The Omniscience of God (08/19/2001)

The Omniscience of God and the Meaning of Intelligence

Let's turn to Psalm 139 this morning. I want everyone over on this side of the altar and take a deep breath because we need a Little more weight over here. We're we're out of balance this morning. Sometimes this side wins though.

It's amazing just depends. You never know. It's good to see each of you this morning. As brother Russell said God has the right crowd here and. And he is in control and you're here because he wanted you here and you're also here because you submitted to him and.

So today what we're going to do is we're going to try to get to know him a little better. To me, that's what Sunday morning ought to be all about if nothing else in the whole week is that way Sunday morning should be.

About knowing God and we're going through systematic theology. We had a little lay a little groundwork before we got to this place. We talked for quite some time about the Bible itself. Because if you don't understand the origin of the Bible and the author of the Bible you get very little from the Bible, but having done that we've launched into a study of God and.

So we're talking about. Specifically last time we talked about the personality of God the fact that God is a person in order to be a person. You have to have three things and some of you say oh, no, I may not be a person.

But the first one is intelligence. That's not you say. Well, it knocks me out. What am I a vegetable? Mineral. Okay. Come on. Y 'all get with me a little bit. I knew it was gloomy in here, but you won't even laugh at my jokes this morning.

We're in big trouble. Charlotte came up and sat beside me said, you know, I asked the Lord he'd give me a song. I'd sing it. I think we need something lively. That's it. I think you better get real lively.

Didn't work honey nice try. Intelligence. If you don't have intelligence you're not a person now you you young people don't use that on each other. Okay, no sarcasm, please. Second thing is sensibility.

You have to desire things. You have to have some emotions. You have to have desire and the third thing is will. You have to be able to determine some things and will some things to be a person we studied last time about how God has Those three attributes now this morning.

God's Infinite Understanding and the Only Wise God

We're gonna focus in on the first one and when we speak of intelligence with God we call that omniscience. Omni meaning all in its fullest complete meaning all all knowledge. God has all knowledge. So that's what we'll study this morning.

Primarily most of the message will come from Psalm 139 and 40 or 50 other verses. So let's have a word of prayer and then we'll begin father. We thank you so much for your word. We ask you now to prepare our hearts to hear it.

Take our minds off the things of this world for we studied in Sunday school this morning. We're not to be double-minded. Lord help us to think on things of the heavenlies for that truly is where we dwell if we're born again.

If we're born again and filled with the Spirit, we're dwelling in the heavenlies in Christ. Seated at your throne help us to sense that realize it and reckon it to be true. And Lord, we ask you to bring to our minds any unconfessed sins from this day or this week and Help us to get that right with you before we begin and we ask you also to bind and rebuke the enemy.

Send him away for he has no place here. That we might be a people that the Holy Spirit would search during these next hours. Search our hearts and teach us what he knows. We need to learn for Jesus sake.

Amen. Well, let me give you a little introduction just to the omniscience of God. Omniscience mean Meaning that he knows all things he's all-knowing first I would say this that There are verses in the Bible that speak of the fact that God's understanding is infinite.

You might want to obviously keep your hand here in Psalm 139. But if you want to look at some of these others look at Psalm 147 in verse 5 that verse Defines this idea of infinite understanding as well as any other verse.

Psalm 147 verse 5 It says great is our Lord and of great power is. Understanding is infinite. Now this word understanding literally is a Hebrew word, which literally means intelligence. But it comes from a a root Hebrew word, which is pronounced bean.

Which means to separate mentally or to distinguish? We think of that in human viewpoint. We think of the ability to distinguish right from wrong. The ability to have wisdom and distinguish which direction to go as opposed to the wrong direction the wisdom not to fall into a trap that Satan or the world or the flesh may be digging for us and.

So this ability to separate things Mentally is what is the root meaning of this word and it says great is our Lord and of great power His ability in this area. The Bible says is Infinite. How big is infinite?

Well, we have a word for it, but we don't understand it. Do we it's bigger than we can understand now if his understanding is Infinite then it far surpasses our little ability to understand things and sometimes we try to analyze God within our own Understanding and sometimes we err when we do that.

Psalm 92 5 says Oh Lord, how great are thy works and thy thoughts are very deep. Now with that verse in mind where it says his thoughts are very deep. I want to give you a quote from a man named Robert Leitner who wrote a book called the God of the Bible and You'll think brother Otis has been reading this book.

