[0:00] Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 131. Psalm 131. Psalm 131.
[0:39] Psalm 131.
[1:09] Psalm 131. We have so much to be thankful for this morning. First and foremost, that we have this incredible privilege of calling you our God.
[1:23] And that's all due to your amazing grace. Not because of any good that we have done. Help us, we beg you, to walk worthy.
[1:38] Help us, we beg you, to bring you worship this morning that is worthy of your great and holy name. We want to pray for David and Nicky Vaughan and their ministry in France.
[1:52] We would especially pray that you would heal David's heart condition. Have you not used this couple to do so much for the cause of Christ?
[2:05] Thank you for encouraging them with many visitors. Thank you for these five unchurched people who are attending their evangelistic Bible study.
[2:19] Oh, come with power and make them willing subjects of our great king. We also bless you for the way that your amazing grace is saving the gypsies in France.
[2:36] And we pray for their two elders, Michael and Joseph. Help them in their studies that they would be able to rightly divide your words of truth.
[2:51] And as you have blessed the church where David ministers, you know their need for a bigger place to rent.
[3:03] But they also want it to be less expensive. That seems impossible in this time of inflation.
[3:14] But you are the God of the impossible. And so we beg that as they have grown, you would provide them a place that they can afford to rent that would be big enough that many would hear of the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[3:33] Now make your word to burn in our hearts. Give us undivided hearts that we may love you wholeheartedly as you deserve to be loved.
[3:48] We ask for Jesus' sake and for his glory. Amen. Amen. Amen. Why did this bad thing happen to me or to my loved one?
[4:07] How long is this present trial going to last? What will the result of it be? What's going to happen to me in 2023 or to my spouse or my children or grandchildren?
[4:24] What's going to happen to the United States of America? To Grace Fellowship Church? Whom has God chosen to save? Why does evil seem to have the upper hand?
[4:39] And wrong seems so strong. When is Jesus coming back? Ever ask any of these questions? If so, you're not alone.
[4:50] Indeed, godly men like Job and David and Asaph and indeed most of the prophets asked similar questions. But in our text today, God has something to say to us about such questions.
[5:05] Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 29. Deuteronomy 29. This is the fifth book of the Bible.
[5:24] Moses and the Israelites are encamped right on the porch of the promised land. All that stands between them and Canaan is the Jordan River. Now Israel was here before, about 40 years earlier, right after they were freed from Egyptian bondage.
[5:42] But after hearing the report of the men who spied out the land, you remember how they refused to go in and to take the promised land that the Lord their God was giving them.
[5:57] And rather than trusting and obeying God, they rebelled against Him. So he sent them back to the wilderness for another 40 years until that whole generation of Israelites from age 20 and up were buried in desert graves.
[6:15] So here is this next generation of Israelites on the verge of entering the promised land. But before they crossed the Jordan into their inheritance, Moses rehearses the law of their God.
[6:30] With the warnings about the false religions in that land and then the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience that are part of that covenant God made with them.
[6:43] And so the name Deuteronomy means second law. That could be misleading because it wasn't another law, a different law. It was the same law that God spoke at Mount Sinai to that earlier generation.
[6:59] But now that same law is being given to this new generation of Israelites. And calling them not to be unfaithful like their fathers, but to wholeheartedly obey the words of the Lord their King.
[7:16] So having spoken of the blessings for obedience to the covenant, the curses for disobedience, we now come to our text. Just one verse this morning, Deuteronomy 29 and verse 29.
[7:30] It simply says, The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
[7:42] According to this text, there are two kinds of knowledge. There are secret things and there are revealed things. Before we come to that, a little background theology is important.
[7:56] Knowledge about God that we need to keep in mind. And it's this, that God is the only omniscient being. Only He knows everything about everything.
[8:11] He knows everything that's happened in the past, is happening now, and will happen in the future. Indeed, with Him, the future is as clear as the past because He has decreed it all.
