Nothing Is Uncertain With God

“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Colossians 1:17-19

If I was given a dollar every time I read or heard this word over the past six weeks, I could probably buy my own beach house in the Cayman Islands by now. It’s a word that’s been strategically used to help mankind “cope” with the corona virus situation. It’s a word that’s been abused at every turn, causing society to use all sorts of reasons to put their lives on hold. Sometime this month, challenge yourself to see how many times in a day you hear the word, read it, or dare I say, you speak it!. You’d be surprised how contrary this particular word is to the Word of God!   

Have you ever attempted reading the entire Book of Isaiah? It is quite a challenge! It’s one of the longest books in the Bible with 66 Chapters. Isaiah was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 740s BC before their deportation by Assyria in 722 BC. If someone were to ask you what the book of Isaiah is about, what would you say? As avid students of the Bible, it’s always rewarding to articulate our faith and beliefs in a few short words when people are curious. An easy answer to this question is: “Isaiah is about the sovereignty of God.” Isaiah the prophet does everything he can to remind God’s people of the kind of God they serve – there is no one else like God! The sovereignty of God is a doctrine absolutely crucial to our faith. Without believing in the sovereignty of God, everything else collapses. How can we DEFINE God’s sovereignty in a nutshell? It’s a topic we could spend years discussing and only begin to scratch the surface! Check out these verses from Isaiah 40:12-18 about God’s sovereignty:   
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? 
Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?  Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as dust on the scales…all nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” 
 
As soon as we say that GOD isn’t in control of something, or doesn’t have the infinite foreknowledge of EVERYTHING, then He is no longer completely sovereign. The world we live in is His universe – He makes the rules because He is the Creator of all things.  Through His almighty providence, “He does uphold, direct, make willing, and govern all creatures, actions, and things – from the greatest to the least” (Westminster Catechism). Do we really believe this, friends? The word I spoke of earlier that should never be used in the same sentence as God is “UNCERTAIN”.  NOTHING ever has been, is, or will be uncertain with God! Even before we existed, God knew us. As David reminds us in Psalm 139, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” God knew us before we even knew ourselves.  

As we continue to wait patiently for the all-clear to return to worship together, I encourage you this month to remove the word  “uncertain” from your vocabulary. NOTHING is UNCERTAIN with God! The only thing uncertain about the corona virus is how humans respond to it with our finite brains. We can doubt, or we can continue to trust in our Creator who has a plan that’s far beyond our control and understanding, and yes, even for our good (Romans 8:28). I’m thankful it is up to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from this current, strange season of life and not myself! Because of Christ, we can have peace – whether we get the virus or not, peace is on both sides of life and death with Jesus. What did Jesus say when He saw His followers for the first time after His resurrection, most likely in the Upper Room? “Peace to you” (John 20:19). So, grab a pen and sticky note and write:  “Nothing is uncertain with God!” Send this wonderful news out over text, email, Facebook, or whatever other platform you can think of to reassure yourself and others this month that God HAS NOT and WILL NEVER lose control of all His creation! “All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you” (Psalm 145:10).