Good morning, for privilites today to be reading from the scriptures found in Proverbs chapter 30, the first six verses. What do you do when life puzzles you? What do you and I do when we are confounded by what's happening in our lives? Sometimes it's difficult for us to understand what's going on, even someone who's written hundreds years ago found the same issue, life is not easy and understood. It's staying now as we read from the Word of God and to gain insight from these words of auger, son of Jacob, found in the book of Proverbs. I'll be reading it from the English Standard Version, may find some variations in the first half of the first verse. The Word of God, the words of auger, son of Jacob, the oracle. The man declares, I'm weary, O God, I'm weary, O God, and warn out, surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, or have I the knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fist? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name? What is his son's name? Surely you know every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, that's He rebuked you and you be found a liar. The Word of God may He plan to deepen in our hearts this morning, please be seated. President Harry Truman enjoyed telling a story about a man who was hit on his head at work. Apparently it was a pretty hard hit because he was not unconscious for an extended period of time. In fact, after a while his family had come to conclusion, he was actually dead. So they called the appropriate people and General Home Guy came and took away the body. But early the next morning the man sat up in the casket and linked his eyes and looked around and he was trying to put things together, trying to figure out what was going on. He said to himself, if I'm alive, why in the world, what in the world am I doing here sitting in this soft, satin-filled box? If I'm dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom? There is Harry Truman for you and his story. But sometimes we feel like that poor man don't we, like we're struck in the head and we're disoriented or we're not sure whether we're alive or dead, what am I doing? What am I experiencing here? I don't understand what's happening. What are we to do? What would be a great response for us when we find ourselves confounded with life? Some of you have been there. Some of you might be right there right now trying to figure out what's going on. It's interesting in the second verse, Auger says, surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understated of man. I've not learned wisdom. He says, I surely don't know anything about God. So I suspect I would interpret this as the first response for us was to acknowledge how little we know, how little we understand what is happening in this world. I think the older you get, the more you realize you don't know much. The historical context for Auger in fact we're not sure how to pronounce his name and don't know anything about this guy. His troubles, what was going on. In fact you'll see I'll put a footnote in your bowl then for you. It says, even the Hebrew meaning of verse 1 B is unclear. It may be referring to Auger's friends, it may be proper names, or should we take these words, not as proper names, but translate them to mean, as the NIV says, it's talking about his weariness, Auger's being worn out. So you'll find even the translations are not sure how to deal with it, of course they could just give you the Hebrew and let you deal with it. However one thing we do know about this man, he's since a tremendous lack of understanding that he had no idea of understanding human life or God, try to figure that out on your own. He says in the second verse, surely I'm too stupid to be a man, they have not the understanding of a man. Why did he feel it, he knew so little, what was happening in his life, what was going on. It's a sense that you have no understanding of human beings or no understanding about God. Perhaps a very good interpretation of these verses 2 and 3 is best found in Isaiah 55, 8 and 9, which you visited earlier today. God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. Because the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your words. What was Auger struggling with? Was he puzzled about good things happening to bad people? That really makes your day, doesn't it? You find one of the worst people you know and look, the man just got promoted. What's that about and you get passed by? Because he troubled about cancer, they probably didn't know much about it back then, but why is his mom get cancer and recover? And her mom gets cancer and dies, and why does some people don't get it at all? And so you've gone through it, you understand, it's no fun and we're happier here. Do you see worried because some little child and some mother had lost this little child? It's a horrible thing to lose a baby or a little kid who's just an elementary school. We don't understand why, I mean certainly there's no easy one-size answer that fits all. It doesn't work that way down here, doesn't it? It doesn't work that way. Why does God allow abuse to continue when the all-powerful creator could just cause it to cease? Abuse of all sorts in relationships? Why does certain people have to struggle, seems like their whole life, just to maintain a decent job, to put food in under table and clothes and pay their rancher mortgage? Strung with their whole life. Why do we have to have Ebola? Thousands of people dying. Now the church is repaying the food prices have increased double and we're wondering it comes June, July, how are we going to continue to feed 50 orphans in the Port of School of Thousands in Liberia, where one of our members is a director. Why do people hate other people? It's true, and we do it ourselves at times. Hate that guy. Hate themselves. Take another life. Something to take the room. Until we ask, when various cases in our life, why? Or why not? Why him? Why hurt, why me? Why now? Someone said life is like arriving at a movie. You came in late. You don't know what's happened, you don't know what's going on, you can't figure out. What has happened, or where is it going? That's why I like Purse Corinthians 8 too. