Faith Series: Faith Rests in God’s Omniscience

Faith Series: Faith Rests in God's Omniscience

Let's take our Bibles, please turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 this evening. And we just want to read one verse here and then we'll look at another couple of passages as well, but Hebrews 11 verse number eight. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after see for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whether he went. And then let's also look in Luke chapter one. Luke chapter one verse 34. Luke one thirty four. We read then said, Mary unto the angel. How shall this be? Seeing I know not a man and the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And then hold your finger there, but let's turn over to Matthew chapter two, Matthew chapter two verse number one. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? We have seen his star in the East and are come to worship him.

In these three verses we see a display of faith. We see in these examples of Abraham, of Mary. And I want to read a little bit more from the passage on Mary in just a moment, but also with the example of the wise men we see faith in uncharted territory. We see faith even though they did not see that which they were trusting God for, that which they were looking to God for. They did not see yet with their eyes what they were anticipating and expecting God to do or to show them or to bring to reality.

Abraham was called by God out of the land of Ur. We know well. He was called by God out of a land where he had grown up. It was an idolatrous place. And God said to him, come out of that land and I will show you a land I promise to bring you into. And Abraham did what we read that he obeyed. And he went out not knowing whether he went. He knew nothing about where he was going other than the fact that he was obeying God.

There are many things we do not know. It is said that some of the greatest libraries in the world like the Library of Congress or I think the great library somewhere, I can't remember the name of it in London. You know some of these very large libraries, I think it's been said that if you were to begin reading the day you were born the books in that library until the day that you die, you would only cover a small portion of the text that lies in that library. If you had the ability from the moment you were born to start reading, you didn't sleep, you didn't eat, you didn't stop for any reason, you would only cover a small, maybe a room of that library. And yet I think it was said that if you read five books a day in that library in London, if you read five books a day in that library, it would take you, what was it, 80,000 years or something like that to read them all. It's just incomprehensible and that's just one library.

In other words, as much as we can possibly learn in our lifetimes, there is so much more, so much more to know that we could possibly know. It doesn't mean that we can't get an overview of many things and we can't have a grasp on certainly if we trust in God, we have a worldview that will be a correct one, a true worldview. But I can tell you we're still learning things about how to take care of chickens. We're learning things, we're wondering why are our chickens cannibalizing each other? Not all of them, but there's been some chickens starting to eat on other ones, and we changed the feed and there's not quite enough protein in the feed, so they're finding protein in other places. And so that's a fairly simple fix, but it's something we didn't know. And we've been raising chickens since Esther's been in the world and just little changes.

There's so much more that we don't know. We have a working knowledge, but we don't have a complete knowledge of everything, even about that subject. And you could go into any subject and you can drill down through the levels and you can spend your whole life studying one thing. I think I heard someone say not long ago that maybe it was the president of Hillsdale College. I think he said one of his teachers from the past said, Matt, pick three books in your life and master them. Of course, we know. I know the Bible is one of the books that I want to master, if you will. That doesn't mean I'll ever exhaust it. I'm just saying you can spend your whole life learning more about, I'm talking about great works of literature, not something that was drawn together but something worth studying.

Well, here we have Abraham. He didn't know, but he still obeyed. He didn't know all that was ahead. He'd never been there before, but he trusted God. Mary wasn't asking God how shall this be, or she wasn't asking the angel how shall this be in a spirit of doubt, you're telling me the truth, but she was asking simply from a human perspective, how can this be? How can it be? I'm not even married. How am I going to have a child? I just don't know how this can be. I am ignorant of this fact, of this reality.

Verse 36 back in Luke 1, Luke 1:36, the angel said, and behold thy cousin Elizabeth. She hath also conceived a son in her old age. Well, how can that be? And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. And here's the important part, for with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord. We saw this not too long ago when we went through this passage, didn't we? Be it unto me according to thy word. Oh, what an example for us. What an attitude, the faith she had in this passage, and it says the angel departed from her. But she said that's all she needed to know, with God all things are possible. With God nothing shall be impossible. The answer wasn't given to her exactly how it would be, other than God knows how it's going to happen, and God's going to make it happen. That's all you need to do. And so it was. And so God did cause it to come to pass, but we see her faith, be it unto me. In so many words, she was saying, amen, so be it. So be it, amen.

And we need to say, we taught our children, you know, we're teaching the girls about sin. Sin is black, and God's righteousness is white. He can make, He can give us a clean heart and change the dirty heart to a clean one. We talked about how we need to say yes to God and no to the devil, right. That's what Mary was saying, yes to God, yes, I believe. That's what faith is, saying yes, I believe God, yes, I don't know, but I believe.