[8:25] And He's working everything out in conformity with the purpose of that decreed will. Ephesians 1.11 So God knows every star in the sky by name.
[8:36] He knows every bird in the forest, every leaf that falls, every hair on your head. He not only knows everything people have done, but why they've done it. The very thoughts and the motives of the heart.
[8:51] He knows my words before I speak them. He knows my thoughts before I think them. He knows my deeds before I do them. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, the psalmist said.
[9:05] In Hebrews 4.13, God's omniscience is stated first negatively and then positively. First negatively, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.
[9:19] Positively, everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. So this is background information to Deuteronomy 29.29.
[9:33] He knows everything. Yes, even the answer to all those questions that we ask about why this and why that happens. What will be in the future?
[9:46] But according to our text, God's full knowledge of all things falls into two categories. The secret things and the revealed things.
[10:02] The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever. So just those two points this morning. First of all, the secret things belong to the Lord our God.
[10:16] Kids, you know what a secret is. It's information you hide from others. You keep it to yourself.
[10:27] And this text is telling us that God has His secrets. Things that He knows, but that He has kept hidden from us.
[10:38] We may not like that, but Proverbs 25.2 tells us plainly, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, to hide a matter.
[10:50] To search out a matter is the glory of kings. So kings and presidents and rulers of nations, they all have their secrets. They have access to top secret information that's denied to many others in the nation.
[11:07] You may even know someone who works for the government and ask them, what do you do on your job? And they tell you, I'd have to kill you if I told you. That's top secret.
[11:19] That's not information. You are allowed to know secret things. Every king and president and ruler has them.
[11:33] Well, God is the great king of heaven and earth. And it is to His glory to conceal a matter. It's to His honor and praise to keep things secret.
[11:47] That's part of the glory that is rightfully His as the king, the great king. Now, these secret things, notice, belong to the Lord.
[12:02] They're His possession, not ours. They're His by right. And if you try to pry into His secret things, He will say, mind your own business.
[12:14] That's my business, not yours. Not for you to know. Not now. As the apostle Paul contemplated the wisdom and knowledge of God in His ways and works throughout history, he just shakes his head and cries out, oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
[12:39] How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. Some of the knowledge of God is just downright unsearchable by men.
[12:51] Out of reach to our minds. You could give a million lifetimes to studying and thinking and never find it.
[13:02] Some of His paths are beyond the reach of man's mind, beyond finding out. They're secrets that God keeps to Himself. Why He loved me and chose me, quickened me to life when dead in sin.
[13:19] I don't know why. But, oh, I'm glad that He did. There's so much about life. We simply don't know why God did this, why He's doing that.
[13:32] What's going to happen to me in this event? We're going to close with a song, Lord willing, that says, When my dim reason would demand why this or that thou dost ordain, by some vast deep I seem to stand, whose secrets I must ask in vain.
[13:55] We can try to pry into God's secret things, but it's all in vain. It's all worthless. For He's not sharing that information. So all we get for our efforts is a tormented mind.
[14:12] Round and round we go, replaying it in our minds. Why this? Why that? If only that. What's next? It's unsearchable. It's beyond finding out.
[14:23] It's a futile effort. It's wasted energy that leaves us worse off than when we started. But it's not only futile, it's also wicked.
[14:34] It's not letting God be God. It's not letting Him have the glory of having His secrets.
[14:44] And it's also proud, as if we had a right to know what only God knows. Wanting Him to scoot over and make room for us, demanding that we know why and what.
[14:59] And why do we want to see if we approve of what He's planned, of what He's decreed, forgetting that He's the potter and I'm the clay.
[15:13] So it's no small part of our wisdom and humility to leave God's secret things to Him to whom they belong. And instead, to lay hold with all of our hearts the revealed things that belong to us.
[15:29] Now we had Psalm 131 read for us. Turn over there. If you'd like to keep your place here, we're coming back. But in Psalm 131, we find David weighing in on this matter.
[15:47] And in verse 1, David says, My heart is not proud.