But I think brother Otis may have written this before Leitner did. I don't know but it says this God has universal and complete knowledge. His knowledge is not only infinitely above man's it is well nigh Incomprehensible to man.

Divine omniscience is knowledge without the discovery of facts. He has never and never will learn. Now chew on that for a moment. It's a completely different kind of knowledge and understanding than we as men have.

Because the way we gain knowledge and understanding is that we learn new facts. God can't do that because he knows them all already. When we sit around and we think and we learn that is a human process.

For gaining knowledge and you and hopefully assimilating that knowledge and having understanding and wisdom to use it. God doesn't do that. Sequentially like we do he already has it all. That's what omniscient means and I think that was a very good way of putting it that mr. Leitner Described it very well.

Now. It's interesting. When we look at at this verse look at 147 five again, look at the first part of it. It says great is our Lord and of great power. Now that's a different subject that we'll study another time called his omnipotence.

It means he's all-powerful, but I want you to notice that his omnipotence is tied together with his omniscience. Now, let me give you a quote by J. I Packer who wrote a beautiful book called knowing God, I think he Finished it the year.

I graduated from high school 1972. He says this omniscience governing omnipotence. Infinite power ruled by infinite wisdom is a basic biblical description of the divine character wisdom and might are his.

Daniel chapter 2 verse 20 says so we see a tying together of Omnipotence with omniscience. Now when you take a being who knows everything that there is to know. And you take a being who has all power and you put those two together.

You have a good start at understanding God. In fact, this is the start that the Old Testament Saints had as God began to describe himself to man. He began with his power and then he moves on to his omniscience or his all-knowing capabilities and his foreknowledge and.

Then sometimes he goes from there to his righteousness. So we start out with his fact that God knows all things without having to learn any new facts. Because he knows all things by definition. You can't learn if you're omniscient.

So we have to get a little bit beyond our abilities to think and understand to even describe God's omniscience. Second thing I see. Beyond infinite understanding we see some verses that say that God is the only wise.

Look at Jude 1. Well, there's only one isn't there. Look at Jude 25. Jude 25 and then first Timothy 117 says exactly the same thing. But the point is that God is the only wise so when you want to speak of omniscience there is only one who has it and.

So Jude 25 says the only wise God our Savior. Be glory and majesty dominion and power. Notice how it once again mixes the omnipotence the power with the wisdom of God both now and forever. Amen, first Timothy 117 says now and to the king eternal immortal Invisible the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen so We see not only is God one who has infinite understanding. He's the only one who has it now. Third set the next thing that I see third thing is for knowledge is Based upon omniscience and implied by it Acts chapter 15 verse 18.

Look at that one. When the Bible speaks of God being the only wise God. That word in the Greek language comes from Sophos, which means clear. To God everything is clear. Do you ever get in those gray areas?

Kind of in between the black and the white when you wish you really knew what the right thing to do was and you say Well, I should know what the right thing is, but I'm just it's gray to me. It's never that way to God.

Everything is clear and that is the root word for this word wise, but he is the only wise. So don't be too upset with yourselves if you have a gray area from time to time but the more you walk with him and the more you learn of him the more those grays can Turn over into blacks or whites and we can know more what to do.

Acts 15 18 says known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Known unto God are all of his works and. This means that from the beginning of the world God already knew all of his works.

Now, how can that be possible? We call that foreknowledge, but really what is it one who is omniscient? Obviously knows all things therefore. He knows the end from the beginning. So foreknowledge almost becomes a human expression to describe the godly attribute of omniscience.

We think of it in a way that we would have to do it we think in sequence so we'd have to say well, I know the end from the beginning and. So we describe it that way with God. But the truth is is foreknowledge is nothing more than an outgrowth or a human way of understanding.

The fact that he's omniscient he knows all things. So obviously he knows the end from the beginning. Because God's in the ever-present tense. He's he said my name is I am. Isn't that an amazing name.

I am the great I am. Present tense. So obviously he knows all things because all things are in a sense finished with God from his heavenly dimension. Well. Next thing I like to point out is this the all-seeing eye is talked about when we talk about omniscience turn to Hebrews 4 13.

Hebrews 4 13 says neither. Is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight? But all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do so the omniscience of God has to do with the fact that he is all-seeing as.

Well, in fact if you go into the book of Revelations where it describes the lamb Jesus Christ Who is in at the throne of God? It says he has seven eyes and these eyes are the seven spirits of God in those eyes.

