Third Truth: God Is Too Wonderful - Psalm 40:5

Please stand for the reading of God's word, which is found in Romans 11, 33-36. O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable are his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid. For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. You may be seated. Again, I ask you to take your copy of God's Word and I invite you to turn to Psalm 40. as we continue to march forward. As you're turning there, the story is told concerning Augustine, whom you likely know wrote many discourses on the truths of Scripture and theology. And as he was writing one of his theological works, He one day took a break and decided that he would go for a walk along the seashore.

He was working on a treatise whose topic was the Trinity. And as any good teacher, theologian would do, he was trying to answer questions about the Trinity. And as he went for a walk along the shore, lost in his own thoughts and meditations, he suddenly came upon a young boy who was digging a hole in the sand. And it appeared to Augustine that the young boy was trying to bring water from the sea and fill up the hole that he was digging in the sand.

And Augustine stopped for a moment and he inquired of the boy as to what the object of his task was. And the boy replied that he intended to empty the sea into this cavity of sand that he was digging. And Augustine said, all the great waters of the deep, you're going to put into that hole. And so seeing the foolishness of such a mission, Augustine said to the little boy, son, impossible, impossible.

It cannot be done. And the young boy looked up at Augustine and said, not any more impossible than for you, oh great Augustine, who try to explain the mysteries on which you are now meditating. Well, Augustine was taken aback, for he had gotten more than he bargained for, for this young guy. And from that moment on, he said that he learned a lifelong lesson.

For as he walked away from the boy, he realized that he was trying to do exactly what that boy was trying to do. He was trying to fill this little hole of his human mind. and great as his intellect was, it could never hold the vastness of the ocean of who God is and what God can do. And so Augustine said, standing on the shores of time, I'm trying to get into this little finite mind, the things which are infinite.

Augustine was reminded that our God is greater and vaster than our finite minds can take in. And we learn well when we learn like Augustine. to realize that there is so much that we cannot understand about God. That, I think, helps us to frame the text that we're about to cover in Psalm 40. So, as you are there now, let's begin at verse 1. I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me, and He heard my cry.

He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet upon a rock and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth, praise to our God. many will see in fear and will trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. And our text for this hour, many, O Lord, my God, are your wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order.

If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. So as we come to this session, let's consider these following points. Number one is the wonderful works of God. Number two, the fact that trust brings true peace. And number three, trusting God with our humble questions. So let's consider from verse five, our first point, the wonderful works of God.

I remind you that at the point of our sins were forgiven through the work of Christ, we were born again and for the first time truly made to be blessed as we said last time for the first time truly knowing happiness and you remember that happiness begins at this point because our relationship with God is restored our life is righted and given true purpose and meaning and I often say life only makes sense with Jesus right only makes sense with Christ So it's through the person of Jesus Christ from whom real happiness comes. In other words, God alone is the source of true happiness. And only a saving relationship with him brings one to such happiness.

So it's in this context that David begins to speak now of God's works in verse 5. So we come to this fuller expression of David's praise to God for redeeming him from the pit. But also for giving him a life worth living in the here and now. Again, another translation of this verse reads, you have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us.

They cannot be set in order to you There a phrase that I like that David uses in the Psalms when speaking about God when speaking about his ways when speaking about the fact that God is so wonderful. David says, too wonderful for me. I love that phrase. God is too wonderful for me. This is just too big for me. We see this phrase used in Psalm 139 in verse 6.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high. I cannot attain unto it. The context of this familiar passage is David speaking about God's creative power, his character, his sovereign control. Psalm 139. Consider the fact that God's aseity, which is his attribute of self-existence, meaning that God is the uncaused cause.

Just think about that. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Consider that God has always eternally existed. God is no beginning and no ending. He's not subject to the confines of time. From the beginning of recorded time God has always been in existence.

From duration stretching backward without limit to duration stretching forward without limit. From eternal ages to eternal ages God was and is forever. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Consider the power of God in that He created this whole universe and this whole world out of nothing. Ex Nilo. Out of nothing.

