Articles - Bulletin

Articles - Bulletin

When Will Man Accept It?

    When will man accept that he is not capable of knowing all things?  When will man accept that though we serve a living God that has revealed Himself to man, man cannot understand and comprehend everything there is to know about Him.  When will man come to the same conclusion that Job did and say “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?  I lay my hand on my mouth.  I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5)

    God created man with the ability to logically rationalize and think.  God gave man dominion over all of His creation and was told to subdue it.  That takes reasoning, logic, perseverance, skill, and wisdom.   Man was created in such a way that he would see everything around him and realize there is something bigger than him, something greater.  Paul told those in Athens “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.” (Act 17:24-27)

    In order to seek God and “feel” our way toward Him it takes diligent thought and reasoning on our part.  The problem with man is that in his effort to understand and know Him, man tries to fully understand everything about him, even things not intended for man to know.  Moses would write in Deuteronomy 29:29 – “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”  Simply put man is on a need to know basis and there are some things we don’t need to know.  We do KNOW that God has revealed to us everything we do NEED to know – “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence…” (2 Peter 1:3)

    In Psalm 33 the psalmist writes “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! (6-8)  The psalmist indicates that when man considers the power of God, His power in creating this world and universe, the reaction man should have is to stand back in wonder and amazement.  Instead often man can’t stand in amazement because he’s too busy trying to figure out how it all actually worked and came to be.  Man has spent years (to many to number I’m sure) trying to explain in physical terms how we can into being and the world around us.

    Of course our minds immediately drift toward thinking about the scientific world and those who deny that God exists (“the fool says in his heart, There is no God” Psalm 14:1).  But often times Christians also find themselves struggling to accept that there are some things we cannot explain.  The only logical conclusion (and it’s actually far from logical) that man can come up with to explain creation is to claim that over billions and/or millions of years our earth was slowly created.  Some Christians even find themselves trying to logically explain a God who is powerful enough to create the world but did that through billions/millions of years.  The only reason I can think of as to why those arguments are made is because man tries to understand things that he’s not capable of fully understanding.

    Folks… “In the beginning, GOD!”  Let’s stop trying to fully understand details and things that aren’t meant for us to fully understand and instead stand in amazement and awe of a creator that is that Big and Powerful and yet mindful of each and every one of us.  Accept that we are of “small account” and remember who we are and what our purpose is here on this earth, and that is to give all the glory to God in everything we do.

--E