Picture the fact seven being the perfect number that God sees all things. There is nothing that goes beyond his ability. To see all things keep that in mind as we move on into this study the fifth thing that we'll see in this introduct introductory remarks is That creation shows forth his wisdom and his omniscience.

Psalm 104 verse 24 says O Lord. How manifold are thy works in? Wisdom hast thou made them all. The earth is full of thy riches. The Bible points out as God reveals to us that the way that he created all things was through wisdom through his omniscience.

Proverbs 3 19 the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth by understanding hath he established the heavens and all of Proverbs chapter 8 personifies wisdom and Says the same thing. We just read now. Let me sum up this introduction with Romans chapter 11 verse 33.

It says Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out? Now you might say if his ways are past finding out why are we trying to study him because we're supposed to.

The point is not that you can't find out things about God the point is you can't find them all out right now. You never will find them all out, but we're in a continual growth. Towards knowing him better every day.

If you don't know him a little better than you did this time last year. You hadn't been in the word you hadn't been walking with him because part of the pleasure that God takes in us is teaching us of himself and That is part of the duty of the Holy Spirit or his role is he manifests God to us in fact Jesus Christ himself when he came to this earth.

He said if you've seen me you've seen the father. So he was the revelator of the father. And so we live in the best of days this side of the cross. We see things that the prophets of old looked into and couldn't understand.

They knew a little bit. They got a little glimpse about it, but they couldn't grasp it. And we live on the other side of the cross and we have the New Testament completed and we can look back and see the beautiful truths given in the Old Testament and We can even see the deeper meanings of them in many cases.

But yet his ways are past finding out. He will always be God. We will never be able to totally comprehend him. But we will learn more of him for all eternity if you can imagine that. Now as we get into this study The omniscience of God will actually show us three things.

We're gonna talk about one of them for a few minutes. Let me give you all three of them so you can see where we're headed. The first thing is that to those who are born again. There is great encouragement and comfort that comes to those who are in right relationship to him.

The fact that God knows us inside and out becomes a great comfort. The second point we see as we study the Omniscience of God and we accumulate all the verses and try to group them into groups. The second group I would put them in is this.

Men are always under God's continual observation now that can be a comfort to those who are in right relation to him, but it can be quite frightful for those who are not and. Then the third thing is this all judgment from God will be according to absolute truth.

The fact that God is omniscient means that he will judge justly. It's another reason we're not to judge one another because we're not omniscient, but we'll cover those later for now. Let's look at the first point.

God's Search of the Heart and His Careful Observation of Our Ways

There is great encouragement to us and now let's move into Psalm 139 and look a little bit at this passage this morning. Psalm 139. Chapter 139 not chapter 1 verse 39. You're hoping it's just one verse didn't it?

It's a whole chapter. Psalm 139 verse 1. Follow along with me if you would. Oh Lord thou has searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting in mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off now this passage.

We're gonna study the omniscience of God from the point of view of being a blessing to the person who is in the right relation with God in Jesus Christ because you've received the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

Thou compasses my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. Think of all-knowing as we read this. God knows everything about me. God knows everything about me. Think that as we read this for there is not a word in my tongue.

But lo O Lord thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before you're behind me and you're in front of me and you've laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high.

I cannot attain into it. It's because it comes from a different dimension a higher dimension than we live in. Whether shall I go from thy spirit? Whether shall I flee from thy presence if I send up into heaven.

Thou art there if I make my bed in hell. Behold thou art there that literally means in the grave. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold upon me.

If I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee. But the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike unto thee.

For thou hast possessed my reigns. Thou has covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right. Well, my substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect and in thy book all my members were written which in Continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me?

Oh God. How great is the sum of them if I should count them? They are more in number than the sand when I awake. I am still with thee. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked that pictures the enemy anytime you see David's Enemies it pictures your enemy the world the flesh and the devil your three enemies.

Depart from me therefore ye bloody men. You might as well say depart from me Satan. For they speak against thee wickedly. And dine enemies take thy name in vain. Now, let's stop there and take a look at a bit of this.

Speaking of the omniscience of God God is all-knowing from the point of view of how he knows you inside and out. Verse 1 says Oh Lord thou has searched me and known me. These two words searched and known Are important because one of them deals with your inside and the other one deals with everything you do.

That even men might be able to see but certainly God sees all of it. This word for inside in the Hebrew is caw. Caw, which literally means to penetrate and hence to examine intimately to penetrate and to examine intimately.

