The website of author Craig Brian Larson
In the parable of the soils, Jesus said the defining characteristic of the soil that is like the path, into which the seed cannot penetrate and take root, is that the person hears the word and does not understand it. We must understand the Word. We must understand the truth.
In this message we establish why increasing knowledge and understanding is not optional if we want to be immovable in the faith.
By Craig Brian Larson, delivered January 31, 2021, at Lake Shore Church
Have you ever asked God, Why?
Trusting God means always being content to live with no more than God in his wisdom wants to reveal, when he wants to reveal it.
We’re currently looking at how God both reveals and hides. In this post we see how to respond when God hides things, when there are mysteries he does not explain, when his ways are inscrutable (Rom. 11:33).
For there is much that God does not tell us. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal things.” Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God.”
Life is full of mysteries and secrets. We all have questions. We all are curious. One of the biggest words in English is “why.” We want to know the future.
God knows there is much that we do not need to know, much that would actually be harmful for us to know. We are not God. Even if we had the capacity to know all, we could not bear it.
Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
Although the knowledge God reveals and wants us to have is good and helpful, other knowledge can be a great burden. Solomon himself discovered that in some ways “he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).
The apostle Paul said, “I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Romans 16:19).
It was the desire to gain knowledge independently of God that caused Adam and Eve to stumble. When Satan tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, he said,
“You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. (Genesis 3:4–6)
It was the desire to know the future that led King Saul to the fortune teller (1 Samuel 28).
The desire for wisdom and knowledge is good (Proverbs 1:1–4; 2:1–11), but the desire to get them in a way that involved disobedience, excluded God, and trusted Satan was not good.
God created us to be in his image, but not to know all things. Rather, he created us to trust him in all things.
Thank God for limited knowledge. Partial ignorance is a gift to us, but only because God rules our lives and world. If God did not exist, ignorance would never be good. But because of his loving providence over all and in all, we can trust him for what he hides from us.
As long as we know that in all things he is working for our good and he is in control, we can trust him and accept our limitations.
David understood this. He wrote,
“O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:1–2)
Most tests that God ordains for us require that we not know some things. Our faith would not be tested if we knew when and how God would fulfill his promises.
Even Jesus was kept in the dark until the Father wanted him to know something. For example, Jesus did not know when his Second Coming would occur, and he accepted that (Mark 13:32).
So limited knowledge is part of our human nature. God limits our knowledge because he wants us to rely on him, not on ourselves. We have to accept that, and we have to let limited knowledge lead us always to depend on the one with unlimited, complete knowledge (1 John 3:20).
God wants us to pray for knowledge and wisdom (James 1:5) and trust him for what he chooses to reveal. Don’t get frustrated if you seek him and he keeps secrets or makes you wait for understanding.
God’s ways: He knows all things but reveals only what is good for us.
Our ways: We want to know all things. We do not want to live by faith and trust in God. Instead we want God to explain himself and justify his ways. We do not want to wait for God’s perfect time to reveal his wisdom and knowledge. We can be too curious.
God loves to share knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
This is the fourth article in a series on what is required of those who want to know more about God and his ways. In the previous post we saw that he both hides and reveals himself. Let’s look today at what that requires of us.
These enormously important words from Jesus about what we can know about God and his ways come in a chapter about the Word of God and how we need to respond to it.
Jesus is teaching his disciples that when they hear the Word of God they need to pay full attention, and they need to receive wholeheartedly all that God says—and desire more. This is what he means by “the measure you use.”
It’s as if God drives a truckload of apples into a farmer’s market. He parks and posts a sign that says, “Free apples—all you can carry.”
And he means it. If someone brings him an empty knapsack, he fills it with apples. If someone brings a paper bag, he fills it. To the one who has no container but wants one apple in each hand, he gives two apples. If someone wants to fill their car’s trunk with apples, they get hundreds of them.
Jesus says whatever container you bring, whatever measure you use, he will fill it. And he tells every person as they leave that if they will come back later with another container, a larger one, he will fill that too.
One woman who filled her car trunk with apples came back later driving a pickup truck and said if the farmer meant what he said she wanted a payload full. He smiled and clapped his hands and got excited. He loved people who loved apples. Gladly he filled her truck for free and told her to come back later for more.