And how? Just by speaking it into existence. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Consider that God gives a glimpse of His creative power in Job chapters 38 through 41. In Job 38, 4, God asks Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements? And then God, because He's the Creator, catalogs all that He performed in the act of creation. And verses 12 through 13 of that chapter, have you commanded the morning since you say began and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth and the wick be shaken out of it? Have the gates of death been revealed to you or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?

Who has put wisdom in the mind or who has given understanding to the heart? Have you an arm like God or can you thunder with a voice like this? He says in chapter 40 and verse 9. Can you imagine Job being questioned by God? One of the things I love in chapter 38 of Job, God says to Job, Okay, Job, you've had some talks about me. Sit up, brace yourself like a man.

Now I'm going to question you. Can you imagine being Job? God, in essence, saying to Job, you better put your big boy pants on, Job, because I'm going to ask you some questions. Okay? And God begins to ask these questions, and they're centered all on the creative power that he displays by just speaking things into existence. Just a sampling of the display of the power of God in creation.

In part of his response to God, Job says in chapter 42, verses 2 through 3, I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand. Things, listen, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Like David, Job says that such knowledge of God is too wonderful for him. brethren one of the truths the book of Job teaches us is that we must have the right view of God when we're forced to go through trials we're to be reminded that because he is God his ways are always perfect and he therefore owes us no explanations were you there when I laid the foundations of the world? who are you to come and ask me something? but it's not asking God as we'll see it's the indictment is in the way that we ask we're to be reminded that because he's God he's perfect but as Isaiah reminds us and this is the trouble that we have of course his ways are not always the ways that we would like to endure are they?

Isaiah 55, 8-9 reminds us of this God says through the prophet for my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are my ways your ways says the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts so here we're reminded that God is sovereign omniscient, omnipotent and because we're created beings we cannot rightly comprehend his ways that's how it's supposed to be we're limited in our capacity we're finite God is infinite therefore God is too wonderful for us in theological terms we call this the incomprehensibility of God R.C. Sproul says, incomprehensible. This concept represents a check and a balance to warn us lest we think we've captured altogether and mastered in every detail the things of God.

Our finitude always limits our understanding of God. Just like that boy couldn't put the ocean in the little hole he was digging in the sand, we can't put this vastness of God into our finite brains. On the whole, reformed theology teaches us that we can truly know God, but we could never know God comprehensively. For example Lewis Burkoff in his systematic theology says we can have a true knowledge of God but not an exhaustive knowledge of God God is too wonderful for us So when David says that God is too wonderful this phrase evidences a spiritual again humility in David The doctrine of God's incomprehensibility humbles us before the power of God and before his providences.

It gives us such confidence in God, his character, his ways. And in truth, this should inspire a heartfelt, genuine worship of God. He's too wonderful for us. Verse 5 continues, Your thoughts towards us cannot be recounted to you in order. If I were to declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. It's amazing.

The thoughts of God, this is what David says, toward us. Do you think that God has forgotten you in your trial? He hasn't. He's thinking more thoughts about you than can even be recounted. This is what David is saying. Do you think that he's forgotten how long you've endured this trial?

How hard it is? Chronic illness? Chronic pain? An unsaved family member? An unsaved spouse? His thoughts to you can't even be recounted.

He knows. David evidences his belief in God's sovereign will and his purposes. In his kindness, God allows us to see that he is benevolent. and that he always works for the ultimate benefit and the good of his people. What a promise. David recognizes that although there are many points that God is too wonderful for us, he still allows us to know himself, and he allows us to know his ways.

How? Through his word. So the sovereignty of God is a source of hope and comfort to his people, and evidence is that God is intimately involved in our lives, even when we're going through a time of trial. It takes us to our second point. such trust brings true peace such trust brings true peace you see for varied and sundry reasons which we won't delve into now would you just allow me to say that I believe we live in a very arrogant time do you believe that? we live in a very arrogant time a very prideful time right? a lot of focus on me if you doubt that that's true just considered the 21st century phrase, the selfie.