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as a yacht. Or another translation says, those who think they know something really don't know much at all. You ever talked to someone who thought they knew something? People who think they know something. Certainly weren't like auger. They said, I don't know anything about humanity, and I don't know anything about the ways of God, the ways of God. So how do we respond when we're confounded with life and puzzled? I suggest that a good place to start would be simply to admit, hey, I don't know much, acknowledge how little you are, you know, God resists the proud, but you know what he gives grace to? The humble. It's a great starting point when you realize I'm way down here at the bottom, even when you have smarter or people who are less intelligent than you, less skilled, you know what? It's great to say, he's much better, she's much better. Help me here, help me. I need some help to come up with a ladder of wisdom. Acknowledge how small you are. It's a great place to begin. Second thing, second response where we can go to, we acknowledge, I never forget how big God is. He's very small, but how big God is. He is huge, infinite, in spirit, infinite in understanding, infinite in power. That's what we see here in these next few verses. Auger acknowledges that God is big. He himself doesn't know anything, but God does. He says, who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind and his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in the garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? Has Psalm 19 pushed it? The heavens declare what? The glory of God. The heavens declare the glory, the majesty of God. The skyper claims his anywhere. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals his knowledge. It's great as the Lord and greatly to be praised. It's interesting as we try to get out what he's speaking about here in this fourth verse. What he's saying, I believe, is that we know nothing compared to the Creator, the Creator of the heavens, and he raises this series of four or five questions here. He asks, who has ascended to heavens? You see it there, for a, who has ascended to heavens and come down? I think what he's saying, really, is that look up into the heavens. You've ever been to the moon and brought back info? Why we did that, didn't we? But have we gotten to Mars? What were working on that? What about the star out there? The closest star? Anybody ever been up there and looked around and you look out there, this is the God of the heavens. He's out there. You've ever gone up there and had a little conversation and brought back information down here? It ain't happened, you see? That's what he's saying. Who has ascended up to the heaven or heavens, and come back with the insight? And then he says in 4B, who among you is able to capture the wind in your hands? You ever tried to capture the wind in your hands? Shhh. Today, by the way, it's 20, 21 miles an hour wind out there, I checked it before I left. I wanted to see what the weather was like, to know whether I should wear a heavy coat or what? And it's all the wind, about 21 miles an hour. I thought it better take your comb. You know what that air balloon everywhere, right? Especially if you have to stand up there and people are looking at you for a while, it's distracting. But you ever try to capture the wind and put it in a bottle? Do it sometime. Hold in your hands the mysterious thing, isn't it? Wind? And yet that's what God has done, created it. Make it happen. We don't know when it's happened, where it's going. It's all kind of like realism, yet you're under the judgment of God, you need Jesus Christ. When I'm living 30 years, I didn't know it, next thing, man, that's right, that's me. Christ died for my sins, I'm sorry, thank you for forgiving me. Like the wind, it drops on somebody, and they change their life in an instant, but you don't know who's going to be next. I hope it's you, if you don't know it yet, pray that it happens to you. And then it says in verse 4, see, who has wrapped up the waters in the garment? How many, it's not with you, if you've already been to the ocean, I know, they told me this morning, but how many of you plan to go to the ocean this year, this summer? Feel free to raise your hand, you know, I'd be embarrassed, you're going to the ocean, probably half of you or more. The rest of you want to go to the ocean, but you don't know how you're going to get the money, probably. So you're going to ocean city, mortal beach or whatever. When you're lying down there on your blanket, take the blanket, the biggest one you can find on the beach and wait out there and try to see how much water you can wrap up in the garment. How much water you can wrap up in the garment, and bring it back and report. And what is he saying, you know, 70% of the earth is like water, enormous amount, I checked it out. The rest of me, 326 million trillion gallons. Perhaps you recall the story handed down about St. Augustine, of hippo, lived in the 300s. The story has said that the great doctors meditating on the Trinity as the church began to discuss what's the relationship between Christ and God, what's the relationship between the Holy Spirit and God, and how does that all fit together and they're like busting their brains, thinking about it, and Augustine we owe a lot to try to articulate what the Bible actually says about the infinite God who's come in the person and work of Christ, and then Christ sends the Holy Spirit. So as he's meditating on the infinity of God and the persons of God, he happens to see his story as he sees this child playing on the beach, and the child's got a seashell, and what he's doing is he's running back and forth between the beach and the ocean, and he says, what are you