The God Who Knows All - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, March 21st. Life can be confusing, but believers aren't left to figure things out alone. Let's listen and learn that through Jesus, Christians have access to everything we need to know. Now when you talk about the attributes of God to some people, they say, what is that? And sometimes we who have been believers a long time have the attitude that there's some aspects of the Christian life or about the Bible or about God, about the whole theological concept that you and I walk in and live in, that there's some things that don't really make a whole lot of difference to us. So we want to categorize these over here and say, well, some things are important and some things not important.

And so we're just going to shove aside the things that are not important. And what I need to know about God is what I want to know. So I want to talk about three aspects of that. And the first one is the character of his omniscience. When we say that God knows everything, well, you'll notice in these first few verses what he says, O Lord, thou has searched me and known me.

Thou knowest my downsittings and my uprising. Thou knowest my thoughts and how far off thou compasses my path, my lying down. Thou art acquainted with all my ways, for there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together. Now, when we talk about the all knowing God, what does he know? All of God's knowledge is, first of all, complete.

He doesn't know anything partially. He knows everything totally and completely. The second thing I want us to notice is this, and that is that his omniscience should bring conviction to all of us. The fact that he does know everything.

Now, let's look at it for just a moment. God saw Cain, Calable. He heard Sarah laugh at God. He watched David and knew what was going to happen.

He knew all about Pharaoh's reactions. He knew exactly where Jonah was. He called Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah headed out the other way, as if to get away from God. Now, listen, all the Jonahs didn't die 4000 years ago. A lot of Jonahs today who are running from God, where in the world can you go to get away from a God who knew you before you were born, who knows where you're going to spend eternity, who already knows how you're going to respond to this particular situation?

There is no escape. He says, as we said before, thou has set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. He knows all about them. Now, because he does, when you and I come to confess them to him, when we come to confess them to him, listen, we are not giving out knowledge of something he doesn't know. What we're doing is revealing the fact and expressing our regret and asking for his forgiveness. We are expressing something from our heart to him.

We are not giving information. We are submitting ourselves to his sovereign rule and control in our heart. But the third aspect of his omniscience that I want to dwell on and this is the most important part I believe, and that is the fact, the fact that God is omniscient is one of the most comforting thoughts to be found anywhere in the word of God. The fact that God knows all about us. Now, let's go back to Psalm 139 now and back, if you will, to verse 15 and 16. He says, my substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect or incomplete, in the book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. That is, even before you were born, every detail God already had done. There are no details unknown to God about us personally.

And I think the way he said it in verse 15 and 16, he said it so beautifully. He said, even before we were born, God had the blueprint of our life and every intricate detail, every cell of our body, our temperament, all of our emotional being was perfectly known to God. The second thing, he knows all of our needs. And when you think about how many needs you and I have and what our Lord knows about our needs, somebody says, well, if he knows all my needs before I ask, why should I ask him?

Very simple. God wants us constantly focusing our attention upon him and absolutely and totally and eternally aware of the fact that he is the source of all of our needs and he's the source of all the good things that come our way. He wants us to see him as the source and always be looking to him and accepting everything that comes our way as from him. He does not say ask in order to inform God. He says, ask and it shall be given you.

And then he said, you have not because you asked not, not because he doesn't know we need it. He doesn't refuse to answer our prayer because we didn't ask him and he didn't know about it. He refuses to answer our prayer for several reasons, sometimes sin in our life, sometimes in his plan, we're not ready to receive the answer. But more than likely, it's because we don't ask him and it's not that he doesn't know, it's just that he's waiting until we acknowledge him as the sovereign, fathomless resource of everything we'll ever need. He's waiting on us. So that when we come to him in prayer, if you don't believe that God is omniscient, then your prayer is going to be very weak.

Now, one of the wonderful things likewise in every prayer life is this. Sometimes you and I come to him and we say, Lord, I don't feel anything. I talk to you, you don't say anything.

Nothing is happening. God, why don't you say something? Don't you know that I'm down here?

Don't you see where I am? He says in this passage that wherever you are, he knows. But look, if you will, this is a beautiful passage to me. And it happened several times in the scripture in Matthew chapter 14.

You recall that Jesus had been feeding the 5000. He told his disciples to get in the ship and go across the sea. And then the Bible says in verse 23, in Matthew 14, that he went up a mountain apart to pray. When the evening was come, he was there alone.

So it's pitch black dark. And so his apostles were out on the out on the sea as a storm came up. Here he is up in the mountains praying. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went under them walking on the sea.

But now I want to tell you something. He didn't have a compass. He didn't have a big searchlight. And listen, the scripture says and in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them walking on the sea. Now, had we been writing that about anybody else we would have said and Jesus went looking for them.

It doesn't say that. Jesus went unto them. He went straight to them. Did you know that there is never a time in your life in my life when we can ever get in a place of distress or heartache a burden of sorrow, that he does not know exactly how we feel and listen. Have you ever been to bed at night and you cut the lights off and you lay there and you wept and you wept and you wept and you wept and you were all alone. Nobody knew you were crying, but just you. But God knew.

He says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Sometime we just need to know that he knows. Maybe you've done your best as a student and your best isn't good enough and you're flunking your courses and deep in your heart, you know that is best your heart knows the truth.

You know, you've done your best. Somebody understands when you're falsely accused, verbally abused and everybody seems to be riding on your back and you don't know what to do next is somebody who knows exactly how you feel when your heart gets broken and it gets shattered. And it seems that nobody else in the whole world loves you.