It's part of the reason I love Facebook so much. The selfie. You know, you ever been out with people? Maybe you do this, I hope you don't. But if you do, stop it. You're out with people and they're taking pictures of their meal and they're sharing it with whomever or they're sharing it on Facebook and whatnot.

So you're sitting, you're there together face to face, and they're taking pictures. Oh, I have to send this to them. I have to post this. Hannah, why don't you do that? If you're going to do that, do that later, or go out with those people. And by the way, who cares?

Who cares if you're eating a steak like that? Tell us later. I mean, what am I supposed to write? oh wait, somebody just, I can hardly wait to see what I'm not doing that they get to do right now. And just take a look at that. It's, I mean, I don't, I don't really get it. I mean, in our house, you know, we were, the thing that always happened in our house, if somebody paid a compliment, the very first thing that was said was, don't get a big head.

Don't get a big head. And my dad, he would very quickly alleviate you of the problem of having a big head. He had the perfect pin to pop that. If he thought you were being too arrogant or too prideful. I had ODD when I was a kid. You know what it is?

Oppositional Defiance Disorder, ODD. It's not odd. Every kid has it. I had it. And my dad had the perfect cure for it. It was called the B-E-L-T.

And I'll tell you, he cured me of it. The selfie is this 21st century picture of arrogance. People taking pictures of themselves. People taking pictures by themselves. I saw a commercial last night for cruising. Go on a Norwegian cruise by yourself.

It's called solo cruising. Go on a solo cruise and it said take pictures of yourself. Who cares? I mean, okay. And then what do you do? You just don't take the picture.

You post it online for everyone else to look. So here's a picture of me eating a steak. Here's a picture of me just after I finished the steak. Here's a picture of me ignoring the people that I'm sitting with while we're having the steak. Here's a picture of me. Here's another picture of me.

And by the way, in case you missed it, I have 15 more pictures that you can look at. a further evidence of our arrogance at least again this is my perspective is to hear how christians today will not only again freely question god in his ways but demand of god an answer an explanation from him for almost everything there's always been the temptation for christians to ask god why why this why about certain events why but in such asking we have to be very careful. The question now has turned not to really asking in humility. The question is asking demanding answers from God to our own satisfaction.

Why did you do that? We're not just content to ask why. Now we demand God explain to us why. I can trust God if I understand why. Well, that's not really trust, is it? There's now no real need for us to be humble before God.

You know, we're too savvy for all of that. We're too savvy. We're too sophisticated in the 21st century. We know so much more today. We can do some pretty amazing things. We can send probes to Jupiter.

We can print 3D images. It amazing We can print 3D images We can prolong life by curing once incurable diseases So you asking us to have faith in God because we can know something we want to know That just doesn't work for the culture that we live in. And further, because we now do know so much, we can't be easily fooled. We believe that we're in the place that gives us the right to demand from God, therefore, some answers.

We're not these Bedouins. We're not these people that lived in the desert that really didn't have a clue. We're sophisticated, and God isn't really that wonderful. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And yet with all our God says, I am so much more than you can even comprehend or imagine. Too wonderful for us.

All of this teaches us, I think, another point, and it's important for us. as Christians we need to come to and I've been hammering the nail a little bit as we've been going on and it's one that will either humble us or cause us more consternation and here's the point God owes us no answers to his character and God knows us no answers to his perfect ways with us even in the midst of trial it's enough for us to know that we've been saved from the pit it's enough for us to know that he promises this will work out for our good and for our benefit it's enough for us to know that He always operates towards us benevolently and live. It's enough. Our current cultural expectation that God owes us answers is not rooted in our growing knowledge of the universe, but rather it's rooted in our ever-growing arrogance and pride.

And so in this verse, then, is a striking spiritual reality that David is speaking of, and it's the fact that there are many, and I'll emphasize, many, and I'll say it again, many things about God and about his ways that are just too wonderful for us to know or to be able to conceive. Yes, even for us, as sophisticated as we think we are in the 21st century. David is humble.