doing? And the child responds, he says, well I'm trying to get all that water out of the ocean into this hole. That's what he's saying here, you look out and you try, you try to understand God who's infinite. And you scratch your head, especially when you look at the world around, you say, I don't have a clue. You know everything, I don't know anything of what you're trying to do down here, especially when I'm in pain, or I just lost my wife. I don't know a thing, how can I even be called a human because I don't think I have a brain? I was asking someone the other day when I had an MRI or an MRI, I said did they find anything inside the skull? You should know it was completely empty, still waiting to hear by the way. How are we to respond when we realize life is confounding us and we don't have any answers? First of all, God is big because I wanted to mention the earth, the stab is the end of the earth. You know if you try to walk around the earth, you know how long it would take you, again a book of world records, 22 pairs of shoes, four years. Of course you'd have to fly over the ocean part, God made that, He knows a tremendous amount. Finally, what does He say as we think about, how are we going to deal with these perplexing realities of life? It's not just questions, it's the realities of the pains and the mystery of life when we don't understand what's happening to us and we don't like it. How are we to deal with that? We take our position, remember we acknowledge we are small, great, stay small your whole life, small is good, small is good, and you won't be offending too many people because you don't have much to say and much to offer but somebody might invite you to offer something or say something and you're probably okay because God and others like dealing with humble people. Secondly, you realize that God is much bigger than what you're going through, He's always going to be bigger and He doesn't have to tell you anything about your situation. He owes you nothing, you finally thank Him that He has decided to tell you a few things that are very important for you and that's why we have this book and that's why we have a story about a Savior in the book, Christ Jesus, the Son of God. You see in these last verses here, in today's text, what does He tell us? If you look down it, look down at it during the fifth verse, every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Don't add to His words less to rebuk you and you'll be found a liar. Every word of God proves true. What He's saying is that I don't know anything. God knows everything, He's told me some stuff and every word of it is like a pillow. You can rest your head on the pillow of truth when you can't sleep because you're in pain or somebody's hurting and you don't understand why your child or your brother has a broken relationship, you don't understand why you've lost a loved one or why you have to be out of a job, you don't understand why your boss doesn't appreciate you or why your teacher is too hard on you, you can't figure it out, you can rest your head on the pillow of truth. And it's interesting what Albert Barnes once said, I want to read this quote of famous commentator. He said, the Bible is a revelation from God, but it was not designed to give us all the information that we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul was perplexed, but to impart enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest. In other words, when it all comes down in the end, guess what, you're going to be safe. It's all going to be good for you if you're trusting in the God of the Scriptures who sent us his son, Jesus Christ. You know, as we read earlier in the Scriptures from the overhead, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, right? But the things revealed belong to us and to our children that we might trust and follow all that he tells us. As we draw a conclusion, I want us to remember, share a read a couple of scriptures with us here, two or three quickly. In Romans 8, it tells us, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who could be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? And in Ephesians chapter 3, Paul praise this. He says, I pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts. Listen, through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints, all the believers what is the breath and length and height and the depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. What is he saying in this prayer and in Romans 8? He's saying the same thing here, is that when we are up against the puzzling and confounding problem of our life, we have a place to go. It's in the incredible love of God found in Jesus Christ, which is recorded here in this book. This is a place for us to take refuge. When I was younger, I used to ask the question, why didn't God just create the world and leave it perfect? I don't ask it anymore, because God taught me something. He taught me that the infinite, amazing God doesn't just want you to know him as your amazing creator, but he wants you to know him as your amazing redeemer, your amazing Savior. He wants to know not just look what I can do in this awesome universe, creating an awesome universe, but you want to know how far I'll go for you to embrace you. I will become human and give my very life for you to show you how much I love you. If God did not spare his own son, will he not also along with him, grace you to give us all that we need here and hereafter, even in the midst of all that we don't know? Well, I want to close with the, we're going to have a song song that my son and I wrote a while back, but I believe it brings out the, today, the message of today's text. It's from Habakkuk, chapter three, and Habakkuk says, though the fig tree doesn't blossom, though there are no grapes on the grape vines, though the olive tree is failing, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the sheep pen, no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to walk in high places.