Ch6 The God Who is There

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All righty, good morning, greetings, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, greetings, salutations.
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Good to see you this morning.
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I can see you a little better.
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I got my new glasses, so everybody looks very nice this morning.
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Still two of you, but you do look better.
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Anyway, good to be together this morning.
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Before we get started, let's open up with a word of prayer.
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Mr.
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Collier, if you would, open us up.
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Amen.
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All right, so just as a check, what chapter are we in? Six.
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Okay, okay, good.
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Just wanted to make sure that we were all in the same chapter.
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All right, without opening your book, what is the title of the chapter? What was the title of chapter six without opening your book? The God Who Is Unfathomably Wise.
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Very wise, very wise.
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Okay, yeah, I was going to see if there were young people here.
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I was going to ask them, but never mind.
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I'll get to that later.
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Yeah, but anyway, yeah, so the title for the chapter is God's Unfathomable Wisdom, and I wanted to kind of walk us through a couple things where we've been up to this point in a sense, and then kind of move on.
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But I hope we're at least beginning to see some things and understand some things, and I wanted to kind of ask us to think through a couple things before we get into what exactly was in that chapter, and I want to look at a bunch of scriptures this morning, and I hope that those scriptures will help us.
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But I want us to think about, as we go through this book, and really, again, the book is not the teaching as much as the scriptures, and as D.
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A.
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Carson walks through the Bible, that we begin to see that it's not just a book of unconnected strands.
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It's not just a book about events and stories, and I mean, that's what the Bible is.
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The Bible is a book.
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It just happens to be God's book.
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But I hope we're beginning to understand, as we've been trying to draw it out over the last couple of weeks, that it is really an unfolding, if you will.
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It's a continual, progressive revealing of what God would have us to know, and again, many people will look at it that way.
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They'll say, you know, the Bible's just got a bunch of stories that make no sense.
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Well, the best way for the stories to make sense is to understand them, not only in their context, but in the overall revelation of God.
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And again, that's when things begin to fall into place.
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I know we've talked about this for many different reasons, but, and we've used this example many times, but it's like a tapestry, right? And if you, you know how you do the needlepoint kind of stuff, and I know my girls used to do that, I never did it personally, but I just want you to know that.
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But you know how you stick the needle in there, and you pull the thread, and it's got, if you look at it from one side, it's what? It's a mess, right? Because all it is, is a bunch of strings.
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It's not until you turn that tapestry over that you see what it, all those strings bring to pass.
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And so when you think about that, you think about the Bible, and you think about how D.A.
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Carson is taking us, and how Brother Mike and I have been trying to show us that that's the way it is.
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And again, as long as we understand that we're, as we go through the book, and as we go through the scriptures, there's this continual revelation that God is giving us, and that again, all those stories and all those events are connected in some way, and ultimately in that day, I say in that day when we're with the Lord, that tapestry will be absolutely beyond our imagination.
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And again, a lot of it still seems like strands.
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So when you think about that, I hope we're beginning to see that.
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I also hope that we're beginning to recognize that the Bible is not just a book about what God did long ago.
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And some people think about that, right? People will say, well, you know, the Bible is, it's a book that was written, or it's a book about things that happened thousands of years ago, and it really has no relevance to us today.
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How would you answer that, by the way? So if somebody said that to you, you're talking with somebody, friend, relative, stranger, whatever it is, and you get into this conversation about the Bible, and they say that to you, what would be your answer? How would you begin to bring them into an understanding if they said something like that? Well, you know, the Bible is just a bunch of stories about things that happened thousands of years ago.
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That's what I thought you would say.
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Right, right.
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And again, I hope that we're beginning to see one of the ways to work with someone like that is to take this thought and carry them through and tell them, well, you see, you got to understand the Bible as it's revealed to us by God, and that it has a progressive understanding and unfolding.
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And really, if you just try to jump in somewhere along the line, unless you really understand what took place before, it's really going to be hard for you to understand what's taking place now.
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So again, the Bible is not merely a book about what God did long ago, and the Bible is not really just about the Jews.
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And a lot of people will say that.
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People say things like that.
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They'll say, well, you know, the Bible is just a story about God and the Jews.
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And although God uses the Jews and the nation of Israel in a very, in a sense, strategic way and in a very profound way, yet would you say that all the Bible is about is about the Jews? Would that be accurate to say something like that? Okay.
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All right.
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And again, the Jews play a prominent place, right, as we've seen, but ultimately, the working of, let me pose it as a question.