[16:01] O Lord, my eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. It's proud haughtiness that he's talking about.
[16:16] That's what describes us when we try to pry into God's secrets. Those things that are too wonderful for us. Things we're not to concern ourselves with, but to leave them to the Lord.
[16:32] And it appears that David had to learn this humility the same way we do. The hard way and probably more than once that he too had tried to pry into some of God's secrets.
[16:48] Some of these things that are too wonderful for him. There was so much for David that was difficult in life that he couldn't understand. And that he would want to know why.
[17:02] And how long. And what will the future be for me? Perhaps, Lord, how long will I be pursued by Saul and his army?
[17:13] I think it was somewhere between 10 and 12 years. These were the prime years of his life. When will this finally come to an end?
[17:24] When will I finally be seated upon the throne for which Samuel had poured the anointing oil on me years ago? When will the lies about me cease?
[17:34] When will God remove King Saul? And you see, as long as David was concerning himself with these unanswerable questions, refusing to let God be God and demanding to know his secrets, his heart was like a stormy sea, all upset and disquieted within him.
[17:54] Indeed, in verse 2, he says, I was like a young baby when his mother was weaning him, but who was not having anything of it. Ever seen a baby?
[18:06] Doesn't think it's yet time to be weaned from nursing at his mother's breast. He's unhappy. And he's going to make mother unhappy and everyone else in the house unhappy.
[18:17] He's angry. He's agitated. He's upset. He's crying hysterically. So who knows best when it's time to wean the baby?
[18:29] Mother or the baby? Well, mother does. And the sooner baby lets mom be mom and submits his desires and demands to her wisdom and loving care, the sooner he'll be happy and content.
[18:45] And that's what David had learned to do. He tells us in verse 2, but I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
[18:59] So the child is finally weaned here, no longer screaming and kicking to have its way, but sitting still, calm and quiet on his mother's lap, content and happy in her love.
[19:15] And David's confessing that his soul was anything but still and quiet. He had to take it in hand himself. He had to grab hold of his soul by the scruff of its neck and say, be still my soul, hush, quiet down, leave the secret things to God.
[19:35] Great matters that are too wonderful for you to know. And so he says, I have stilled and have quieted my unruly soul.
[19:47] And then he urges us to do the same in the last verse. Oh Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forevermore. You ever been troubling yourself?
[20:01] Like a baby fighting the weaning process, fighting about what God has ordained for you, demanding your way, demanding to know God's secret decrees of when and why and how, or even thinking you know better, for David says, this is pride, this is haughtiness, this is arrogance.
[20:20] Do you know in those moments how to still and quiet your soul? Well, it begins by submitting your will to God's.
[20:32] Being content to let God be God. Content not to have your way. Content not to know his secret things, but happy enough to know his revealed things.
[20:44] And that brings us to the second point of our text. Deuteronomy 29, 29. Yes, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
[21:03] So, though God has not told us everything we want to know, he has told us everything we need to know. These are the revealed things in his word, in the Bible, the revealed things.
[21:20] The amazing thing is not that God has secret things that he has kept hidden from us. No, the real amazing thing is how much God has revealed to us.
[21:33] How many things he has uncovered and laid bare and shown us, things that we otherwise would not know had he not revealed them.
[21:45] Invisible things of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, heaven, hell, angels, demons, all these invisible things, things that concern our everlasting happiness.
[21:58] Oh, how many are the revealed things that he's given to us. I'm sure that one of the things that will amaze us when we get to heaven is how much we took our Bibles for granted in this life.
[22:19] How much we took for granted that in this book, God is speaking to us, telling us his very thoughts, speaking words to us that we can understand.
[22:34] This eternal God who's from everlasting to everlasting. He's talked to us. He's revealed things to us.
[22:47] This is a supernatural book. It's a rich treasure, more valuable than gold, than much fine gold. Consider this. At the time of our text in Deuteronomy 29, 29, the revealed things were the first five books of the Bible.
