Sunday Sermons
God IS... Omniscient
The technical term that is often used to speak of God’s knowledge is the word omniscience, which simply means, “all knowing”. The Bible is filled with passages which speak of God’s unlimited knowledge, “His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5); “The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men” (33:13); “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Romans 11:33); He is “The only wise God” (1 Timothy 1:17).
The God of Knowledge: 1 Samuel 2:3
In the Hebrew the term translated “knowledge” is in the plural. God is the expert in every field of knowledge. This is a knowledge that cannot be measured, has no bounds; we can no more comprehend it than we can measure “spaces that are without limits, or tell the minutes or hours of eternity” (Charnock p. 408). This means that God knows all subjects perfectly; therefore His teaching concerning relationships, marriage, parenting, civil government, forgiveness, work, morality, church organization, and worship are perfect and need no improvement. Such knowledge and wisdom are behind all of God’s commands (Deuteronomy 4:6-8; Psalm 19:8). Therefore, to rebel against the teaching of Scripture is an act of arrogance on man’s part. Charnock notes, “The sinner in every sin acts, as if he intended to put himself in a better posture, and in a fairer dress, than the wisdom of God hath put him in by creation. The laws of God are highly rational (John 17:17; Romans 12:1-2); they are drawn from the depths of the Divine understanding, wherein there is no unclearness, and no defect. His laws are contrived by His wisdom for the happiness of man, whose happiness, and the methods to it, He understands better than men or angels can. His laws being the orders of the wisest understanding, every breach of His law is flying in the face of His wisdom. The laws of God then…are the birth of the truest reason; though the reason of every one of them may not be so clear to us (Isaiah 55:8-9). So every sin against the law, is not only against the will of God commanding, but the reason of God contriving, and a cleaving in our own reason, rather than the understanding or mind of God: as if God had mistaken in making His law, and we had more understanding to frame a better, and more conducing to our happiness: as if God were not wise enough to govern us” (p. 587). Please note that some try to excuse their rebellion by slick arguments, but Charnock further notes, “The more cunning any man is in sin, the more his sin is against Divine wisdom, as if he thought to outwit God” (p. 587). May I suggest to you that the heart of theological liberalism and those who seek a system whereby they can be saved without keeping God’s commands, is sheer human arrogance, where the lips profess to know God, but the deeds deny Him (Titus 1:16).
The same truth applies to God and worship. When men introduce new rules and modes of worship, different from Divine instruction, it is claiming that God is not wise enough to provide for His own honor, but stands in need for our directions. Worship that deviates from God’s original instruction does not honor Him (Leviticus 10:3).
God’s Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future
In another lesson we will delve further in the subject of God’s foreknowledge, so allow me at this time to confine our discussion to the subject of His past and present knowledge. God has a perfect knowledge of the past (Isaiah 41:26; 44:7; Malachi 3:16), including human history (Romans 1:18ff),and how He created the universe, “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding He established the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19). “The lesson here is that if God used wisdom to make and run the world, how vital it is for us to have in order to occupy and subdue the earth” (Alden p. 41). Wisdom is essential to our survival! (3:20) Wisdom is behind the weather of this planet and the watering of the earth. “Only God would know how to lay out and operate such a vast, continual system” (Hunt p. 37). If you want to see the value of wisdom, just look at the design and complexity seen in the physical universe! What this means is that when it comes to origins and Creation we need to listen to the first hand account written by the Creator rather than give our ear and attention to unbelieving skeptics. The Psalmist noted, “He counts the number of the stars, He gives names to all of them” (147:4). “He knows their names, that is, their natural offices, influences the different degrees of heat and light, their order and motion” (Charnock p. 407). God’s wisdom is so vast that He knows all the precise details about every single object in the universe, in fact Jesus noted, “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30). Thus, God knows not only all the big things, but also all the little, insignificant things as well.
God is aware of everything that is presently happening, including all the things that people are doing in secret, “For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes” (Jeremiah 16:17). Through the prophet Zephaniah God said, “That I will search Jerusalem with lamps” (1:12). “God follows sinners step by step, with His eye, and will not leave searching out till He hath taken them”(Charnock p. 427). Added to this, God not only knows our deeds but Scripture repeatedly stresses that God knows the very thoughts of our hearts(Hebrews 4:12-13 “able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do”. “Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord, how much more the hearts of men!” This is a “how-much-more” proverb. If God can see perfectly into the realm of the dead, even realms removed from His blessings, then how much more can God see into the heart of every human being on this planet! “If God knows the secrets of the world beyond the grave, much more does he know the secret thoughts of men on earth” (P.P. Comm. p. 292). Compare with Psalm 139:7. The verse also infers that God reigns supreme in the spiritual realm. Even the devil cannot keep God from seeing everything he is doing. David would declare, “You understand my thought from afar” (Psalm 139:2).