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Would you agree if I said that God used the Jews in a sense as his mouthpiece to reveal himself and his purposes? Would you say that that's, would you want to throw stones at me if I said that? I mean, you might want to throw stones at me anyway.
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But true, God used the Jews, right, to carry out and to manifest his working.
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And in that sense, they were his special people, but they are not exclusively his special people.
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Certainly as we come into, as you come along and get to, and that's where a lot of people miss it, right? If you come along to the cross, certainly the prominence of the Jews takes on a whole different reality, right? Because the church is what? Jew, Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, free, slave, encompasses all.
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So again, just to get us to think about it, and I hope we're beginning to understand it, that we can explain things not only on a pinpoint level, like if somebody asks us a specific question, but we should be able to start to get a framework of understanding, hopefully as we go through this book, that it's a total revelation of God and not merely just picking points out and working through that.
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So, and here's something I want us to, hopefully that we can begin to understand as we go through the book and as we read the scriptures in general, that the Bible not only reveals what God does, but really who God is.
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In other words, as we work through the God who is there, and we just think about it, we've talked about the God who made everything, that was the first chapter, and then the God who wipes out rebels, who doesn't wipe out rebels, and then the God who writes agreements, and then the God of legislature, last week we looked at the God who reigns, we begin to understand that the Bible not only is a revelation of what God did in history, but who God is.
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And I think we miss a lot if we do not hold those two things together, that God, and the title of the chapter for today is God's unfathomable wisdom, or God is unfathomably wise, that you and I should appreciate that and praise him that that he has revealed not only himself, but his purposes in the things that take place.
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And really that is the work of infinite wisdom, to do something like that.
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So again, Bible's not only about what God does, but who God is.
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And those things are in union, wouldn't you agree? Because God doesn't do anything that's against his character, right? So what God does and who God is, they work together, right? As God works his purposes out.
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And then I hope we understand, we're beginning to understand that the Bible is also a revelation by this infinitely wise God to reveal man.
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In other words, as we begin to see through, as we go through these chapters, as you go through the Bible, you start to read the different things that take place, we begin to not only understand what man does, but who man is.
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And if you start to think about it in chapter one, the God who made everything and in the garden, we found out who man was in Adam, right? Because Adam rebelled against God.
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And then we move forward and you think about it.
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And then we talked about Abraham and him as a man and how God worked with him and how Abraham needless to say, and I'm sure you would agree with me, Abraham had issues.
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He was a godly man.
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He believed in God and accounted for righteousness sake, but Abraham was full of issues.
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And then we we move on and then we came to Mount Sinai, right? And certainly there's issues there.
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So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Bible is this revelation of God, it's unfolding and giving us strands of thought for ourselves.
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And those strands are important because those are the things that hold the whole Bible together.
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So we learned about who God is, what God does.
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We learned about who man is, and what man does.
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And certainly, I guess the best way to say this is what the scriptures say.
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It says man is born for trouble.
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What's the other half? Anybody know that verse? Sparks fly upward.
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Man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward.
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And that is absolutely true.
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And that's the other part of God's absolute wisdom.
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Let me ask a question.
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And I just thought of it.
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So I'm not even sure I got the answer yet.
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Did God create the world? I'm trying to think how I want to word this.
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When God created the heavens and earth and God created everything, and God said it was good.
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Would you agree that as I just said to you that man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward? That the reason why the sparks fly upward is to teach us about man being born for trouble? Or am I just somewhere where I shouldn't be right now? In other words, what I think about a lot is this infinitely wise God set these things in order.
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And in setting them in order, it teaches us not only about him, but about ourselves.
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Because if the sparks fly downward, it wouldn't represent the same thing, would it? Man is born for trouble.
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And why do those two things relate, by the way? Man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward.
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Anybody know? Anybody think about it? Sparks don't fly down.
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That's right.
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It's natural, right? It's the natural flow.
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And that's what I always think about how God has created these things in the universe, in the heavens, and in the earth, and in the events, and everything takes place.
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And how those things are such a teaching tool.
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And yet, for most people, if you ask them about sparks flying upward, they say, yeah, dude, what do you expect? They're not going to go down, dummy.
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Right? Yeah.
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Then you better have the shield and everything else.
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But you get my point.
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So the Bible, and this infinitely wise God has so ordered everything.
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And again, I say, brothers and sisters, that we really don't appreciate as much as we ought to appreciate about God, and the Bible, and his revelation, and those things that pertain to us.
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So I hope we're beginning to see that.
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So that leads me into want to look about what we did in chapter five, or what D.
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A.
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Carson took out of chapter five to present to us.
