11. The Knowledge of God

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Hymns: 203 He Lives 205 Thine Is the Glory 209 Because He Lives

 

Study of the Book of Ecclesiastes

(Remember Now Thy Creator)

– The Knowledge of God

Ecclesiastes 3:14-17

 

14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. 15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past. 16 And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. 17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

 

OUTLINE

  • God is Creator and Sustainer (v14-15)
  • God is Saviour and Judge (v16-17)

 

INTRODUCTION

The knowledge of God is the highest, the apex of all knowledge. Not any “god” but truly, “the God” as Solomon sought to introduce to us. The God that makes sense for us “time and life”.

This is “the God” whom Enoch walked with before he was taken bodily to heaven.

Genesis 5:22 And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

Genesis 5:24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

 The same God whom God revealed the judgment of a coming global flood to Noah.

 Genesis 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

He believed God’s warning, moved with fear, made an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness by faith (Heb. 11:7). How did Noah know his God? God revealed Himself to Noah.

This is the God that makes life meaningful and fulfilling and full. To understand and to know “the living and true God”, we have to see Him for Who He reveal Himself to be.

We saw last prayer meeting that knowing the living and true God brings (1) true joy (2) goodness and (3) fruitfulness to man.

Today, from our text Solomon will tell us that this God is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe (v14-15) and He is also Saviour and Judge to man (v16-17). It is important that we know Him.

 

  • God is Creator and Sustainer (v14-15)
  • God is Saviour and Judge (v16-17)

 

(1) God is Creator and Sustainer (v14-15)

14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

Solomon is telling us that he knew this living and true God, the God of their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel.

This is the God whom Abraham pleaded with to spare and help his son Ishmael and He did. Today, we have the descendants of Ishmael in the Arab nations.

 Genesis 17:18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

 This is the God that said to Abimelech in a dream to refrain from touching Sarah, Abraham’s wife. God’s plan for Sarah is to bear Abraham his son Isaac, a progenitor of the Messiah, the pure human line.

Genesis 20:6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.

Genesis 20:17-18 So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. 18 For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

This is the God whom Abraham prayed to who healed their womb that Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants may bear children. Abimelech feared Abraham’s God for the power He demonstrated to give life (descendants) and not give life!

This is the God who sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of the world to teaches us to seek first the kingdom of “the God” and all these things you need in this life will be taken take care and tells us not to worry if we knowing the living and true God.

 Matthew 6:26-29 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

This is the God who created the lily in its splendour and beauty, the God who made the birds and also feeds the birds.

No man can stay His hand. His works are forever. Nothing that God do is haphazard or flippant but sure and steadfast and perfect.

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

 When God created living creature after his kind, the cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so (Gen. 1:24). This is the God that made the beast of the earth after his kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, who saw that it was God (Gen. 1:25).

 Genesis 1:26-28 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

We can see the orderly kind of creatures in the animal kingdom, distinct in their kind, existing today since its creation. Nothing indeed could thwart God creative purpose, no man.

 We can put the world’s best scientist together and they cannot create anything anew, except today, mixing up the kind by meddling with genetics!

Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

He has a set purpose for His creation, the sun, the moon, the stars, the entire universe is not only created by Him by sustained by Him.

Know Him and extol His name as the psalmist did in Psalm 8!

 Psalm 8:1-9 To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength …3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: 7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; 8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

 Truly, as Psalm 33:11 rightly affirms, “The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.”

All the events of time are under His sovereign hand. What a great God we serve!

 15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.

Solomon observes for us there are laws that govern the universe, the movement of the planets, the seasons, there is an order to everything in the past as it is so now!

 These laws of nature do not change, they govern the universe as its universal laws.

Bridges said well, “In Providence, the same laws of government are in force, as from the beginning. There are few events, but what may find their counterpart from the annals of the past. The children of God are exercised in the same trials, and the same proofs of sustaining and delivering grace are vouchsafed to them, as to Noah, Abraham, and the saints of old.”[1]

 John Calvin said well as he observed concerning the nature and tendency of the knowledge of God in the Institutes of Christian Religion, “By the knowledge of God is not meant merely a nation that there is such a Being. The knowledge of God should tend to bring us into pious and religious communication with God. We perceive, in such a relationship, a twofold knowledge – (a) of Him as Author of Salvation and Redeemer, through the person of Jesus Christ; (b) of Him as Creator.”

This first observation by Solomon brings us to know God was the Creator and Sustainer of this universe.

 

(2) God Is Saviour and Judge (v16-17)

16 And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. 17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

 Solomon made a survey of this fallen world. He saw evil and wicknesss. Iniquity is the “outworking of sin”. He saw two opposing factions, the righteous and the wicked. And Solomon understood that this God who is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe is also Judge!

Truly, if there is no judgment, we can live any way we want. But we can’t, because there is a judgment. Human society tells us there is need for this law and order to keep peace in human society. Where wickedness and sin abound, there is chaos, misery, pain and sorrow. But where the law is upheld, there is righteousness and order and peace.

The Roman orator and statesman, Cicero observed in his book De Republica, “There is indeed a true law, right reason, conformable to nature, diffused among all, unchanging, eternal, which, by commanding, urges to duty; by prohibiting, deters from fraud; not in vain commanding or prohibiting the good, though neither moving the wicked. This law cannot be abrogated, nor may anything be withdrawn from it; it is in the power of no senate or people to set us free from it, ; nor is there to be sought any extraneous teacher or interpreter of it. It shall not be one law at Rome, another at Athens; one now, another at some future time; but one law, alike eternal, and unchangeable, and shall bind all nations and through all time; and one shall be the common teacher; as it were, and governor of all – God, who is Himself the Author, the Administrator, and Enactor of this law.”

 How accurate it is for this man to deduce the knowledge of God ruling and setting a standard for judgment for mankind. It seeks for us be on the right side of the Judge!

 And the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in the manifestation of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who by His life fulfilled all the law and by His death, took the punishment for man’s transgression of that law that sinful man may find a way back to God. This is what Solomon is leading us to understand.

John Calvin gives us a right response to the true knowledge of God, “Our knowledge of God should inspire a personal devotion and submission to His rule and authority. Our knowledge of God should lead us to revere Him as Judge, rewarding the pious and punishing the wicked. We should, therefore, restrain ourselves from sin, not merely from a dread of vengeance, but rather from loving consecration. Because we love Him as our Father and Lord, even though there were no hell, we would shudder at the thought of offending Him. We fear so much His hurting us as our hurting Him. We give Him, as a result of such enlightened knowledge, heart-worship which is that pure religion so hard to find.”

 

CONCLUSION

  • God is Creator and Sustainer (v14-15)
  • God is Saviour and Judge (v16-17)

 

May we make right with God through Jesus Christ His Son and received the atonement. Amen.

 

 

[1] Charles Bridges, Ecclesiastes, Banner of Truth Trust, 1992, 73.