And he's humble enough to admit this truth. And in fact, David takes comfort in this truth. He rests in this reality. Thank God he's too wonderful for me. I don't understand him in all of his ways. He is comprehensible to me in so many things.

What kind of a God would he be if we could explain him and keep him in our back pocket? He's incomprehensible, and I take comfort in that. It doesn't bring David angst and depression. It rather brings David comfort and joy. He knows that he serves a God that is far greater than him. Look with me, if you would, to Psalm 131.

Just as we see evidence of what David is saying here. Psalm 131. And we'll go from verses 1 through 3. Get it? Just see if you're paying attention. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty.

Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor were things too profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. What a simple expression of trusting God in his ways, isn't it? My heart is not haughty.

My eyes aren't lofty. I don't concern myself with great matters, things that are too profound for me. Such a humble trusting faith brings that which is missing from the lives of so many professed intellectuals today. You know what it is? Peace. David says here that there are things which he chooses, no, he chooses not to concern himself with.

Why? Because God is too wonderful for him. There are many intellectual rabbit trails that people like to get caught up into today, isn't there? Some have value, but brothers and sisters, many do not. To sit in a coffee house or to get caught up in an online discussion about some unknowable issue concerning God is not really an intellectual pursuit. Those are actually pseudo-intellectual discussions because they have no real benefit.

You want to know how you can tell the difference? those intellectual trails which cannot be answered only serve to puff us up because we think we've asked such deep and penetrating questions that God himself either cannot or chooses not to answer and Satan laughs at our haughtiness. Why? Because he knows that such pseudo-intellectual babblings only lead to further prideful doubt and further arrogance and many times ultimately to utter an eternal hopelessness in hell.

Think, for example, of Thomas Paine, who you may know authored the book The Age of Reason. This was a work that promoted both deism and natural religion, meaning that God himself was subject to the laws of nature. To Paine, this meant that miracles in the book which spoke of God's miracles, the Bible, were untrue, and therefore, if it's untrue, it's unnecessary.

Paine was known as the leading atheist writer of the American colonies. he intellectually questioned and railed against God in the Bible throughout his life he was popular and his beliefs were well respected and yet when he was dying listen to what Thomas Paine said to those who stood near his deathbed stay with me for God's sake I cannot bear to be left alone oh Lord help me oh God what have I done to suffer so much what will become of me hereafter. I would give worlds if I had them that the age of reason had never been published. Oh Lord, help me.

Christ, help me. No, don't leave. Stay with me. even a child to stay with me, for I am on the edge of hell, here alone. If the devil ever had an agent, I have been that agent. Peace? Consider the dying words of another famous intellectual philosopher, Sir Francis Newport.

He was the head of the English Atheist Club, whose title was actually the English Infidel Club, a group of wicked men whose thoughts were bent on evil believing not in God nor caring for his ways and upon his deathbed Sir Francis Newport said to those that had gathered around him you need not tell me there is no God for I know there is one and that I am in his presence you need not tell me there is no hell I feel myself already slipping there wretches cease your idle talk about there being hope for me I know I'm lost forever oh that fire oh the insufferable pangs of hell oh that I could lie for a thousand years upon the fire that is never quenched to purchase the favor of God and be united to him again but it is a fruitless wish millions and millions of years will bring me no nearer the end of my torments than one poor hour oh eternity, eternity forever and forever oh the insufferable pangs of hell peace and while there are a number of such accounts of the hopelessness of other intellectuals. I give you this final example, the declaration of 19th century David Strauss. David Strauss, a German Protestant philosopher who was the leading voice of German rationalism.

He was said to have broken new ground in biblical interpretation by explaining that the New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ were nothing but a myth. And sadly to our ears, that doesn't sound so groundbreaking anymore. Strauss rejected completely the claims to the Gospels and after spending his life doing his best to intellectually bring others not to believe in God and not to believe in his Christ, Strauss said this on his deathbed, my philosophy leaves me utterly forlorn.