[23:15] That was their Bible. That was the revealed things. How would you like for that to be your Bible? Just those first five books. Well, it was enough for them.
[23:30] It was enough for them to think of our riches to not just have five books, but a completed Bible.
[23:42] 66 books of revealed things. Things revealed. Things revealed. Things revealed. Things that God wants you and me to know.
[23:57] Well, what are some of these revealed things that you and I have in our Bibles? I can just be, give you a few highlights. One of the things that's revealed is the origin of the world.
[24:10] Everybody's wondering, how did we get here? Where did it all come from? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. First verse.
[24:22] Oh, we know where we came from. And we keep reading and we see that we were made in God's very image. And He made us dependent upon Him for everything.
[24:37] How do we know this? Because God was there. He was the only one there. And He has revealed it to us. The world in unbelief would rather believe anything but that.
[24:53] What are the revealed things? Well, what went wrong is revealed. Everybody seems to know that something's wrong, terribly wrong with our world.
[25:07] Men are left to their guesses. But the Bible reveals that we rebelled against God. And we no longer depended on Him but declared our own independence and went our own way, not His way.
[25:22] And because of our sin, He has cursed both man and His planet. And that's why there's disease and death and evil that abounds in the world.
[25:32] Hence, the whole human race was plunged under the wrath of God. Now separated from God without God and without hope and heading for eternal punishments in hell for sin.
[25:47] What does the Bible reveal? What's some of the revealed things? Well, the one way to be made right with this God that God in love sent His one and only Son into the world who became a man took on our humanity that as one born under the law, He might obey the law perfectly and then lay down His life as an atoning sacrifice for sin, suffering the punishment of God's infinite wrath upon Him.
[26:22] And all who repent of their sins and repudiate their own way and submit themselves to God and His way of salvation in the Savior, repenting, believing on Christ alone.
[26:41] They're forgiven and made right with God, declared righteous in His sight, and they possess eternal life. That's what's revealed. One of the revealed things.
[26:53] Fourthly, it's revealed how this present age of history is going to end. Well, again, the world has all their theories of how the world as we know it is going to end, but it's revealed that Jesus Christ is going to return one day in His glorified body and all of His angels and all of the saints that have gone ahead with Him and He's coming to judge the world in righteousness and to crush His enemies and then call all who have ever lived to a final judgment where one of two eternal destinies will be meted out.
[27:33] Eternal pleasures at God's right hand for all who repented and trusted in Christ and eternal punishments in hell for all who did not repent and trust in Christ alone.
[27:46] Aren't you glad that God didn't keep that secret to Himself? But that He's revealed to us. Now, while there's yet time to repent and trust in Christ and to flee the coming wrath, well, these revealed things tell us that all of life here is preparation for eternity.
[28:09] That what you sow here in time, you're going to reap there in eternity. Galatians 6, don't be deceived. God cannot be mocked.
[28:21] A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature from that sinful nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit from the Spirit will reap everlasting life.
[28:36] We reap what we sow and that's why Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and lay up treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves cannot break through and steal.
[28:56] And so while the world lives for the passing trinkets of time, God's people are living for the eternal because it's revealed to us.
[29:10] The revealed things, sixthly, revealed that these things that are revealed enable us to grow in grace and in Christ-like character because the Bible reveals Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[29:25] and it's in beholding Him in the Scriptures with unveiled faces, no longer with the veil hanging over our heads so that we see no glory in Jesus.
[29:37] Or as Spurgeon said, the light was bright as I grew up but I was blind. Now our eyes are open and we see glory in Jesus and as we see Him in the revealed things, we are being transformed into His likeness from one stage of glory to another which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
[30:00] And so revealed things are the food of faith, the food of hope, the food of love and every other Christ-like virtue. Revealed things hold before our eyes the object of our faith, the object of our hope and of our love, the triune God.
[30:16] And so as we behold Him in the revealed things, the Holy Spirit is pleased to change us into His likeness. And then revealed things teach us how to live so as to please God, so as to glorify Him.