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And here's an interesting thing.
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If you read the chapter, what we've been looking at so far is, again, this progressive movement.
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Right? We started in the garden.
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And it's been kind of moving us this way.
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And we made some stops along the way.
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We made the stop.
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We didn't talk about Noah.
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But there's a stop with Noah.
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There's a stop with Abraham.
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And then we get to Sinai.
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But as you begin to look at chapter six, it almost appeared to me that D.
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A.
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Carson takes a break, in a sense, from talking about the unfolding of history.
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And to me, he moves into a discussion, and I think a real good discussion, about not so much history, but about the different makeup of the books of the Bible.
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Remember what he was talking about? What was his thought about the books? He wanted to speak about the books of wisdom, the poetry books, which would be what? Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.
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Certainly, the Psalms have a lot of different things in it.
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Now, that doesn't mean that there's no doctrine.
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There's no historical accounts.
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Certainly, there is.
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But if you think about what Carson is presenting us in this chapter, is how God, in his wisdom, has given us books to help us along the way.
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And I say that in a very reverent way.
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Not a help book like the world would give us, where it says, if you do this, you'll get that, or things like that.
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But how God, in his wisdom, has given us things to aid us as we travel through.
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And again, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.
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And I'm going to look at some scriptures this morning in those books.
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But let me ask you this.
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If you're sad, how many of you would read the book of Leviticus, besides maybe Brother Collier? I mean, really, think about it.
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If you're sad, you're going to open up to Leviticus and start reading through the sacrificial system? Now, you might, but you're not really going to.
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It's not, it's not, it could very well help you, so don't misunderstand me.
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The word of God is the word of God, and it's able to build us up.
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But certainly, if you're sad, you would want to read something that would seek to, what, bring comfort, right? If we're experiencing things in our life, God, in his wisdom, has given us those very books, or those very messages, or those very letters from him to help us in our experience.
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I mean, if you're sick, if you're broken, if you're hurt, I don't necessarily think that I would go read First Chronicles.
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I just don't know if I could bear up with all those genealogies.
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I can't even read them when I want to read them.
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I mean, be honest now, how many times do you dip into the genealogies in First Chronicles? That's what I thought, right? We usually read the first four or five, and then we say, yeah, I got it.
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Unless we're looking for something very specific.
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Again, God in his absolute wisdom, and as D.A.
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Carson lays out, has put together his revelation, and some of his revelation is to help us in what I would say every experience of life.
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Because if you think about it, there is not a single experience that we have, could have, that God hasn't given us instruction about.
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So when people say the Bible is, the Bible's not really relevant, the Bible's, it's just an old book, it had maybe some meaning or something, whatever people want to, one of the reasons why they do that, friends, is because they don't know what's in it.
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They don't see the wisdom of it.
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Again, you know, people are sad, they go ask Dr.
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Phil, and Dr.
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Phil ain't going to get it, neither is Oprah.
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But God has been so, God in his wisdom has been so kind to us to give us these books.
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And I think one of the reasons is, and I thought about this verse in Psalm 103, and I was just going to mention it to you.
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It says that God knows our frame, and he remembers that we are dust.
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Isn't that great? That our God is so wise that he knows that we are changeable, movable, most of us.
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Again, I'm going to pose it as a question.
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How many of us would say we're driven more by our minds than by our affections or our emotions? How many of us would say that we are more directed in our life by our intellect versus our emotions? Anybody? Think we're more driven by our emotions? I think that it has a very, it has a very strong, if you will, magnetic pull on us.
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Now hopefully we begin to line up those things, right? Hopefully we begin to line up and bring our every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
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But at the same time, I would suggest that most of us many times respond more by emotion.
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And how many times have you done that? We say something, we do something, we don't do something, and then later on, when what? When the fire dies down or the emotions settle, we say, man, why did I do that? Or why didn't I do that? Or why didn't I say this? Or why didn't I fix it this way or that way? And again, if you think about it, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, they are so greatly filled with wisdom.
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And I don't just mean this kind of wisdom.
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I mean wisdom for the whole man.
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And only the God who made us could be the one who could give us true wisdom.
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And again, that's what the world's missing out on, if you think about it.
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And the world runs here, and the world runs there, and the world tries to get wisdom in every other place, and yet God gives it to us in his word in so many different ways.
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It covers every experience, if you think about it.
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We don't have to read that right now.
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But if you think about Ecclesiastes chapter three, there's a what? There's a time for love, there's a time for hate, there's a time for war, there's a time for peace, there's a time for this, a time for that.
