength arise from this deep knowledge. Davenport discusses the doctrine of divine simplicity, explaining that all attributes of God are inherently part of His essence, and warns against the human tendency to create distorted images of God. He stresses the incomprehensibility of God, acknowledging that our finite minds cannot fully grasp His nature, yet encourages believers to pursue this knowledge through Scripture, supported by the Holy Spirit. The sermon concludes with three aims for believers: to set God's excellencies before their eyes, treasure His Word, and mortify worldly pleasures to cultivate spiritual appetites.

So, if you would, if you have your copy close by, open up your Bibles to a few different texts. First, Hebrews 11.6. Hebrews 11.6. In Hebrews 11, 6, we read, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and must believe that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. If we are to approach God, we must first believe that he is.

That he is. Not simply that he exists, but that he is who and what he says he is. And that's why this verse 6 talks about faith. It's faith. Believing in things we cannot see.

So we first must believe that He is, And he is who he says he is. But if we are to approach God, we must also diligently seek him. We must diligently seek him. He will not grant the reward of Himself to those who will not exercise diligence in knowing Him. The reward is for those who diligently seek Him.

And note the context of verse 6. This oft-quoted verse comes in the context of describing the faith of Enoch. In Genesis chapter 5, we read two times that Enoch walked with God. He walked with God. And because he walked with God, the writer to Hebrews describes Enoch as a man who pleased God.

You should come away with the sense that to please God, to please Him, or to glorify Him, as the Catechism says, we must be those who diligently seek God and walk with Him. Turn to Daniel 11 32. Daniel 11 32. I'm asking you to turn because I know how difficult it is after a full meal in the afternoon. Just the eyes get heavy.

So, hopefully turning will help. Daniel 11-32, we read there at the end, the people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits. The people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits. If we are to be strong, Strong in our stand against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Strong in every circumstance.

Strong at all times. We must, we must know our God. We must. A familiarity with God won't cut it. It's not enough.

A cold and dry intellect will not suffice. We must know God intimately. We must know God personally. We must know Him experientially. And if we are to accomplish anything worthwhile, we must know our God.

Such a personal, intimate, and experiential knowledge will grant us the grace to do even great exploits. But we must know our God. And then turn, please, to Proverbs 9, chapter 10. Proverbs 9, excuse me, verse 10, chapter 9, verse 10, Proverbs 9-10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy one is understanding.

We often quote the very first part of this verse because it's repeated, or this is a repetition of what was given to us back in Proverbs 1. But are we as familiar with the second part of Proverbs 9-10 as the first part? True understanding starts with some grasp, some grasp, feeble that it may be, but it starts with the grasp of the knowledge of the Holy One. And the heart of this statement is revealed in the very name of God used here, the Holy One. The Holy One.

This name presupposes a familiarity with the exceeding greatness of who God is. He is the thrice holy God. Note also that without a knowledge of this thrice holy God, you have no understanding. None. Solomon does not describe this knowledge of God as merely the beginning of understanding.

Know the Holy One and you will have the beginning of understanding. No, here he says, you know the Holy One in order to have understanding. So no matter What else you study in this world that God has created, you have no proper understanding of any of it that's been created apart from a knowledge of Him who did create it. And so it's the desire of your elders to commence a study on the being and attributes of God. At this point, it appears that we'll have a total of 18 studies in this.

And there are two verses that I want to hang all of this study on. Two verses. They are found in the little known book, probably even less read, Book of Hosea. In the book of Hosea, God is pursuing His people for a living, vibrant relationship with Him. And the first verse is found in Hosea 6-3.

In Hosea 6-3, In Hosea 6.3, it's a plea, a prayer, a call. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth. It is not enough to simply know." Hosea writes, let us pursue, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.

And he gives us promise as to why we should pursue this knowledge. The first is that God has made Himself known. His goings have been established from of old. That's why we should pursue. He's made Himself known to us.

But not only that, the second reason is that this knowledge of Him will produce fruit in our lives. It'll produce fruit. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth. And these people looked to the latter and the former rains. They were a sign that God had sent rain and their crops were doing well.