[30:34] And of course, this is why we were created. Therefore, when we live that way, joy is the result. We are living the way we were meant to live, the way we were created to live.
[30:46] So it's our wisdom to find out what pleases the Lord. Where shall I go to find out? Well, we go to the revealed things.
[30:58] This is the way. Walk in it. This is the narrow road that leads to life. The commands of God, the law of God, the gospel of God, sets forth the way for us to please God and glorify Him.
[31:21] This is the highway of holiness, paths of righteousness in which He leads us for His namesake. So these are just some of the revealed things.
[31:33] Hundreds more could be stated. Things that are so valuable for us to know for, yes, our joy here in this life, but also for our everlasting salvation.
[31:47] Thankful that God did not keep them secret. I want you to go home not wondering why God has His secrets, but going home wondering at all that He's revealed for us to know.
[32:03] So, let me begin to apply these things more closely from our text. The secret things belong to the Lord our God.
[32:15] The things revealed belong to us and our children forever that we may follow all the words of this law. Notice the revealed things belong to us. They're ours. Ours because the Lord has given them to us.
[32:29] Ours because He has revealed them. So, question number one. What are you doing with all 66 books of the revealed things?
[32:43] Have you ever read it all? All of it? Make that a goal for this coming year. Whether you get through it or not in this year is no concern of mine, but start to read through all that God has revealed.
[33:05] And especially those parts that you've never read before. I'm not saying just start in Genesis and plow right through. No, you need to mix it up. Keep your nose in the Gospels.
[33:17] Keep your nose in the Epistles, but keep whittling away at the prophets and the history books and the poetry books in the Old Testament until you can say, I have read those things that belong to me.
[33:35] The things that God has revealed. You know, God would not have gone to the trouble of revealing these things and giving them to you if they were not needful, if they were not profitable to you.
[33:48] The Scriptures tell us that all Scripture is God-breathed and it is profitable. It is useful for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work, anything that life throws at you, anything God's providence traces upon your dial.
[34:11] You will be thoroughly equipped with the revealed things. We heard in Sunday school recently the end to which God would go to get this book into our hands in English.
[34:28] There were lives that were lost. Would God have sacrificed lives that we might have a Bible to lay on the coffee table until next Sunday and grab it on the way out the door to church and then put it back there?
[34:44] No, no. He revealed these things that we might read them, that we might meditate on them day and night like that blessed man in Psalm 1.
[34:57] Everything I need for life and godliness is right here in the revealed things. How to make my way safely through this world and home to heaven. Let me just throw out a challenge.
[35:12] For one week, I won't even say for the year or a month, just one week, pour over the revealed things more than you pour over this thing.
[35:26] Okay? I challenge you to that. You might learn some things that will change your priorities the rest of your life. I just don't have time for the revealed things.
[35:42] Do you have one of those judgment day honesty things that tells you at the end of the week how much time you spent on there? We do have time. We're trading down, folks.
[35:56] Frittering stuff that does us no good and no harm often. The profitable things that God has revealed to us.
[36:10] Secondly, notice the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever. So parents and grandparents, there's application for you here.
[36:21] Are you bringing up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord? Of the revealed things? Are you making them familiar with the stories of the Bible?
[36:35] The history of the Bible? And what God is teaching through that history? The commandments? Do they know the Ten Commandments? That summary of God's moral law?
[36:46] Do they know the Gospel? You see, here's where they can learn to fear the Lord. David says, come children and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. That's the beginning of wisdom.
[36:58] Give them that. Here, like Timothy, they can be made wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as mother and grandmother from infancy taught him.
[37:10] There's nothing more valuable that you can lead to your children and grandchildren than the knowledge of the revealed things. You know that the world's not teaching them the revealed things.
[37:23] it's teaching in almost lockstep unison the lies of the devil instead of the revealed things.
[37:39] What are you going to give them to stand up against that tidal wave of the world that's just flooding in and pressuring them to buy into what the crowd's buying into?