Nobody cares. There's somebody who knows somebody who cares somebody who loves you. Maybe you're single because you're a widow because you've never married because you're divorced. And you look around the walls of that apartment or that house and you think God, I cannot stand this encompassing, enveloping, enclosing, vice-like loneliness that keeps moving in upon me. There's somebody who understands exactly how you feel. And when disaster comes and there is no word of consolation, people can say anything they want to say, but they'll say, I know how you feel and you know in your heart, no, you don't know how I feel.

You can always count on the fact that somebody does and he's God. He always knows exactly how we feel. So I got to thinking about my own life. I thought, well, now Lord, you knew my father would die when I was seven months of age. You knew what my mother would have to do. You knew all the things that I would feel growing up. You knew all of these things and what have you done? Having known all of that, you were never behind, never surprised at anything I would do, anything that I would feel. You were always there to love me, direct me, assure me, help me, forgive me, overshadow me, undergird me, surround me, teach me all the things that I needed.

You would always be there to work them out. Now listen, you see back here when you were born, whatever kind of home you grew up in had a far greater lasting effect and more influence on your present life today than any of us would ever like to admit. That's where it all started. Our attitude about ourselves, our attitude about others, our attitude about God, our attitude about life, our whole perspective of things began back there. And because it did, God knows why we are where we are tonight wherever that is.

And so what does he do? He's always willing at any point with a loving outreaching hand to help us through whatever difficulty we may be facing at the moment. And you see, you'll do some things you don't understand why you do them. You'll feel some things that you don't understand why you feel them.

You'll think things that you don't quite understand how it all fits together. He understands beautifully and perfectly what's happening because you see, he knows the end of our earthly life as well as the beginning. And he sees the whole picture in every age and every area of our life. And he knows why we respond the way we respond. No surprises to God. And so what does he do? He's always working in our life.

Now listen, watch this. Some people would have enormous difficulty in their life. He could have changed all of that, but he didn't.

Now, why didn't he change these things? One of the reasons is because what great difficulty God may allow in our life. If we can respond in the right way, what will he do? He will take these difficult, sorrowful, heartbreaking, heart rending things that we would like to bypass in life. And he will make them a part of our very being. And he'll turn all the things that seem to be bad in their life into good in what happens at a point in their life. He'll make all those things to become a blessing in somebody else's life.

But now somebody says, but if I just knew more, if I just understood more, let me tell you something. Did you know that God is willing to unveil more of his mind to you than you're willing to accept? Look, if you will, in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ere heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God had prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God.

Now watch this. How do you know everything that you know about God? The Spirit of God revealed it to you. You may have been reading the book, but the Spirit of God revealed it to you.

Look if you read the last verse of that chapter. Verse 16, Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have, present tense, the mind of Christ. Now listen, what does that mean that you and I have the mind of Christ? Now listen, there are many things about our own lives that we'd like to know more about. There are many things about God we'd like to know more about. Now listen, everything you and I need to know, God is willing to reveal. There's some things we think we need to know, we don't need to know. There's some things we're just curious about. We don't need to know them, we just have curiosity.

Now he understands that, it doesn't bother him. Everything we need to know, God is willing to reveal. He's far more willing to give us more of his mind than most of us even want.

Now I'll tell you where you can get most of his mind. When you have a copy of the Word of God in your hand, and the Holy Spirit in your heart, willing and ready to teach you, you have access to the mind of God and all the knowledge you'll ever need. You see, he has already proven to the fact that he's given us his mind in the written Word, he's given us his teacher in the Holy Spirit. We don't want to know, don't tell God that you want to know unless you are in the Word and you're asking the Spirit to teach you. How do you get the mind of God?

I think there's several things involved. Number one, if you're going to get God's mind and begin to see things from God's perspective and see them as he wants you to see them, the first thing you've got to do is to submit, as a Christian, is to submit your will totally, totally, absolutely as completely and as thoroughly and as unreservedly as you know how to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He is absolute Lord as best I know how.

Number one. Number two, I must systematically go to him daily in his Word on my knees doing what? Reading the Word, talking to him, reading the Word, talking to him, talking to him, reading the Word, listening to him. You see, if you're going to find the mind of God, you've got to be submissive to his will. Secondly, you've got to get in this book and begin to get his thoughts into your mind. Listen, I don't mean just read through some passage. You've got to get to the place that whatever he wants is what you want. Then you've got to get in there and you say, you can't get in the Word just when you get in an emergency.

You've got to get in there and stay in there. If you want to know the mind of God every day, talk to him, listen to him. But listen, the talking and the devotional reads one thing, but you've got to learn to listen to God. The second thing is being quiet after you've read and prayed and don't say anything. Well, I think there's one other thing. You've got to commit yourself to be obedient before you even know what's going to happen. That's part of the submission part.

But the fourth thing is this. You've got to give yourself away in service to God. Why should he start telling you anything that you're going to keep to yourself? Not going to share it, not going to share your life with anybody else. You're just going to live your life in your little old personal nutshell and you're just going to do things just like you wanted, but you're going to live your life and you just want God to show you and he's not going to do it.

You see, if you submit yourself to him and you tell him, God, I don't understand. I don't know what to do next. I need wisdom.

I need guidance. I need your mind in this thing. Show me, dear God, what shall I do? And whatever you say, I'm going to do it. Do you think God would sit up in heaven and say, let's just see how long he's willing to wait? No, I said to you before and I'll say again, he's far more willing to tell you what you need to know than you're willing. Let me tell you something. Can you tell me anything any more valuable in human life than to have the mind of God about anything? Thank you for listening to part two of the God who knows all. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by in touch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.