Only God Knows

God Only Knows

Romans 8.18-28

Phrase many times used without much thought but so true! There are things that simply, "God only knows."

Who our next president will be...

When Jesus will come back...

Where my keys are...

Or something else I have lost...

Or what a person who did something stupid was thinking...

Only God knows... Many things we do not know.

But this we know:

*God is in control.

*God is at work. 

*He has a Grand Plan, more wonderful than you can imagine!

*We are part of it.

*Our faith will be tested, sometimes severely.

*One day our faith will be sight.

Romans 8.28 And we know that in all things, God works for the good  of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

*New King James Version (NKJV)

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

*Philipps

Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to His plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. 

1. There is a Negative Side to this.

All things/ everything

Why people, especially children suffer.

The questions of the prophets.

Habakkuk 1.1-4

Natural Disasters

Haiti

Someone said, "Haiti can't catch a break."

People dying "prematurely"

Lord of the Rings "No parent should have to bury their own child."

Jim Elliot, missionary to Auca Indians, killed by them at age 29, wrote in his journal just a few years before, "I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those I would have kept on earth till they were older. God is peopling  Eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and women." 

Oswald Chambers "Death profoundly alters life." My Utmost For His Highest

Dietrich Bonhoffer

Keith Green

Jesus Himself

Isaiah 57.1 NLT Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come.

Yet that does not give us the full understanding of why it had to be them. God only knows.

There are great mysteries in life and if we dwell on them we will get spiritually depressed! 

Proverbs 25.27 It is not good to eat too much honey,

    nor is it honorable to search out matters that are too deep.

We need to hear God's Word over our thoughts: 

Isaiah 55:8-9 New International Version (NIV)

8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways My ways,”

declares the LORD. 

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are My ways higher than your ways

    and My thoughts than your thoughts."

I made myself miserable at several times in my life when I was younger because I was comparing how God was working in my life with how He was working with others. I missed the blessings He had given me because of comparisons. I was looking more at what I did not have rather than what I did have from Him. Why is this guy more blessed? Only God knows! Stop trying to figure it out. Enjoy the LORD!

Become like little children...

Like a weaned child with his mother..

Psalm 131.1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,

    my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

    or things too wonderful for me.

2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;

    like a weaned child I am content.

2. There is a huge eternal positive side to this.

He works  wonders.

He sets His footstep on the sea and rides upon the storm.

We don't know. He does and works through all kinds of things to bring people to heaven.

All things- it is harmonious working by God. And though this wrong seems oft so strong God is the Ruler yet.

I'm certain that there... when we get to heaven, we're going to learn a lot of things that we were spared from. And maybe at the time we looked at it as bad luck or misfortune or, "Oh, man," you know. And yet, God was watching over. God was keeping us. "He shall give His angels charge over thee. To bear thee up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone."

When I look at what has happened and is happening in Haiti in relief and trips and all the churches involved now it is amazing.

With our work for the LORD we never know all He  will do or how He is using our "boy's lunch" to feed multitudes!

Great to welcome readers of The Sunday Morning Message this week from France, Germany, India, Israel, Poland, Romania, Australia, England, China and Brazil. This is the first time we have had readers and hearers from 5 Continents on the same day. Praise God. 

3. This we do know:

Romans 8.28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

We know He does. Sometimes that is all we know!

We know because He tells us it is so. I cannot believe all those twisting the Word of God to say something it never said.

We know because His faithfulness is great and we have experienced it in our lives. 

We know because God actively faithful to all His Promises. His faithfulness in the sky.

We know because of the peace of God in our hearts.  

We do not how He does it

Oswald Chambers wrote, "Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. “We know that all things work together for good…” (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God’s providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children."

We do not know How He will

For our good! 

We know the mystery, just not the details!

Pastor Russell Metcalfe told this story when I was at the Wollaston Church on the campus of ENC, bringing my daughter, Theresa, there for her freshman year (1997). He did not know I was in the congregation that day.

Millie Crawford was having a very difficult pregnancy. She and her husband Tom were members of the Bay Shore (then called Brightwaters) of the Nazarene. She was ordered to bed rest or she would lose the baby. Henrietta Stark moved in to the house so she could stay in bed and literally took care of the family. Henrietta and her husband John were members of the church. Joy was born and grew up and married Mark Metcalfe, Dr. Metcalfe's son. It doesn't stop there. John and Henrietta had twin boys, Jim ad John. Both became PhD's. Jim taught chemistry at ENC for many years. John moved to Warwick where he and the Crawfords help plant the church back in 1965.  (Yelssy Manza's Church). She put a picture up of "her little church on the hill" this week and I had to tell her this story. Tom retired from being a NY State Trooper and pastored the Butler Church of the Nazarene for many years. My daughter, Theresa had Jim Stark as a professor at ENC. She was a PreMed Student. She has gone on mission trips to Africa, India, the Dominican Republic and Haiti with me. She has run and participated in Medical Clinics. The work of God continues in amazing ways! Helen and Bob taught the Stark boys, Theresa in Sunday School. John, Tom and Millie help start that church in Warwick Valley and today Yelssy from Peru is a member there and the mission director of our district... Things done for Him are eternal. The Master will multiply them!

We are wondering how He will while knowing with certainty He will!

Proverbs 3.5-6