And then we noticed these wise men, notice these wise men, how they were, they had, if they had scripture, they had limited scripture, they didn't have all the knowledge there was, but what they did with the knowledge they had is amazing. They had faith that this star represented a baby born king, they recognized this star as one that represented the promised one, and so they followed that star. We see they didn't follow the crowd, they followed God's word, they followed what they knew of it anyway, what they had, what light they had, they followed it until it led them to the place where the baby was, the king of the Jews, and they came and they worshipped him. They were moved by what knowledge of God's word that they had, they were moved by it, and as we think about this, in all three of those cases, Abraham, Mary, the wise men, each one of them were moved to obedience, moved to action, moved to put their confidence in the Lord, in the word that they had and the knowledge that they were given, even though they didn't have all the knowledge, they trusted that God had the knowledge, and He would lead them, and He would lead them in the mind, and He would meet the needs that they had. We talk about conscience, don't we? We talk about how conscience is with knowledge. We need to do right in our conscience before God because faith and a good conscience go hand in glove. You can't say I believe God but sin against the conscience. We must obey what we know to be true, what we know to be right, and abstain from that which we know to be wrong. It would be wrong, as was the case with Jonah, to go and find a ship going to Tarshish if God has called us to go to Nineveh. That's sinning against, that's not faith, is it? That's disobedience, and yet haven't we all done just like Jonah at times in our lives? We've gone against what we know God showed us to do at some point or some time in time, but faith, faith must rest in the omniscience and the omnipotence of God. Faith, our faith must rest in God's omniscience. I'm sure you know Donna Crickmore, this is where her peace is coming from at this moment in time, is knowing that God knows, because she certainly doesn't know why, she certainly does, I'm sure her husband doesn't understand why, why now, why my wife, I don't understand, I don't, it's hard for us to, it's hard for us to accept when it's us, why can't I know, why haven't I been given the understanding of why this is happening, but God, God does not have to do that, yet He loves us, we know that, and if we know that He loves us, and we know that He always does what's best, and He knows the bigger picture, we have to have simple childlike faith to know that He is, He is all-knowing, and He is in control.

Look with me if you will at Romans chapter 11, Romans chapter 11 verse 33. Romans 11:33 is there that we read, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto Him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen. You know, Matt and I were just talking this morning after the service about how God weaves things together, how God allows even, you know, what might be a big deal for me, I might have a really hard time with something, and one of you go, that doesn't bother me at all, that's not a big deal, and yet God puts people together, He coordinates circumstances and causes the intersection of paths, and He brings hard things into our lives, and yet when we look back over providence, many times we realize if God hadn't put this in my life at that time, and this in my life this time, you know, it changed my whole trajectory, I would have been over here somewhere, and God is omniscient, He's more than omniscient, but He's omniscient, and He's loving in His ways and what He does, He's wise in His ways, and so the ways of God are past finding out, they're beyond our comprehension because He's in, He is the beginning, He's the ending, He knows it all, He sees it all, and we only see the sliver that we're living in right this moment, we only see that little tiny window that we're living in, and the tendency of that, or because of that, is for us to go why, why, why, but we also should rejoice in the fact that we serve a God that we can't figure out, we serve a God that's greater than our little knowledge. If God was no greater than our knowledge, what kind of God would that be? What kind of God would it be? He would be the God of our own imagination, wouldn't it be the God that we've created, but not the God who created us.

Sir Isaac Newton, the great English scientist, was an old man when someone said to him, Dr. Newton, you must have a tremendous store of knowledge. He said, I remind myself of a little boy walking along the seashore picking up shells. The boy has a handful of shells in his little hand, but all around him is the vast seashore stretching in all directions as far as the eye can see. All that I know is simply a handful of seashells, but the vast universe of God is filled with knowledge that I do not possess. Well, that's a man of true knowledge, isn't he? He was a man who really understood how little he knew. You know, even when they, I'm told that when they give you that graduation cap, it's supposed to actually, that board on top is actually kind of an acknowledgement that I only know but so much. I forgot the exact symbolism of what it stands for, but it's not a symbol of pride, it's a symbol of, I should be humbled by what I've learned, but now there's more, there's more to know. I'm just scratching the surface of all there is to know. It's not a, you know, we used to go to Krautman House and we see some of the big old hats that come in there on Sundays, it didn't have all kinds of feathers in it, it's just a plain board on top, right? I just know a little bit, male, I just know a little bit. Knowledge tends to puff up, doesn't it? But God knows, His knowledge is past finding out.