[37:51] the revealed things. Arm them with the truth that exposes every lie of the devil in this age.
[38:03] Read it together. Memorize it together. Explain it. Illustrate it. Apply it to their lives. When you sit down, when you walk by the way, when you lie down at night, teach them the revealed gospel of Jesus Christ.
[38:23] I appreciate our Sunday school teachers and I know you do too who every week come with a lesson from the revealed things to teach our children. We need more teachers but parents, they need to hear it from you.
[38:40] They need to see it in you. You need to be the best illustration of the principles and commands that you're reading to them. The revealed things belong to us and to our children forever.
[38:53] Give them what belongs to them. Thirdly, these things have been revealed to us not just to inform our minds, not just to satisfy our curiosity, but notice that we may follow all the words of this law.
[39:08] That we may do all that it reveals as our duty. Believe all that it calls upon us to believe. That we might follow all the words that are revealed.
[39:22] Is that your interest in the revealed things? Not just to gain speculative knowledge, not just to know a little more than the next guy, but to obey all that it's revealed.
[39:35] Is that how you listen to the preaching on the revealed things? Because you want to obey everything it says. Is that the reason you read the Bible in your private devotions?
[39:47] You want to follow the Lord of the Scriptures as He reveals them to you. Anything else, James says, is just deceiving ourselves if we think we're better off for having heard the Word of God.
[40:02] Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. That we may follow all the words of this law. Well, as I said, we could go on and on on what the revealed things are, but let me mention one more.
[40:18] The greatest blessing of all the revealed things is that they enable us to know God and to fellowship with God. The revealed things tell us what God is like, what He loves, what He hates.
[40:32] It tells us His attributes, His character. They show us God in action. A God who makes Himself known by His works and His ways in history.
[40:45] It's His self-revealing Word. Everything in here is meant to show you Himself. He's the main character as is seen from the opening statement of the revealed things.
[41:01] In the beginning, God. It's all about God. And in this book we get to know God. And not just know about Him. We get to know Him. We get to know Him as friend, our best friend.
[41:14] We get to fellowship with Him as our Father, as our Savior, as our Comforter and Helper. You know, it's tragic how many professing Christians in the church today are biblically illiterate.
[41:27] They don't know the revealed things. And all they're left with is God as they like to think of Him. And sadly, the God as they like to think of Him is not the God of the revealed scriptures.
[41:42] And it's equally tragic to see how many in the church today are wanting a word from the Lord, by which they mean a supposed experience of God sending fresh revelation personally and directly to them.
[41:58] Well, the written word sits unopened. Friends, if you want a word from the Lord, pick up a Bible and begin reading, this is where He speaks.
[42:12] This is where He is speaking present tense. That's the way the New Testament speaks, even of the Old Testament, that the Holy Spirit is saying right now, is speaking in this book.
[42:24] This is where we commune with God. This is where we meet Him. This is where we have intimate dealings with Him as friend with friend, where He speaks to us, and then we turn what He says into a responsive prayer back to Him.
[42:43] We fellowship together as we read and meditate and pray the things revealed, the things that belong to us. That's the glorious end for which we were saved, to enjoy union and communion with the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[43:02] Indeed, this is eternal life, to know Him, to fellowship with Him. God, who called you into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, is faithful.
[43:14] There's no fellowship with Christ apart from His Word and Spirit. Let's press into the revealed things in order to have fellowship with the living God. So what have we seen today?
[43:27] The secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever. So we'll let God have His secrets.
[43:39] We'll not try to pry into those secret things that belong to Him, but we'll pour our energies into the revealed things, the things He has given us, that He wants us to know, the things that belong to us.
[43:57] And as we do, what do we find? we find that the revealed things actually help us to trust God with the secret things, the things that we cannot know, all those questions that we began with and the dozens more that you have.
[44:15] Revealed things, the things we do know help us to trust God with the things we don't know and the things that bother us. And the more we give ourselves to the things that are revealed, the more we can trust Him with the things that have been kept secret.
