The Omniscience of God - Holy One of Israel Part 5

You know, we're involved in a series of messages entitled The Holy One of Israel. This is a series all about God. But in this series, we're not trying to defend God's existence. You see, if a person knows God personally through Jesus Christ, well, there's no need to defend God's existence. And if a person doesn't know God through Jesus Christ in a personal way, then all the logical arguments in the world that I could give that person, they're not going to do that. That person wouldn't convince Him anyway.

For such a person, the Holy Spirit Himself must do the convincing, and I'm perfectly content to leave the job to the Holy Spirit. In fact, the only defense of God's existence that I'll offer us today is the defense that the Bible itself gives when it says in Psalm 14, 1, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now what we are trying to do in this series is not, as we said, to defend God, but rather to describe God in all of His wonderful attributes. Remember, an attribute is a description of what God is, of His intrinsic nature. An attribute is a description not of what God does, but of who God is. And God probably has many attributes that you and I know nothing about. However, He has revealed some of His attributes in the Bible, and those are the ones that we're studying one at a time and talking about. Now so far, we've covered four of these wonderful attributes. We've covered, in part one, the fact that God is eternal, in part two, that God is holy, in part three, that God is omnipotent, and in part four, that God is faithful. And if you missed any of these messages, I urge you to go to our bookstore, get the tape, get the CD, or go online and podcast the message, because I really want you to keep up.

All of this builds on all of this, so I don't want you falling behind. Today, in part five, we're going to talk about the omniscience of God, the fact that God is omniscient. Now you say, Lon, I'm an educated person, and I've never even heard this word.

What does that mean? Well, to be omniscient, the English word comes from two Latin words, omnis, which means all, and the verb scire, which means to know. Therefore, to be omniscient means to be all-knowing.

An omniscient person is a person who knows everything about everything, and not just everything in the past that's already happened, but this person also knows everything in the future that is still yet to happen. And the Bible declares, without equivocation, that God is omniscient. Isaiah 40, verse 13, who has understood God's mind, or instructed him, the Bible says, with whom has the Lord ever consulted to enlighten him? Or who is it that has ever taught him anything, or showed him the path of understanding? Job 21, Job said, can anyone teach knowledge to God? Friends, God has never been taught anything. God has never learned anything. God has never discovered anything, and no one has ever enlightened God about one single fact.

You might say, well, Lon, when it comes to this omniscience of God thing, I mean, just really, how far-reaching is it? Well, first of all, let me say, the Bible says God knows everything about creation, everything about the physical universe. Psalm 147 says God determines the numbers of the stars, and he knows them each by name. I'm reminded of Genesis 15, where God took Abraham out one night and said, look up in the sky, Abraham, and count the stars if you can.

Well, Abraham couldn't, but God already had. Not only had he counted them, the Bible says he named them all, one by one. Jesus said in Luke 12, are not five sparrows sold for two pennies, and yet not one of them is unknown to God. God knows about creation down to the level of five little birds, Jesus said. This is why Job said in chapter 28 of his book, God views the ends of the earth and knows about everything under the heavens. Second, how far does the omniscience of God go? Well, second, God knows everything about the future. Isaiah 46, God says, I am God, and there is none other. And I make known from ancient times things that have not yet happened, but are still to come. In fact, this is one of the greatest, one of the most compelling proofs of the trustworthiness and the veracity of the Bible, namely that in the Bible we have over 30 predictions about specific events from the life of the Lord Jesus in his first coming, all of them written, a minimum of 600, and sometimes as much as 2,000 years before the appearing of Christ, and yet every single one of them happened exactly like God said they would.

How do we explain that? Well, we explain it because God is omniscient. He knows the future like we know the past. Finally, God knows everything about every human being. Psalm 33 says, from heaven God looks down and sees all mankind.

He understands all their works. In Proverbs 15, verse 11, the Bible says, death and destruction are opened before the Lord, so how much more the hearts of men? In Jeremiah 23, God said to Jeremiah, can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?