The wicked do not trust in God's omniscience. The wicked, the wicked instead say God doesn't see, God doesn't hear, God doesn't know about this. They think there's somewhere I can go and hide from, He won't see what I'm doing, I can go over here and do this thing and hide it somehow. Well, we're seeing now that we have so many cameras in our world, right? We have so many cameras, it's hard to get away with something from the eye of big brother, but God sees far more than big brother sees. He sees beyond the actions right now and into the very thoughts and intents of our hearts, doesn't He? He knows it all, He sees every bit of it. Well, Acts 15:18 says, known unto God, known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world. His understanding, look in Psalm 147 verse number five, Psalm 147 verse number five, what does it say over there in Psalm 147 verse number five? We read this, great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite.

His understanding is infinite, is unlimited, there's no limit to His understanding. Well, we read in the situation, the story of there with the angel speaking to Mary, with Mary, with God nothing shall be impossible. His omniscience and His omnipotence go hand in glove. If we have faith in God, we have faith in the omnipotent and omniscient God, He's unlimited.

The way you know, you can talk to someone who is in the doldrums, and that can affect your outlook on things, can't it? If someone's down and they're depressed, it can rub off on you. You can also talk to someone who has confidence in God, faith in God, someone who is, is not in the slough of despond, but is, and we, we vacillate, all of us do in our lives at times, we have higher moments and lower moments. Sometimes as a married couple, you know, it's, we find it to be true, one falls, the other can help them up, and we're here as a body of believers, we're supposed to help one another and strengthen one another. When someone, you can tell they're having a down day, you know, the, what is it, the countenance of a man sharpens his friend, right? I can't remember the exact words, but how, how one person's spirit and countenance can sharpen another, help them and lift them up. Well, what is it we said this morning, grace and peace be unto you. Well, if grace is flowing like a river, and we are not receiving the grace of God in vain, but we're saying, Lord, so many times we get up in the morning, how do we begin today? Sister Donna has talked about, sometimes I just had a little revival with the Lord here, talking with someone that’s such an encouragement, and as we are encouraged, we need to go ahead and share it, don't let it, don't let it peter out in our own lives, but as we share, you know, we talk about money, don't we? We say you can't outgive the Lord. Well, we can't outgive the Lord with money, but we also need to understand that in the sense of just faith and confidence that He's going to do what He says He's going to do. When we share the blessings God gives with us, His well never runs dry, His fountain never runs dry, He will continue to supply all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. He is, if we just glimpse, we might say if I could just get a view of God for just a moment of time, well, we could, but we have His word right here, we have His words, we already know without seeing Him, we'll see Him soon enough face to face, but we have all we need to see right here, if we just take it by faith, God says it, I believe it, that settles it, right? And haven't you seen that statement before? Well, what do we read, Proverbs 15:3, the girls know this one, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. The eyes of the Lord are in every place. God doesn't do anything that He does out of ignorance. God doesn't do anything He does and then go, whoops, you know, I wish I thought that through a little more, I wish that, you know, I've made a mistake here, I'm so sorry about that. No, God never has to say that, He is perfectly in control. Well, His thoughts are not our thoughts, are they? His ways are not our ways, higher than our ways, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, He says. He sees it all, we said the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the, look at Thomas, reach hither thy hand, touch, touch Me, thrust your hand to My side, and you'll know it's Me, but blessed are those that have not seen, yet have believed, but some of those have not seen, and yet they have believed.

I was talking to a brother this week who was saying, Hebrews chapter 12 talks about, well no, we read that verse where, Hebrews chapter 12, I wanted to share this with you, Hebrews chapter 12 verse number 24, I believe it is, and a new little company of angels, the church of the firstborn, I believe it says in Hebrews chapter 12 verse number 22, let's go back at verse number 22, which you're coming to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, but we're come by faith to this, which are, we're not at Mount Sinai anymore, we're come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, we've come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to the God and judge of all, and it continues, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. Well, Paul said we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, aren't we? And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. We are come to among all these things, we are come to the blood of sprinkling. This blood is not in the tabernacle on Mount Zion, it's not in the tabernacle in earthly Jerusalem, this is the heavenly temple, the holy place which is in heaven. We are come to the blood of sprinkling. Well, I'll tell you, I've not seen with my eye the heavenly holy place, but we come, we're to come boldly to the throne of grace, we've never seen, we're come boldly, and we're trusting that just as there was a parable, a figure for the time present, the earthly tabernacle, that tabernacle has been turned like this vertically, and as we come to the throne of grace and talk to the Lord, we come through the mediator of the covenant, the new covenant, Jesus Christ. We come, and how do we, what's the only way we can enter into the holy place? Is through the blood of the spotless sacrifice, Jesus Christ. And as we were talking this week, as brother and I were talking, he was talking about, I believe that blood, it's saying that the blood of Christ is there in heaven now. I don't know how that happened, I don't, I mean, when He poured out His blood on the cross, I don't know that sinless, spotless Lamb of God, I don't know how the blood got to heaven, but I trust by faith that it's there, because if it wasn't for the blood of Christ, because that's what had to happen in the Old Testament, right? They had to sprinkle the blood in the holy place, even on the ark of the covenant. Now we know that Jesus is our sacrifice, that Jesus, even though He has a resurrected body, He has a body that could be touched, and yet we haven't touched it, but for those who have not seen, yet have believed, have believed because He has made the way, He has gone before us, and trusting Him, we're going to go to a place we've never seen before. We're going to enter into the presence of God. We've never seen the invisible God, we've never seen Jesus Christ because we weren't here on the earth when He walked, but do we love His appearing? We will see Him, we will see Him, having not seen, we love and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It's all on how you look at it. Do we look at it by faith? We don't know everything about what heaven's like, but I know it's going to be wonderful. I don't know what it's going to look like, I don't know, I don't know what it's going to feel like to be in our glorified body, but it's going to be, I can say confidently because I know my Redeemer lives, that it's going to be wonderful.