[44:32] And so instead of a tormented and disquieted mind, as we leave the secrets to God and pour over the revealed things, we receive a peace that passes all understanding.
[44:46] For what He has revealed is that He's fully trustworthy. He's too wise to be mistaken. He's too good to ever be unkind. He's too powerful to ever be frustrated.
[45:00] There's three revealed things. The infinite wisdom of His plan for you is unimprovable. You could not come up with a better plan than what He's decreed for you.
[45:13] The sovereign power of His arm is unthwartable. No one can stop Him from fulfilling the plan that He has for you. The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me. And the unfailing love of His heart is unfathomable.
[45:27] Such a God is worthy of our trust, wouldn't you say? Worthy of our trust about those many things that we don't understand. You know Job, righteous Job, didn't understand a whole lot about what was happening to him.
[45:40] Why did I lose my ten kids and all my wealth and all my health? Why has that happened? Well, you and I, the readers, know why, but it was kept secret from Job.
[45:52] So he's walking in the dark. As you read the book of Job, he can't figure it out. He can't figure out the road he's on, but he says in chapter 23 and verse 10, but he knows the way that I take.
[46:06] And when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. You see, he's got a lot of secret things that God's not telling him, but he's got some revealed things.
[46:21] He says, I've treasured the words of your mouth more than my daily bread. And so his soul finds rest in God alone. Rest in the God who is revealed here.
[46:33] Many things about tomorrow I don't need to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand. He will hold me fast.
[46:45] And that's enough. I don't need to know the way that I take. It's enough just knowing that he knows the path that I'm on and he's leading me and will never leave me or forsake me.
[46:59] So brothers and sisters, there's enough revealed things here to enable us to trust God with the secret thing. Can you not trust a heavenly father who when you needed a savior did not spare his own son, but gave him up for you?
[47:15] Gave him up to the hellish cross to be damned in your place that you might be forgiven and adopted into his family. And what about God the son?
[47:28] This is how we even know what love is that Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. Octavius Winslow said to show he loved me better than his own life. He left. He lost it for me.
[47:42] Can you not trust such a good shepherd? Can't you follow him anywhere he leads? If he's laid down his life for you. Well, one day in heaven we'll understand it all a lot better by and by.
[47:59] And then you will justify God for everything that he did in your life. And you will see that he did all things well. Just what you would have done had you had his wisdom.
[48:11] And you'll praise him through the endless ages. Closing word to the lost person headed for judgment. You owe it to yourself to read the book written by the one that you're going to be judged by one day.
[48:30] Because here he tells you how it's going to go in that day. He tells you the standard what loss is going to compare you to. He tells you the only way.
[48:45] He tells you the only way that you can be right with that judge in that day. Face that day with confidence. It's through the Lord Jesus himself. Read the book.
[48:57] Cry out to God for light. Meet your Savior. Don't ignore the revealed things. He'll point you to a willing Savior. An able Savior. Bow to him.
[49:08] Receive him. And in him eternal life. Let's pray. Lord, forgive me that often I have been found complaining that I don't know the answers to my questions.
[49:26] And right at my elbow at every room there's a Bible line there that you're speaking in and through and are revealing yourself to me and I find in you every reason to trust you for those unanswered questions.
[49:48] Thank you that you taught David how to still and quiet his unruly soul. Teach us to do the same for all the things that get us in a tizzy.
[50:00] To learn to rest in the Lord. God of all wisdom power and love thank you for what you have shown us about yourself. Thank you for the Bible and help us to love fall in love with it all over again as if we've never read it before.
[50:18] And to fall in love with you the God of the Bible. Save those that are lost show them yourself as a mighty Savior that they need to know. We ask it for your praise and for our good in Jesus name.
[50:33] Amen. Well the song is number 93 and your hymnal stand and let's sing it together. Lord my weak thought in vain would climb to search the starry vault profound in vain would wing her flight sublime to find creation's utmost bound.
[50:57] Number 93 Go standing on that solid rock. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.