God is great, and we know Him not.
The knowledge of God
These words recall the supreme questions which divide hostile philosophies. Even Christian apologists have maintained that God is inaccessible to human thought, and that our highest knowledge of Him can have only a relative truth. Many who are antagonistic to the. Christian faith maintain that man’s knowledge is necessarily limited to the universe of phenomena, and that all attempts to pass beyond it are the result of an ambitious discontent with the eternal limitations of our intellectual power. The words of the text cannot mean that God is absolutely unknown. We know God, and therefore we worship Him; but there is infinitely more to know. His greatness passes beyond the widest limits, not only of our actual knowledge, but of all knowledge possible to us. This truth is pressed upon us in whatever direction thought may travel.
1. Our hearts should be filled with awe when we meet to worship Him.
2. That God is great, and we know Him not, should encourage the largest and freest confidence in His ability and willingness to meet and to satisfy all the exigencies of our personal life.
3. It is the infinite greatness of God--a greatness that can never be defined or exhausted by created thought--which alone enables us to accept calmly, and without dread, the gift of immortality.
4. If this is the strength and joy of those who are conscious that through His infinite mercy their sins are forgiven, and they are restored to the light and blessedness of His love, it is full of terror to all with whom He is not at peace, and who are exposed to His eternal condemnation. (R. W. Dale, D. D., LL. D.)
The unknowable God
Unknown, unknowable--truly; yet not on that account unusable and unprofitable. That is a vital distinction. The master of science humbly avows that he has not a theory of magnetism; does he, therefore, ignore it, or decline to inquire into its uses? Does he reverently write its name with a big M, and run away from it, shaken and whitened by a great fear? Verily, he is no such fool. He actually uses what he does not understand. I will accept his example, and bring it to bear upon the religious life. I do not, scientifically, know God; the solemn term does not come within the analysis which is available to me; God is great, and I know Him not; yet the term has its practical uses in life, and into those broad and obvious uses all men may inquire. What part does the God of the Bible play in the life of the man who accepts Him and obeys Him with all the inspiration and diligence of love? Any creed that does not Come down easily into the daily life to purify and direct it, is by so much, imperfect and useless. I cannot read the Bible without seeing that God (as there revealed) ever moved His believers in the direction of courage and sacrifice. These two terms are multitudinous, involving others of kindred quality, and spreading themselves over the whole space of the upper life. In the direction of courage--not mere animal courage, for then the argument might be matched by gods many, yet still gods, though their names be spelt without capitals; but moral courage, noble heroism, fierce rebuke of personal and national corruption, sublime and pathetic judgment of all good and all evil. The God-idea made mean men valiant soldier-prophets; it broadened the piping voice of the timid inquirer into the thunder of the national teacher and leader; for brass it brought gold; and for iron, silver; and for wood, brass; and for stones, iron; instead of the thorn it brought up the fir tree, and instead of the brier the myrtle tree, and it made the bush burn with fire. Wherever the God-idea took complete possession of the mind, every faculty was lifted up to a new capacity, and borne on to heroic attempts and conquests. The saints who received it “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire; out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Any idea that so inspired in man life and hope, is to be examined with reverent care. The quality of the courage determines its value and the value of the idea which excited and sustained it. What is true of the courage is true also of the sacrifice which has ever followed the acceptance of the God-idea. Not the showy and fanatical sacrifice of mere blood letting: many a Juggernaut, great and small, drinks the blood of his devotees; but spiritual discipline, self-renunciation, the esteeming of others better than one’s self, such a suppression of the self-thought as to amount to an obliteration of every motive and purpose that can be measured by any single personality--such are the practical uses of the God-idea. It is not a barren sentiment. It is not a coloured vapour or a scented incense, lulling the brain into partial stupor or agitating it with mocking dreams; it arouses courage; it necessitates self-sacrifice; it touches the imagination as with fire; it gives a wide and solemn outlook to the whole nature; it gives a deeper tone to every thought; it sanctifies the universe; it makes heaven possible. Unknown--unknowable! Yes; but not therefore unusable or unprofitable. Say this God was dreamed by human genius. Be it so. Make Him a creature of fancy. What then? The man who made, or dreamed, or otherwise projected such a God, must be the author of some other Work of equal or approximate importance. Produce it! That is the sensible reply to so bold a blasphemy. Singular if man has made a Jehovah, and then has taken to the drudgery of making oil paintings and ink poems, and huts to live in. Where is the congruity? A man says he kindled the sun, and when asked for his proof, he strikes a match which the wind blows out! Is the evidence sufficient? Or a man says that he has covered the earth with all the green and gold of summer, and when challenged to prove it, he produces a wax flower which melts in his hands! Is the proof convincing? The God of the Bible calls for the production of other gods--gods wooden, gods stony, gods ill-bred, gods well shaped, and done up skilfully for market uses: from His heavens He laughs at them, and from His high throne He holds them in derision. He is not afraid of competitive gods. They try to climb to His sublimity, and only get high enough to break their necks in a sharp fall. Again and again I demand that the second effort of human genius bear some obvious relation to the first. The sculptor accepts the challenge, so does the painter, so does the musician--why should the Jehovah-dreamer be an exception to the common rule of confirmation and proof? We wait for the evidence. We insist upon having it; and that we may not waste our time in idle expectancy, we will meanwhile call upon God, saying, “Our leather which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven.” (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The greatness of God
I. The greatness of God infinitely surpasses our knowledge of Him. “Behold, God is great, and we know Him not.” Consider how imperfect our knowledge is--l. Of the Divine nature. We are greatly to seek in the first notion of God, that He is a Spirit; then, that He is a Trinity in Unity.