The apples are divine knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And God loves to share them.
He knows some people want all they can get of spiritual truth. Others want a bagful. Others want less because apples are heavy and require work to carry home. Some gladly receive one apple, eat it, and are full. Others want a sample like you get on a toothpick at the grocery store, but decide that’s enough. Others say, “No thanks.”
God is willing to give; what varies is the appetite of those who hear, and whether they wholeheartedly believe God’s Word, and whether they are willing to exert themselves to think about God’s Word until they understand it, and whether they choose to obey it.
Hunger. Belief. Thinking. Obedience.
Jesus said, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, if you are willing to hear what I say, then pay attention and receive my words because I am now revealing God’s truth and ways.
When God chooses to reveal himself and his truth, we are responsible to get as much as we can. Those who have a big appetite, belief, the willingness to persistently exert themselves to understand, and obedience to what they hear, God gladly gives more knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
Those who prefer other things get what they prefer. In fact, Jesus warns: “from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
We are responsible for what we know, but God ultimately controls the supply of apples. He owns all the trees. He hides and reveals. We are utterly dependent.
God’s ways: He is super generous with wisdom and knowledge. He approves of those who want more of what he reveals. He faults those who have no interest in it.
Our ways: If we are foolish, we pay little or no attention to what God has revealed in the Bible, nature, and the church. If we are wise, we make every effort to learn, understand, and apply God’s words.
God keeps talking to those who are listening.
More next week on the crucial topic of how we know more about God.
God requires us to make every effort to learn what he has revealed, and to trust him when he keeps secrets.
You have decisions to make, but you’re not sure what to do.
Things are happening in your life and world that don’t make sense.
You want to understand God, his will, and the Bible, but some things are not adding up.
What you can know is a super important and relevant subject because we need knowledge and we all want to know everything. We are all curious. Literally, if we could, we would be like God and know everything about everything.
We want to know how to do everything with perfect skill and success. How to find perfect happiness, relationships, and peace. How everything works.
And how every event in history actually happened.
We want to know.
The details about how the universe and life began. What the future holds.
When our prayers will be answered. Why something bad happened. How long we will have to wait for that job, marriage, child to be conceived, success on the job, visa approval, breakthrough, healing, baptism in the Spirit, promotion, or answer to our question. Or is our wait in vain?
We want to know what every verse in the Bible means. Why God does what he does.
On and on it goes. So many books, so little time. We want to know.
Unfortunately, at least from our perspective, God doesn’t want us to know everything. That’s what the opening Scripture above from Deuteronomy says. There are “secret things,” and then there are “things that are revealed.” And Moses says the one who controls that is God.
In fact it all begins with what God is willing to reveal about himself. You need to know two things about God: He hides himself, and he reveals himself. The Bible says:
“Truly, you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isaiah 45:15).
“He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth—the LORD God Almighty is his name” (Amos 4:13, NIV).
That means he doesn’t completely hide himself. And he doesn’t completely reveal himself.
At this point there are some things he wants us to know about him and his ways, and so he has revealed those things in the Bible, in nature, in the church, and elsewhere. Otherwise, on our own, we could not know them.
That’s because knowing God is not like studying scientific questions such as how trees grow. No matter how hard we explore, humans cannot know anything about God—literally zero—unless he chooses to reveal it.
But there are other things God has actually chosen to hide. He doesn’t want us to know them now. They are divine secrets. They are mysteries. And no one can uncover what God has hidden.
For example, the two most important things for any human now to know were locked up in a vault called mystery until 2,000 years ago: namely, Jesus and the gospel.
The Bible talks about “God’s mystery, which is Christ” (Colossians 2:2).
And, “the mystery hidden for ages in God” (Ephesians 3:9).
And, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints” (Colossians 1:26).
Let’s continue this crucially relevant subject next week. For now, let’s close with these two foundations:
God’s way: He hides, and he reveals.
Our way: We may or may not pay careful attention to what God reveals. Or we may or may not trust God when he hides himself and his purposes. We want to have control over what we can know. We would like to know everything.