I feel like one caught in the merciless jaws of an automatic machine, not knowing what time one of its great hammers will crush me. Brethren, do you sense the common trait of hopelessness in all of these intellectual pursuits? Did you hear the utter lack of peace? Why? Because they really weren't asking questions to derive any real answers. Unlike Eastern mysticism, God wants us to know him.

He's given us a book with 66 books in so that we can know him. Rather, they were arrogantly asking questions only to demonstrate their own intelligence and to pridefully attempt to prove their presuppositional perspective on what they believe to be true and what they believe to be false about God and His Word. Their lives and their questions are nothing but the proof of 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 18.

The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them who are perishing. But to those of us who are being saved, what is it? It is the very power of God. You can't get more diametrically opposed perspectives than that. Foolishness to the one and the very power of God to the other. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul warns us about those who would try to teach us about God, his ways and his word without necessary faith in God, which is brought through salvation in Christ and the corresponding ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And so we must heed the warning for us to stay away from such questions and such intellectual pursuits which refuse to acknowledge the word of God as being true, especially in trial. Why? Because these questions are ultimately born out of sinful pride and arrogance and will eventually lead all who follow such pseudo-intellectual pursuits into hopelessness and many times, as we've seen, ultimately to an eternity in hell itself.

Listen, God can take our questions. God's not afraid of our questions. We can never ask a question that God cannot answer, but we can ask questions that either don't deserve an answer or are beyond our ability to comprehend, or we can ask with a faithless attitude that is displeasing to Christ. It's interesting to note what God thinks about such questions when he says to Job in Job 38.2, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

As one commentary states, with a single question, God shows the absolute emptiness of human abilities, strikes Job to the heart, and puts an end to the dispute. It doesn't matter how smart a person is who's asking these intellectually based Christians if they're questions against Christianity and against God. It doesn't matter how smart he looks. Look at Richard Dawkins.

He thinks he's the smartest guy in the world, never mind Britain. Stephen Hitchens Christopher Hitchens Sorry Christopher Hitchens Ever listen to some of these guys Christopher Hitchens said if you hear that on my deathbed I converted to Christianity don't you believe it because the Christian loves to tell lies about guys like me who die. Okay. But I guarantee you he died without peace.

And all his questions led him to no place but an eternity in hell. you're not showing how smart you are if you can ask those kinds of questions you're showing how lost you are Henry states our darkening the counsels of God's wisdom with our folly is a great provocation to God humble faith sincere obedience see farthest and best into the will of the Lord it's okay to wonder why in trial it's okay to ask questions Questions like we teach in biblical counseling. What is God trying to teach me in this trial? It's okay to ask that question.

It's okay to ask the question, how can I bring God glory in this trial? It's okay to wonder why. I wonder why the Lord is doing this. I wonder why the Lord is bringing me through this trial. If it's for me to see that maybe in a Psalm 32 or Psalm 38 way, there's things in my life that I need to get right with God. It's okay. it's not okay to ask accusing questions to God.

That takes us to our third point. Trusting God with our humble questions. Now of course again there will be honest questions that we may have which we may humbly ask but that cannot yet be answered. This may be especially true in the time of trial. And when this is the case we have to humble ourselves and take off our shoes. because the truth is we're standing on holy ground.

Through the gift of faith, we need to pray for an increase in faith, for the necessary humility to surrender what we may not understand, being sure to quickly take our improper questioning and thoughts captive and getting off those supposed intellectual trails which only serve to lead us away from God and lead us away from His Word, bringing us to doubt and hopelessness very quickly. You know you're on a bad trail if you're only led to doubt God and His Word and the questions that you're asking. And I would tell you the question that you're asking, those kinds of questions then, they're not for you to ask.

They're not for you to ask. Because at least in this stage of your spiritual growth, you must not be ready for the answer. But it is okay for you to say, I don't know why I'm going through this, but God is too wonderful for me. he knows why by contrast those theological intellectual questions and pursuits asked out of faithful humility and rooted in his holy word are certainly worth pursuing because they lead to further humble and peaceful trust in God and this will be evidence because even when there's not an answer the questions will still bring us to more confidence and more peace in God's character and in God's ways but in the asking we must be willing to know that we may never get an answer on this side of heaven.