2. Of the Divine decrees and counsels. We must conjecture uncertainly about His decrees, because we are so distant and so incompetent in all our speculations about the Divine nature.
3. Of the Divine work in creation and providence.
II. Useful inferences.
1. What an inestimable treasure the Holy Scriptures ought to be esteemed by us.
2. How reasonable a thing it is for us to love one another in some differences of opinion and thought while we are on this side heaven.
3. How justly the wise and the good mind may be longing after that state where their knowledge of God may be advanced to such unspeakable degrees, suitably both to the nature of God and the capacious nature of our souls. (Nathanael Resbury, A. M.)
For He maketh small the drops of water.--
God’s greatness in small things
We lose God in His greatness, and it is well for us to be told that the great God can do small things, and that small things are often the illustrations of His greatness.
I. God illustrates His greatness in doing small things. Illustrate from the statesman, who can find time to contribute to the literature of his country; the great builder, who cares for minute ornament. Or from God’s attention in creation to every detail. Or from the ritualism of the old dispensation, which included the elaborate and minute. It is to reduce God to our littleness, to suppose that He measures all things by our scale. He does not even measure time by our computation. Great and small are terms which have not the same meaning with God as with man. How can anything be great to Him but Himself? He regulates the ripples on the sea of human life, caused by trivial circumstances, as well as the lifting up of the floods, when the angry waves threaten us with shipwreck. God is great, and He is so great that He is gentle; there are no hands so strong, and none so tender. God does great things, but He does them silently. The greatest forces operate without bustle and noise. Gentleness is the perfection of strength.
II. Christ, the manifested God, does all things beautifully, small as well as great things. He comes, as all the race come, by birth. “He grew in wisdom and stature.” No one but a teacher, “in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” could have discoursed with such beautiful simplicity on the highest themes, The doctrine of providence tie brings down to the little things of daily life. What a Gospel He gives us in a few words. His conduct to childhood illustrates the singular beauty with which He did everything.
III. The way to greatness is to do small things. Men who have obtained greatness have begun with the beginning of things. Great men have always been men of detail--great works are done by careful attention to little things. To overlook the importance of small things, is to forget that these give birth to great things. Life, to a great extent, is made up of small things. It is with small things we build up character. (H. J. Bevis.)
God’s incomprehensible greatness illustrated by little things
I. Man cannot comprehend it. “God is great, and we know Him not, neither can the number of His years be searched out.”
1. Man cannot comprehend His nature. Great in Himself. All His attributes transcend our understanding.
2. Man cannot comprehend His history. “Neither can the number of His years be searched out.” In the presence of His greatness--
(1) All the glories of man, kind dwindle into insignificance. In the presence of His greatness--
(2) With what profound reverence should we ever think and speak of Him.
II. Little things illustrate it. “For He maketh small the drops of water”; or, as some render it, “He draweth up the drops of water.” Elihu seems to connect God’s greatness with His attention to the drops of water.
1. The greatness of His wisdom is seen in the small. Take the microscope and examine life in its minutest form, and what wonderful skill you discover in the organisation: as much wisdom as the telescope will show you amongst the rolling worlds of space.
2. The greatness of His goodness is seen in the small.
3. The greatness of His taste is seen in the small. Take the wing of the smallest insect, or the smallest grain of ore, and what exquisite forms and what beautiful combinations of colour.
4. The greatness of His power is seen in the small (Homilist.).