There's fruit that will be had from a study and a pursuit of the knowledge of God. The second verse, however, in Hosea stands as a warning. Hosea 4.6. Hosea 4.6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. How important is this knowledge? Can we approach the knowledge of God in a take-it-or-leave-it attitude? A lack of the knowledge of God leads to self-destruction. My people are destroyed simply for a lack of knowledge." Well, perhaps you are thinking that there really is no reason for the study, that you know God already, that some other topic would be more beneficial for you in your Christian walk.

Well, my friend, I would argue that mortal man still has much to learn about his Creator, his Savior, his prophet, his priest, his king, his husband, he who is our judge. In volume one of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin states, scarcely a single person has ever been found who did not fashion for himself an idol or specter in place of God. Surely, just as water boils from a vast full spring, so does an immense crowd of gods flow forth from the human mind, while each one, in wandering about with too much license, wrongly invents this or that about God Himself. So rarely, he says, will you find a mind that hasn't invented a God of its own. And should you know the true and living God, your propensity is to create this and that about the God whom you know.

Well, what will keep us from manufacturing all manner of gods in our mind and coming up with all sorts of inventions of the one God Himself? Can we gain a knowledge of the Holy One? Well, the answer is obvious. We can. And we must study the Scriptures.

We must study the Scriptures. Calvin goes on in the Institutes to say, in order that true religion may shine upon us, we ought to hold that it must take its beginning—true religion must take its beginning—from heavenly doctrine, and that no one can get even the slightest taste of right and sound doctrine unless he be a pupil of Scripture. Hence, there also emerges the beginning of true understanding when we reverently embrace what it pleases God there to witness of Himself. If we turn aside from the Word, as I have just now said, though we may strive with strenuous haste, yet since we have got off the track, we shall never reach the goal. It is better to limp along this path of the use of Scripture than to dash with all speed outside of it." So as we come to a study of the attributes of God, we need to come to grips with the doctrine of divine simplicity, divine simplicity.

Simply explained, it is a doctrine that teaches that all that is in God is God. That's divine simplicity. It's not complex in one sense. All that is in God is God. Everything we shall find in him during these studies is actually God.

Whatever we find in Him is His divine essence. God is simple. He is not a composition. He's not made up as a composition of this attribute and that attribute, we cannot divide his attributes from his very essence. In his book All That Is In God, James Dolezal writes, the principal claim of divine simplicity is that God is not composed of parts.

Whatever is composed of parts depends upon its parts in order to be as it is. A part is anything in a subject that is less than the whole and without the subject would be really different than it is. What's this I have in front of me? It's a pulpit, right? A pulpit, its essence is not in and of itself.

Something had to come before this pulpit was what it is. It was a tree. For one, a tree had to be cut down. The wood had to be fashioned in this sense. So this pulpit has wood as part of its attributes, but it's not in and of itself.

It was dependent upon a tree outside of us. The screws, the nails that are used here, they had to be mined. The metal had to be mined at some point. So its essence is not in and of itself, but not so with God. God didn't have to go somewhere to get love, to get justice.

He didn't put on holiness like a cloak. It's of His very essence. Dolezal goes on to write, God is absolute in being, alone sufficient, reason for himself and all other things, and so cannot in any respect derive his being from another. God cannot depend on what is not God in order to be God. A man or woman may be good, wise, just, merciful, and the like, but these are not identical with their human essence.

Properly speaking, God is good by virtue of God, not the goodness. God is wise by virtue of God, not by virtue of wisdom itself. He is powerful by virtue of God, not power. He is love by virtue of God, not love. There is nothing in God that is not identical with His divinity.

Nothing that is not just God Himself. There's a divine simplicity. It all just resides in Him in essence and in its fullness. So we must be clear in our thinking as we approach this subject, God doesn't just have love, He is love. He doesn't just have holiness, He is holy.

He doesn't have omnipotence, He is omnipotence. It's His essence. It's Him. To divide it from Him is to have no God. Well, as we study the attributes of God, one attribute must stand at the forefront of our minds and challenge us as we seek to know our God better, and that's the incomprehensibility of God.

The incomprehensibility of God. That's an awfully big word. What does it mean? It means that whatever it is you are studying, you are not able to fully understand it. It's bigger than you.