This is why David says that humility regarding things that are too great about God to comprehend now actually has the impact upon him to place his hope that much more further in God. I don't know now, but God is too wonderful for me. Such an outcome is so unlike that of the intellectualists we've quoted who were all brought to hopelessness and despair because they denied God and His Word through their questions. conversely David compares himself to a weaned child who learns to trust in his mother's love and care he says that he's been taught to trust in God he knows that if God has been merciful and gracious enough to save him from the pit of hell then he's a God that is worthy to be trusted in every other way including in those ways that we might not be able to know so it's the outcome of our questions it's the outcome that leads us to know if they're legitimate pursuits.

They're legitimate questions if they cause a growth of faith and trust in God and his word, resulting in further peace. They're illegitimate questions, which are those then which result in a sense of fear, depression, anger, bitterness, and even more questioning. So what kind of questions are you asking? And as a point of clarity, I'm not speaking of holding to an ignorant, blind, uneducated faith either, for that does not describe the nature of true Christianity.

We should remember that, again, unlike Eastern mysticism, God wants us to know so much about who he is and his ways and why they were given to us. He wants us to consider all of these things in his holy word. He wants us to ask proper questions. Look how thick the Bible is in your hands. Consider the depth and the wonder of the knowledge contained therein.

It's the very word of God, Hebrews 4.12, which is living and active. Jesus said himself in John 17 17 that God word is true and while it a given that we not told everything the reality is we know far more than we need to so that we might trust our God and like David be in a humble awe of God and his wonderful works. God really is too wonderful for us.

So the issue really isn't about the answer we want. The issue is really about being willing to be able to be humble and dependent upon God. consequently as Christians we should work to emulate David's humility we should work to express our thanks to God for what we do know of his character and his ways through both general and special revelation but we should also express our thanks and even our joyous expectation over things which we can now not yet understand of God and his ways for these are only the evidences of the holiness and the wonder of who he is we need to humble ourselves that such humility doesn't cause us greater doubt. Rather, it only serves to increase our faith in the wonder of God and the wonder of His marvelous ways because God really is too wonderful for us.

As Christians, we must work against bitterness. We must work against unspoken pride and unspoken anger against God when trials and heartaches come. We have to work against doubt and depression when those things happen that we just can't seem to make sense of or explain. I think that's the whole truth behind Psalm 46. God is our refuge and our strength and ever present help.

When? In the time of trouble. And David there goes on to speak about when the mountains fall into the heart of the sea and the sea surges with a roaring. You know what that is? That is just when everything is pulled from out under me. I feel like I have no place to put my feet.

God is my refuge and my strength. when our little girl was two, two years old, she went through a whole time where the ultimate came, tests this, that, the other, and we thought she had leukemia. We were told that it was this thing that she, either that or a tumor in her brain. And so we were walking down this trail, and we had to put her in, and she was so lethargic. and, you know, so we had to take her to the hospital and we put her in this MRI.

She was going in for this little MRI and the nurses are strapping her with all this foam and everything in case she moved. But she didn't move. She was so lethargic by this point. And they come and they put lead aprons on you because they want you to be able to stand, you know, with your kid while they're going and that. So Beth is on one side, I'm on the other. and all I could do at that time when she was being wheeled in I thought our lives could drastically change I mean everything could change for us when she comes back out of this MRI our lives could be totally changed everything and so she's been through the nurses and all there and I just kept saying back and forth to Beth God is our refuge and our strength He's the ever present help in this time of trial God's our refuge I don't know what's going to happen I know how she's going to come out of this I don't know what we're going to be told God is our refuge and our strength sometimes the world just doesn't make sense and you don't have any place to go and your questions if they're doubting questions aren't going to be of help to you because you need to understand in those times at those points God is too wonderful he's got purposes that we don't see or understand wheels within wheels thank God when she came out of that MRI it turned out that she which we were so thankful for at the diagnosis she was severely anemic and so we had to do all this hoopla get cast iron pans and give her iron.