Do I not feel heaven and earth? Which is why Jesus said, Matthew chapter 10, even the very hairs of your head are numbered. Can you imagine God doing this for billions and billions and billions of people? And friends, this is how Jesus knew, John chapter 1, that Nathanael had been sitting under a fig tree in Bethsaida when he was miles away in Galilee. And this is how Jesus was able, John chapter 4, to tell the woman at the well everything she'd ever done, even though they'd never met before. The Bible says, Hebrews 4.13 sums it up well, it says, there is no creature hidden from God's sight, but all things are open and laid bare to Him to whom we must give an account. So then, to our growing understanding of who God is in this series, that God is without beginning, without ending, without source and without limits, that God is holy and omnipotent and eternally faithful, now we must add one more thing, and that is that God is omniscient, that God is all-knowing, that He possesses complete knowledge about all things, whether those things are visible or invisible, whether those things are actual or merely possible, things in heaven and in hell and on earth and in the sea, whether those things are past or whether those things are present or whether those things are future, and that God knows these things perfectly, God knows these things exhaustively, and God knows all these things simultaneously. What this means is that God knows who shot John F. Kennedy, and God knows what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, and God knows the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, and God knows who our next president is going to be and whether Brittany is getting her children back. God knows it all. He knows it all. And why does He know it all?

Because God is omniscient. Now, that's as far as we want to go in the theological treatment of this attribute. We want to stop now and ask our most important question about all of this, and you know what it is, so take a deep breath. Here we go, nice and loud.

One, two, three. Ah, yeah, you say, Lon, so what? Say, that's all wonderful, and I think you're right on, and God bless you up there, but you know, when I drive the carpool tomorrow morning, when I go to work tomorrow morning, when I go to school tomorrow morning, I mean, the fact that God is omniscient, I mean, what difference does that make to me? Well, let's talk about that. Let's think about it for a moment. On an intensely personal level, let's think about what this means that God is omniscient. Friends, it means that God knows about every single nook and cranny of our lives.

Let me go back to Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4-12 says, God sees the thoughts and the intents of our heart. God just doesn't see what we do. God sees why we do it, and what we're thinking, and what's going on in the deepest recesses of our souls. The next verse continues, there is nothing about us hidden from His sight. Everything about us is open, literally in Greek, naked and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. The point, my friends, is that before God, each of us is totally exposed. There is no scheme we can ever devise that God doesn't understand.

There is no plastic that we can ever paste on that God doesn't see through. There is no secret sin we can ever commit that God doesn't know all about. This is why in Psalm 90 the Bible says, you have placed my sins before you, even my secret sins in the light of your presence. This is why Jesus said, Luke 12, there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden, that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the light.

Ouch! And what you have whispered in the inner rooms shall be shouted from the rooftops. This is the life verse for Washington, D.C., right here. And you know, when I think about just how deeply inside of us God can see, I'm reminded of what David said in Psalm 139. Here's some of what David said, verse 1. He said, Lord, you have searched me and you know all about me. You perceive my thoughts from afar off and you are intimately acquainted with all my ways. David says, God, you have a perfect knowledge of my innermost being, of my deepest motives, of my secret intentions. You understand things inside of me, God, that I don't even understand inside of me and that I can't even verbalize. In truth, Lord, you know me more intimately than I know me. Look, he goes on, verse 4, even before there's a word on my tongue, you already know it completely, Lord.

That's a pretty staggering thought. Verse 13, you form my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's womb. When I was made in secret, that is, in my mother's womb, your eyes saw my unformed substance. Not only do you know me now here on earth, David says, but you knew me, you knew everything about me when I was still in my mother's womb. Whoa, but there's more.

Wait a minute. David goes on to say that God knew him even before he was in his mother's womb. Look, verse 16, all the days ordained for me, David says, were already written in your book before even one of them came to be. This is like God said to Jeremiah. He said in Jeremiah 1, Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, look at this, I knew you, and before you were born, Jeremiah, before you were born, son, I set you apart.