And so as David said in Psalm 139, you know the word, working on this right hand, I can't see Him, He's ever on the left, I can't see Him, I don't see Him, I don't, there's a lot of things I don't know, but He said, He said that, you know, yet He, He knew me from the womb, He's known me before I even came out of my mother's womb, and He talks about all of how God's in control of his entire life. He says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it. How does God keep up with all of us? How does God know everything that He knows? We're all so different, we're all, we're complex, you know, Sister Daras said, fearfully and wonderfully made, and Sister Donna's talking about it, she said, I think I'm a little sad, fearfully and wonderfully made is another amazing thing, that God knows all about us and cares about every aspect. It's hard enough for me to keep up with myself. There's all the millions of people that are, or His, His creatures, nothing, nothing is hidden from God, nothing is beyond His knowledge, nothing is above what He knows, and He's in control of, and He knows what's in our hearts, He knows, He knows even before we ask the questions what we're gonna ask for, but what is He looking for from us? He's not looking for us to try to figure it all out. Sometimes the more we try to get it all figured out, He mixes it up a little more just so that we will just trust Him, right? We want it, I am the type of person, I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, let's-wing-it kind of person, I don't like to think that way, and I'm not saying that God wants us to wing it, but oftentimes He'll take our, we have things lined up, and we think we know how it's going to go, He'll just scramble it and mix it up so that we'll trust in Him, doesn't He?

Well, to know the Lord, that's the aim, that's the goal, to know Him, to know His words, to let His word dwell in us richly, that is, to fear the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, right? The beginning of wisdom. Let us, let's not try to, let's not try to figure out all these things. I know some people spend their time, like I said in the Sunday school lesson this morning, trying to know things that God has not revealed to us, know what's going to happen in the future, what about this prophetic sign from the heavens, and all, there's certain things we need to know, but there's certain things that God’s just not revealed to us, and we don't need to spend our time on things that we don't know. We need to spend our time and our energy on the things that we do know, and give our energies to just trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord with all of our heart, soul, trust Him, trust Him completely, that He knows the way that I take, when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. You know, our children, to a certain degree, maybe, maybe less over time, but they, you know, a little child just implicitly trusts his parents. Well, they know where we're going, you know, as they get older, naturally, they ask more questions, they wonderfully really do what we're doing, you know, but they, they just trust. What I know, I know they're going to, they're going to feed me today, they're going to take me where I need to go, they're going, they're going to take care of these things, and God wants us to have that kind of faith, a little child, nothing is impossible with the Lord, and He knows, He knows all about it.

Let's pray, heavenly Father, as we saw with Mary, she said, be it unto me according to thy word. She did not start a debate with you, Lord, she didn't start to debate, do you really know what you're doing, are you sure about that? When she heard the word of the Lord, she trusted, she just took it, nothing is impossible, that's true, nothing is possible with the Lord. Well, let it be so in my life. As we saw the call of Abraham to come out of the land of Ur, he did not, well, he delayed along the way in Haran, but ultimately he followed the plan, the path, with interruptions along the way, he followed your leading into the land that you had promised him, and every good thing that came to his life was a result of him simply trusting and obeying your omniscience and wisdom. And we just see the wise men and how that proved to be true in their lives as well, as they followed the knowledge that you had given them, followed the light that had been given to them, they came to see how you provided, even that they didn't know ahead of time exactly how it was going to play out, they trusted you, and they found it to be true what you had promised. Oh, help us to have that same spirit of faith, knowing that you're omniscient, you know it all, and we could never even begin to scratch the surface of knowing it all, but to know the One who does, the One who knows the future, the One who knows all about us, is true victory through faith. We pray and ask that you would help us to apply these things in our lives, help us as we sing this final hymn, in Jesus' name, Amen.