“This statement of omniscience is characteristically vivid and concrete. This divine knowledge is not merely comprehensive, like that of some receptor that misses nothing, capturing everything alike. It is personal and active: discerning us (2b); sifting us (3a, where searchest out is based on a term for winnowing); knowing our minds more closely (altogether) than we know them ourselves (2b,4); surrounding us (beset), and handling us (5)” (Kidner p. 464). God knows everything about us, even the little details or things that we might consider to be trivial, the Lord knows his every move. “The Lord knew David penetratingly. David said God’s knowledge came as if He had scoured every detail of David’s life and thus knew him intimately” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 891). God knew not only David’s actions, but also his motivations. In light of such truths, we need to be completely honest with God, for nothing escapes His notice, nothing can be hidden from Him, nothing is forgotten by Him. He never errs, never changes, and never overlooks anything. “God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret” (Boice p. 1203). “Psalm 139 is compelling in its descriptions of how close God wants to be to us. He is not satisfied to be simply the reigning King, exalted in heaven, enthroned before a sea of angels. He desires to have a personal relationship with us on the deepest level” (Williams p. 481). God’s eye follows our course through the day and is upon us when we retire. “He knows what we think about people. He knows our motives as we talk with them and make promises to them. He knows the path we take through the day, each pause, each detour” (Williams p. 482). God is so aware of our inner thoughts, that He knows what we are going to say before we say it (139:4). This does not mean that what we say has been predestined, but rather, God knows our thoughts before those thoughts are spoken to others (Mark 2:8). For the person who is not honest, this is a scary thought, because it means that one cannot fool God; but for the sincere believer, such knowledge is comforting, for it means that we can appeal to such a God to deliver us from hidden faults (Psalm 19:12). Here is motivation to take our thoughts and lives seriously, for God does! He just does not notice motives, rather He inspects them thoroughly and He sees every trend and tendency and every move towards righteousness and unrighteousness. For other verses along this line see Job 31:4; Proverbs 5:21; 16:2; 1 Samuel 16:7; 2 Kings 6:12 “the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom”; 1 Corinthians 4:5 “But wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts”.
God and “What If’s”
God knows not only what men do, but also what they would have done, had He not mercifully removed the opportunity (Genesis 20:6). God knew that the men in the city of Keliah would hand over David to Saul (1 Samuel 23:12), yet this never happened because David departed from this city. Jesus said that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented in sackcloth and ashes if the preaching and miracle working He had done in Galilee had been performed in those cities instead (Matthew 10:21-24). “God knew the possibility of the Tyrian’s repentance, if they had had the same means, heard the same truths, and beheld the same miracles which were offered to the ears, and presented to the eyes of the Jews”(Charnock p. 418). Please note, this does not mean that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah are thereby saved (2 Peter 2:6,9; Jude 7 “are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire”). Jesus is not excusing the downplaying the evil in these cities in Matthew 10:21-24, rather He is demonstrating the complete inexcusability of His own generation! In addition, God also has the ability to know all the random or chance acts that happen in this world. God predicted the death of Ahab in battle (1 Kings 22:28), yet Ahab was killed by a random shot by an archer (22:34).
Carefully note, if God knows all the “What if’s”, then the commands we find in Scripture were given after God considered all the possibilities. Yes, there are all sorts of human speculations given by those who want to avoid the command to be baptized, such as the person in the desert, or the supposed person who dies on the way to the baptisry, yet God still gave the clear command to be baptized for the remission of sins (Mark 16:16). All the hypothetical situations that man can envision do not alter this command, for the God who can obviously see far more hypotheticals than man can imagine, still gave this command without any exceptions. The same is true for every other command that God has ever given. The same is true concerning what Jesus taught concerning the question of divorce and remarriage. Yes, there are many “what if’s” that surround this issue, but God already knew about all those possibilities—and every possibility and yet He still gave the legislation that is found in Matthew 19:9 that mentions one exception. God knows what people would have done if they had been born in different time periods, to a different family or in a different culture, but God still holds man accountable for what he does with the life that he is given (2 Corinthians 5:10). If God knows all things, and has all power, then it is clear that God never places a human being in a situation where they cannot know about Him or serve Him (1 Corinthians 10:13; Romans 2:14). Therefore, God knows all those who are searching for Him (Acts 8:27; 18:10 “for I have many people in this city”), and has the ability to bring all honest hearts in contact with the truth. God’s omniscience is extremely comforting and reassuring, for it means that everyone who wants the truth will get his or her chance to accept or reject it.