It's bigger than your mind. You can't get your arms totally around it. That it goes beyond the capacity of our minds, which are incredible, what God has made the mind to do. But it goes beyond that. It's incomprehensible.

It also carries with it the idea that this something that we're studying cannot be contained due to its immensity or complexity. It's just too much there for our minds. The Bible speaks of this incomprehensibility in Romans 11.33. I mean, you go through the book of Romans, you start in chapter 1, and you get all the way through the end of chapter 11, you're like, wow. Wow.

So full of doctrine. So full of wonderful things. And yet Paul, at the end of that, and you almost think, what's left? What did you not cover? He gets to the end and he just says, oh the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Past finding out. He saw himself as some incredible swimmer, only to get to the end of chapter 11 after all of that doctrine, and he said, I feel like I'm in the waiting pool. I feel like I'm in the waiting pool. And I've made myself feel better because I'm lying down in it.

He said, oh the depth, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways, their past finding out. And then the reality of the inability to fully comprehend all that God is and all that he does led Paul to simply cry out in doxological praise, for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen." Richard Sibbes, the Puritan, said this, How should finite comprehend infinite? We shall apprehend him, but not comprehend him.

And Richard Baxter said something very similar, you may know God, but not comprehend him. You may know him. He can be known, but you will never comprehend him. The reality shouts to us that he is God and we are mere creatures. The incomprehensibility of God should first humble us it should humble us But second it should encourage us To also pray for the illumination of the Spirit as we seek to know God.

1 Corinthians 2, 9 through 12 tells us, but as it is written, eye is not seen nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him, even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that or so that we might know the things that have been freely given us by God. So we should come to such a study not only humbled, but with great excitement, with great encouragement.

God has prepared things for us to know and to understand. God reveals them to us through His Spirit, And we can know so many of these deep and wonderful truths because though we can't know all of it, God has given something for us to know about himself. He has given them freely to us. And so in closing, I make these...I want to ask you to make these three things your aim as we study together the being and the attributes of our glorious and great God. Number one, set the Lord and His excellencies always before your eyes.

Set the Lord and His excellencies always before your eyes. Make it your aim to discover the loveliness of His nature, the sweetness of his ways, the beauty of his being, and the excellency of his attributes. Set the Lord and his excellencies always before your eyes. Number two, treasure the Word of God above all other things. Treasure the Word of God above all other things.

This is the only rule given us whereby we may glorify Him and whereby we may enjoy Him forever. It's the Scriptures. It's the only, only rule. So treasure this book above all other things. In his works on the existence and the attributes of God, Stephen Charnock, who served alongside for five years alongside Thomas Watson, And Charnock wrote this, we can have no delight in meditation on Him unless we know Him.

And we cannot know Him but by means of His own revelation. When the revelation is despised, the revealer will be of little esteem. Those that do not care to know His will, that love to be ignorant of His nature, can never be affected to His honor. So treasure the Word of God. And third and finally, Mortify sensual pleasures that would curb or even choke out spiritual appetites.

Mortify sensual pleasures that would curb or even choke out spiritual appetites. Just as the child who snacks all afternoon, one handful after another, What happens when it comes time for dinner? Parents, we know the plate may get filled up, but most of it gets left. The stomach has been filled with all the other enjoyments of the day, and when it comes time for dinner, there's no appetite left. So just as that child who does that, the Christian can give himself or herself to an inordinate preoccupation with the things of this world and be left with little energy, little passion, little time, and little capacity for the great and eternal things concerning our God.

We have many great things, Lord willing, set before us. But if we don't open our minds and our hearts to know our God, we become like that little inn in Bethlehem, busy, bustling, filled to capacity. And the knowledge of Christ and His excellencies come and there's no vacancy. Oh, may God give us help. Father, we thank you for your goodness and your mercy to us.

Oh, Father, we plead with you as Moses, show us your glory. Show us your glory. And your incomprehensibility is such that like Moses, it will be like we see only your backside. But Lord, it is enough until that day when we shall see you face to face. Oh give us grace to be students not just of the Word of God but of the God of the Word.

Help us we pray. May we not take it lightly. Change us just simply by studying who and what you are. For your glory, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.