Amazing. Now all of this is too staggering for David to get his mind around, so he exclaims in verse 6, such truth is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to comprehend it. David says, I can't even begin to fathom a being like this, and neither can you and I. Now let me say that for a person outside of Jesus Christ, the omniscience of God, having an all-knowing God like this, should be a terrifying thought. Because what it means is that we can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but we can't fool God any of the time.

It means that all of our puny efforts to hide our sin and cover our wrongdoing by our own efforts, these are worthless. God sees it all, friends. He knows it all, folks. In fact, God knows what sins you're going to commit tomorrow.

You don't even know yet, but He does. There's no concealing anything from God. And if you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, then I want to say to you, there's only one way to deal with a God who sees us and all the sin in our life like this, and that is to avail ourselves of the covering, the protection, the refuge for all of our sin that He created for us in His mercy.

What is that? 1 John 1, verse 7 says, the blood of Jesus shed on the cross is what cleanses us from all sin. And if you're here and you've never trusted Christ, I beg you not to walk to the cross, but to run to the cross as fast as you can get there, and to avail yourself of the one covering for all the sin in your life that God sees and understands, the one covering that God will actually honor and that will work.

And I hope you'll do that. Now, for those of us who are already followers of Christ, however, the fact that God is omniscient and knows all about us, you see, I don't think that's a scary thought if you're a follower of Christ. I think it's an intensely comforting thought.

Let me explain what I mean. You see, the fact that God is omniscient means that God already knows every minute detail about you and me. No spy can inform on us and tell God something He doesn't already know.

No enemy can bring a surprise accusation against us. No prosecuting attorney can wring some information out of us that God doesn't already know. No hidden skeleton can come tumbling out of some closet somewhere that can endanger God's commitment to us as His children. The truth is, God already knew about every single skeleton in our closet before He sent Christ to die for us, and He sent Christ to die for us anyway. And God already knew about every secret sin in our life before He agreed to adopt us as His children and He agreed to adopt us anyway. And this is the point that the apostle Paul is trying to make with joy in Romans chapter 5, that there is nothing that can be revealed about us now that we belong to Christ that can possibly turn God away from us.

Listen to what he says. Romans 5 verse 8, God demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, and if you think you understand the meaning of that word for your life, believe me, God understands it more deeply than you and I do. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, now that we have been justified by Jesus' blood, how much more will we be saved from God's wrath through Him, the Lord Jesus? For, if while we were God's enemies we were reconciled to God, how much more now that we've been reconciled will we be saved through His Christ's life? This is why Paul concludes his whole discussion in Romans 1 through 8 by saying, For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing in all creation That's pretty broad.

Any other thing in all creation will be able to separate us who are followers of Christ from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, there's a very common plot on television, you see it all the time, a girl with a sullied background marries the all-American guy, and then somebody shows up who knows her secrets and threatens to reveal her past to her husband. Well, she is so sure that a skeleton like this will endanger his love for her, that blackmail ensues, and then murder ensues, and then CSI comes along and solves the case.

You understand? Well, I'd like to say to you that this plot can never, ever occur between Jesus Christ and one of His sheep. Because, friends, as followers of Christ, nobody can ever tell God anything about you and me that He doesn't already know. He knows the good, He knows the bad, and He knows the ugly, and He knows the worst and ugly. And here's the best part about the whole thing, that even though He knows all of this, as followers of Christ, He accepts us totally anyway. As followers of Christ, He loves us unconditionally anyway. And He values us enough that He was willing to come and die on the cross for us anyway. Now, when God values you like that, dude, you've got to value yourself. So let's conclude and say, how cool is what we've learned today?

How amazing is this truth? That God, who sees the rottenest things inside of you and me, who knows rotten things about us that we don't even know about ourselves, He knows all of our arrogance, He knows all of our pride, He knows all of our lust, He knows all about our jealousies, He knows all about our hatreds, He knows all about our unkind thoughts about other people. You say, I don't have any of them. Well, then you really don't know yourself. I really feel sorry for you. Of course you have these things, and so do I.