It tasted awful. It smelled terrible, but she needed all of that because she was struggling with such anemia. You see, as Christians, we must work against bitterness. We must work against unspoken pride and anger when these kinds of trials and heartaches come. As we said last night, they will come. in these kind of circumstances Christians add to their divine distress by mistakenly believing that God owes them an answer or that God owes them an explanation where do you see that? in your Bible when such answers do not come then they believe it's okay for them to feel more and more justified in their bitterness and their anger and their pride towards God Christians I would say may the Lord help us all all of us May God keep us from falling into such traps If you there today maybe you are My prayer is that he would be pleased to bring you out of it.

How? By bringing you to the point of confession and repentance of these subtly dangerous, prayer-killing, intellectual questions that have no true answer. So different for David. Who after acknowledging that he cannot possibly know all of God and his ways. Has led to the opposite response of pride and anger. What's David led to?

He's led to joyous expressions of praise to God. Why? Because God is greater than David could possibly know or explain. And he realizes that. And he realizes then there's only really one response. And that's the sacrifice of praise.

And it is a sacrifice sometimes to praise, isn't it? Ross states. The praise was for God's thoughts, for his people, as well as for the outworking of those thoughts, his wonderful works. The psalmist determined to declare them, even though they were more than could be told, literally in the Hebrew, too many to tell. David sees the limits of his own powers of understanding and expression, and so merely refers to the wondrous acts of God in a hymnic style.

See, God and his works and his ways are so wonderful that all David can admit is that there's no way anyone could understand God. and thus the only form of appropriate expression is that of humble adoration and praise. David says he's not willing to concern himself with matters that are beyond his control. Look, that's not a slight against David's intelligence.

It's not a slight against the pursuit of intelligence. It's an acknowledgement that no matter how smart one is, one could never be smarter than God and therefore there are many things about God that cannot be understood. Such a truth should serve to calm and quiet us. Why? What kind of God would he be if you could completely and fully explain him? God is sovereign, and his sovereign ways and purposes should lead us not to questions and doubts about God and his character, but rather to praise.

It's in such a faithful and loving God that David says he will trust and he will rest, because that's where he finds his peace. So by way of application, in our day of self-sufficient arrogance and pride, David teaches an important lesson to us here in Psalm 40 and verse 5. Our God is too wonderful for us to fully comprehend, and that's okay. A full knowledge of God can not only surpass our comprehension, but even our imaginations.

One commentator states, It is high. I cannot attain unto it. Mount as I may, this truth is too lofty for my mind. it seems to be always above me even when I soar into the loftiest regions of spiritual thought. Is it not so with every attribute of God? Can we attain to any idea of his power, his wisdom, his holiness? Our mind has no line with which to measure the infinite.

Do we therefore question? Say rather that we therefore believe and adore. We're not surprised that the most glorious God should in his knowledge be high and above all knowledge to which we can attain. It must of necessity be so. since we're such poor, limited beings. And when we stand a tiptoe, we cannot reach to the lowest step of the eternal throne. Christian, are your unanswered questions of God those that bring you to further trust and faith?

Or are your questions of God bringing you to doubt, despair, and discouragement? A right conception of God will bring us to praise and to service. a wrong conception evidenced in the arrogance of our questions will bring us a lack of peace if it's the latter then you need to confess to god your questions that you've asked with the wrong motives ask god to replace those with a simple resting trust in him remember this most profound truth again god answered your greatest prayer by removing you from the pit therefore you can trust him with your many unanswered questions for as david says many oh lord my god are your wonderful works which you have done and your thoughts towards us cannot be recounted to you in order if i would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbered god is too wonderful for us father we're thankful that we serve a god who in so many ways is incomprehensible and yet in so many ways can be known. Help us to trust in trial.

Help us to ask appropriate questions which lead us to deeper faith, not questions which lead us to doubt and to accuse. Do the work that you alone can do, we pray, for the glory of Christ as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.