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 8. It says, By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing whither he went. And then let's also look in Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1, verse 34. Luke 1, 34, 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 2. Matthew chapter 2. Verse number 1. 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? For 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 had not seen 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. 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's 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 read, 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's 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, there was a 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, 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 than 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? Here recently, not all of them, but there's been some, you know, 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, you know, 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, you know? 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 could spend your whole life studying one thing. I think I heard someone say not long ago that maybe it was the program, 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, 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, but I'm just saying, you could spend your whole life learning more about, I'm talking about, you know, 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 didn't, he'd never been there before, but he trusted God.

Mary, Mary wasn't asking God, how shall this be? Or she wasn't asking the angel, how shall this be in a spiritual way. How shall this be in a spirit of, I 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, 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 of 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, God knows how it's gonna happen and God's gonna make it happen. That's all you need to know. 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 were teaching the girls about sin. Sin is black and God's righteousness is white. 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 notice 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 stuff, 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 knowledge 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 worshiped 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, in 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 provide 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 that we know to be wrong. It would be wrong, as it 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 God. 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 has shown us to do it at some point in time.

But faith must rest in the omniscience and the omnipotence of God. 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 doesn't. I'm sure her husband doesn't understand 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. 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. It's there that we read, 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. 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 at this time, you know, it changed my whole trajectory. I would have been over here somewhere in left field and God redirected me. It seemed odd, strange at the time, but looking back over it, 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 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? In 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 He? He'd 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 he was an old man, 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, that's a man of true knowledge, isn't it? 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 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 I'm, there's more for, there's more to know. I've just scratched the surface of all there is to know. It's not a, it's, it's not a, you know, we used to go to Croton House and we see some of those big old hats that come in there on Sundays. It, 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 now. I just know a little bit. Knowledge tends to puff up, doesn't it? But God knows, His, His knowledge is past finding out.

The wicked do not trust in God's omniscience. The wicked do not trust. 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 God and He won't see what I'm doing. I can go over here and do this thing and hide it somehow. Well, seeing now that we have so many cameras in our world, right? We have so many cameras that 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 even beyond the actions, right down into the very thoughts and intents of our hearts, doesn't He? He knows it all. He, He sees every bit of it. Well, Acts 15, 18 says, known unto God, 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, His understanding is infinite. His understanding is infinite. It's unlimited. There's no limit to His understanding.

Well, we read in 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, 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, 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, when someone, you can tell they're having a down day, you know, the, the, what is it, the countenance of a man is, sharpens his friend, or I, I can't remember the exact words, but how, how one person's spirit and countenance can, can sharpen another and 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 was such an encouragement. And as we, as we are encouraged, we need to go ahead and share it. Don't let it, don't let it, you know, Peter out in our own lives. But, but as we share, you know, we talk about money, don't we? We say you can't out give the Lord. Well, we can't, we can't out give the Lord with, 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, 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 from 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, 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, three, 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, oops, 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. They're higher than our ways as the, as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are, so are my ways higher than your ways. He says, um, he, he sees it all. We said the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Um, but God's people throughout time have always had this, you know, look at Thomas, reach into thy hand, touch, touch me, thrust your hand to my side, and then you'll know it is me. But blessed are those that have not seen yet have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet they, they have believed.

I was talking to a brother, and he said, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, I was talking to a brother this week who was saying, Hebrews chapter 12, he talks about we're coming to a, um, let me, let me read that verse for you. Hebrews chapter 12, verse number 24, I believe it is an innumerable company of angels. The church of the first born, I believe it says there in, in Hebrews chapter 12, verse number 20, let's go back to verse number 22, which you're coming to Mount Sion, unto Mount Sinai 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.

Well, we're come by faith to this. We're not at Mount Sinai anymore. We're come to Mount Sinai, 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, the list continues, and, and, and, 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 on 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, I've not, 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, right? We're to come boldly, and, 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, 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? It's 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 a 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 up 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 can be touched. And yet, we haven't touched it. Blessed are you. Blessed are 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 him. 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 appearance? 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 in 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 what it's going to feel like to be in a 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 Lord working on this right hand, I can't see him. He's over 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 knew me from the womb. He's known me. 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, Doris said, fearfully and wonderfully made. Sister Donna's talking about that. She said, I think I'm a little more on the fearfully side. Fearfully and wonderfully made. Isn't that amazing? That, that God knows all about us and cares about every aspect. It's, it's, it's hard enough for me to keep up with myself. They say all the billions of people that are, are 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, he knows what's in our hearts. He knows, he knows even before we ask the questions, what, what we're going to ask for.

But, but we, 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, he mixes it up a little more just so that we will just trust him, right? We, we want it. I, I am the type of person, I'm not a fly by the seat of the 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 just wing it. But oftentimes he'll take our, when 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 one, doesn't he?

Well, to know the Lord, that's, that's the aim. That's the goal. To know him, to know his word, to let his word dwell in us richly. That is to fear the Lord. It's 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, some people spend their time, like I said in the Sunday school lesson this morning, trying to know, know things that God has not revealed to us. No, what, what's going to happen in the future? What, what about this prophetic sign from the heavens and all? There's certain things we need to know, but there's certain things that, 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, to, to just, trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord with, with all of our heart, soul, trust him, trust him completely that he knows the way that, that I take when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as, as gold.

You know, our, our children to a certain degree, maybe, maybe less so over time, but they, you know, a little child just implicitly trusts his parents. Well, they know where we're going, you know, as, as they get older, naturally they, they ask more questions. They wonder if we really do know what we're doing, you know, but, but they, they just trust. 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 of 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 just start a debate. Do you really know what you're doing? Are you sure about that? When she heard the word of the Lord, she just took it. Nothing is impossible. That's true. Nothing is possible with the Lord. Well, let it be, let it be so in my life.

As we saw the, the call of Abram to come out of the land of Ur, he did not, well, he delayed along the way and in Haran, but ultimately he followed the plan, the path with interruptions along the way. He followed the plan. He followed your, 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 though 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 or, what you had promised and what you had promised to them. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. 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.