And they go deeper than we want to admit, and they're uglier than we want to admit. God knows it all. And yet, for some unfathomable reason, He wants you and me to be His children. He wants you and me to spend eternity in heaven with Him.

He wants you and me to go on and be His intimate friends. He wants us to be in personal connection with Him, and He gave His own life to make it possible. What a liberating truth.

What an amazing truth. See, you and I don't have to earn God's acceptance, folks. We got it.

We got it. It's ours forever, totally free. We don't have to be worthy of God's love. We have God's love.

It's ours even though we're not worthy of it. And you know, I've been a Christian 37 years, and this is one truth I have never gotten over. I've gotten used to some other truths.

I have. I've gotten, maybe I take for granted, some other theological truths, but this one, this one I have never gotten over. Of all the people in the world, God, why in the world would you want me? I mean, I was a really rotten human being, and you know what?

I still am. Why do you want me? I mean, I can understand why I want you. That's easy. But why do you want me?

Friends, why does He want you? Well, I don't have an answer for that, friends, but I'm sure glad He does. That's all I can tell you. But I've never gotten over that one. And you know, I suppose George Robinson summed it up as well as it can be summed up in a beautiful song that you heard earlier. When he said in his last verse, his forever, only his, who the Lord and me shall part. Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart. Heaven and earth may fade away and flee. Firstborn light and gloom decline, but while God and I shall be, I am His and He is mine.

Amazing. Listen, if that truth that we've just talked about here doesn't cause you to want to rise up and love God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength, then I don't know what truth I could ever teach you that would. If this truth doesn't cause you to want to rise up and worship God with everything inside of you, then I don't know what truth I could ever tell you that would cause you to do that. If this truth doesn't cause you to want to rise up and surrender your life to God, every lock, stock, and barrel, every nail in the crate, the whole thing, and make Him Lord of every part of your life, I don't know what I could tell you. If this truth doesn't cause you to want to rise up and serve God with your life instead of serving yourself, then I don't know what truth I could tell you that would cause you to do that. I've never gotten over this one. It's staggering to me.

And my hope, it's staggering to you because, friends, what lives inside of us, if we really saw us as God sees us, I'm not sure most of us could take it. I mean, it's that bad, friends. You say, well, I don't want to come here and get depressed.

I mean, why would I want to come here and have you tell me how bad I am? Well, two reasons. Number one, because it's true. And number two, because that's not where the story ends. The story doesn't end there. The story ends with a God who knows more about it than you do, giving His life on the cross and wanting you to be His child and spend eternity with Him, loving you enough, valuing you enough in spite of it. That's where the story ends. That's not bad news. That's good news. And so we ought to walk out of here saying, yeah, Lon told me I was rotten, and I am, but you know, the good news is Jesus loves me.

Yeah, He does. And He proved it in that while we were yet sinners, huh? And we still are. Christ gave His life for us. Friends, if this won't cause you to walk out of here going, amen, hallelujah, Lord, what you want me to do for you?

I'm yours. I don't know what will. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we don't live in a world that talks about the things in one another's lives that are wrong, sinful, ugly, displeasing to God.

We live in a very psychobabble, Oprah-speak world. But Lord, this is truth. And I pray today that you would impress upon us what we really are and then impress upon us what you really are. Because when those two things are impressed upon us, Lord, the end is pretty exciting. Help us walk out of here, those of us who know Christ rejoicing, not in what we are, Lord, but in what you are. Not in the fact that we love you in a meager way, but that you love us in an absolute way. And may this lift our spirits to want to worship you and surrender to you and love you and serve you with everything we got. Lord Jesus, pry us loose from our preoccupation with ourselves and help us to learn to be preoccupied with the living Christ who gave his life for us. Change our lives because we were here today, Father, and thank you for revealing yourself to us in these great attributes. As we study them, may we grow deeper in love with you, Lord, deeper in love with the Lord Jesus. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what do God's people say? Amen. .