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There's a time for everything under the sun, right? Now, is that not a gift of this infinitely wise God to explain to us that that there is times for all these different things, and that we can go to his word, because it is his word, and find wisdom for those times of war, and those times of peace, and those times of love, and those times of hate.
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There's times to gather bread, there's times to cast away stones, all the different things.
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And so God is so good to us.
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All right, I wanted to ask us to look at some scriptures, because again, that's the focus this morning.
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God, in his infinite wisdom, gives us wisdom, and I would say very often we neglect the very wisdom that the only wise God gives, and we neglect it to our own hurt.
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And I wanted to ask you to think about this.
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So just turn to Proverbs chapter eight a minute.
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Proverbs chapter eight.
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We could spend a lot of time on Proverbs chapter eight, but for this morning, I just want us to think about how God is so wise and gives us wisdom that is meant to help and not hurt.
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Look at it, Proverbs chapter eight, verse one.
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Does not wisdom cry out in understanding lift up a voice and she takes to stand at the top of the high hill beside the way where the the paths meet and she cries out by the gates at the entrance of the city at the entrance of the doors to you oh men I call and my voice is to the sons of men oh you simple ones understand prudence you fools be of an understanding heart listen for I will speak of excellent things and from the opening of my lips will come right things from my mouth will speak truth and wickedness is an abomination to my lips and all the words of my mouth are with righteousness nothing crooked or perverse is in them they're all plain to him who understands and right to those who find knowledge receive my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than choice goal for wisdom is better than rubies and all the things one may desire cannot be compared with and you could read this whole chapter and you could find the father you could find the son you could find the spirit here my point is and that's what I was going to ask the young kids I was going to ask anybody under 18 to raise their hand and if I ask that question in this class ain't nobody gonna raise their hand but I was going to ask the young kids the younger people to think about that and here's here's where so many people go wrong we all want to counsel young people I think there's this desire as we get older to want to give good counsel versus bad counsel but a lot of people all they have is bad counsel but if we had to suggest to young people where to find real wisdom would we why would we not go to where god has given us true wisdom infinite wisdom so so we should direct younger people to to make full opportunity to gather in true wisdom because there's a lot of junk out there wouldn't you agree there is there is stuff that people put out I mean I gotta say this amazes me it amazes me that people can make so much money giving out so much garbage honestly huh I know it's true I mean you got people that uh we were talking the other day and I don't know how we got on at me candy and she was telling me about influences I have never heard that does anybody know what an influencer is what is it sister it's someone that has to do with the internet right that talks about it because they have a lot of following thousands of follow people are following and they influence other people to buy a certain product or think a way yeah and these people are filthy rich and it's amazing to me how these people have such exposure and how many people are willing to pay these people some of them don't even look like they got hair on their face honestly and yet they're supposed to be they're the influences of the younger people come on yeah but I'm just saying it's so much of greater value to go where God says I I am wisdom and and and that's what it says I wisdom verse 12 I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge and discretion in the fear of the lord is to hate evil like I said you can read this whole chapter but this is one of the the books that God gives us right not just pithy sayings or phrases or catch catch terms but rather it's wisdom and again if you think you got all the wisdom well you got some big problems right because none of us have the wisdom that we really need so so there's one example of it how God uh is infinitely wise and and I won't say it this way maybe you would agree or not God shares that wisdom with us he he openly displays it to us and certainly wisdom is to be taken and used for God's glory so think about how NDA Carson brings up the psalms and how God has given us the psalms and I will say this I love the psalms and I guess part of it is I'm a very um I'm a very emotional person um in many different ways and my experiences really work in me right and I think that one of the reasons why I enjoy the psalms because there isn't an experience that hasn't been given to us in psalms every possible experience ups downs ins outs all kinds of things of of real life experience are given to us in the psalms and God in his wisdom has given to them to us to help us through those very experiences in and in the psalms think about it that the psalms teach us how to pray psalms teach us how to trust the psalms teach us how to wait uh the psalm teaches us how to deal with enemies the psalms teach us how to deal with events and actions um one of the greatest psalms is psalm 73 about the prosperity of the wicked I'll tell you what there's a lot of wisdom in psalm 73 to be had and there's a lot of comfort and and and think about the makeup of the psalms many of the psalms are songs many of the songs the psalms are just uh you know praises to God and yet they're full of experience and wisdom and again I say to you God is so infinitely wise and and we ought to tap in through Christ by the power of the spirit into God's wisdom ultimately Christ is the wisdom of God and we all hopefully understand that so so just think about it here's here's something to think about um and and D.A.