So the word says that O Lord thou has searched me. David is literally saying O Lord thou has penetrated my very soul and entered my innermost being and Searched me and Then he says you have known me. This word known is y 'all dog, which means to a certain or to ascertain by seeing.

So it has to do with the physical outward things or what we would think of is the physical outward things the things we do the things we say. So not only has he searched our inside, but he sees our outside.

He sees everything that we do and David was aware of this. He says you have penetrated my innermost being and searched me and you have known me by seeing. My way he sees everything we do young people.

That's a great lesson for you children in the room today and you teenagers. There's nothing you can do that. God doesn't see. There's a lot of things you can do that. Your parents don't see but God sees every bit of it.

You know what my experience as a parent is and as a teacher in our school God will cause you to get caught. How many parents would raise your hand say the preacher might be right about that. Anybody? Okay, anybody that didn't raise their hands because you're not a parent.

All right. And our grandparent and you ain't one of those unless you were a parent. I keep reminding myself of that but Listen, God sees it all. How do you think your mom and dad catch you? You say man, they're amazing.

How do they do that? God caused it to happen. And you know what adults now, this is the funny thing about adults is they revert to childhood? Many times. When an adult wants to get involved in immorality.

And that's just the word I'll use since we have young people in the crowd this morning. When a dad an adult wants to get involved in immorality, he reverts to a child and he says I won't get caught. Satan tells him you won't.

We won't tell anybody. But guess who does tell everybody? The one who saw it all in every case without exception and. So remember that adults we don't want to revert to being children and think that there's no one that sees us.

And get your hand in the cookie jar. That spank from God is a lot worse than the one mama gave you. So he sees all things both our inside and our outside he ascertains by seeing what we do. But he penetrates our innermost being and sees who we are.

He sees what we're thinking. And then look at the next verse now notice my down-sitting and mine. Uprising this has to do with this searching part the physical outside part. David says the things that I do when I sit down you're watching me now think about that.

You need to try to make application of the scriptures when you go home. When you're home this week about your your house. You gentlemen when you come in from work and you plop down in that chair God's watching you.

He's looking to see what you're thinking when you first sit down. Do you think about him? Do you thank him for the day? Do you thank him for the job? He gave you for the income. He gives your family. Do you thank him for the beautiful home that you were just able to come home to for the wife that has it already when You get home.

Or do you think wonder what channel the ballgame zone? You know He knows you're down-sitting. He knows you're uprising men when you get up out of that chair to go out and do something in the world. He knows what you're doing.

He knows why you're doing it and ladies. He sees everything you do in the home. He sees you when you sit down. He sees what you when you get up and move about and all the things we don't think of God that way doing.

Sometimes we're not conscious of the fact that when we just sit down in a chair he's watching. Not just watching but he's seeing. He is intently interested. He's omniscient. Now next verse 3 says thou compasses my path and my lying down and Thou art acquainted with all my ways now.

We have a couple of interesting words here compasses and acquainted now. Look at that verse 3. Everybody look at it and think about it. Thou compasses my path. What does the path imply? What are we talking about when he says he compasses our path?

Somebody go ahead. We don't usually answer questions during the message, but feel free to. What's the path? Excuse me. It's your it's your path of life. It's the path you choose in life, isn't it? Sure, would you say it's your day-to-day walk?

Okay, now he says that he compasses this thing called your path and you're lying down. Well, that pretty much sums it up isn't either you're up walking down the path or you're lying down sleeping. But he compasses you during all this now.

Let's look at this Hebrew word. It is Zahra which means to toss about or to winnow. Now how many of you know what to winnow is. We don't do a lot of winnowing nowadays in America. I Think about this the Bible says that God compasses your path and you're lying down.

That means your whole existence. Let me tell you what winnowing is and picture this a little bit in the old days they would take the wheat from the fields and they would sometimes have a pit that they had for this and they would put the wheat in the pit and Workers would go into the wheat and they would have an instrument of some kind that they could dig dig into the wheat and throw it up into the air and the wind would blow the chaff away and the wheat would fall back down and they would sit there and do that all day and Maybe the next day and may I don't know how long they had to do it.

Only those who lived back in the Bible days like brother Otis could tell you that. How long did they have to do that brother Otis? Until they were through all right, I Just seen if he's awake down there but Think picture that now.

They they dig in they throw it up. The wind carries the bad away the useless part away. Now that is the word That compasses comes from it means to toss about or to winnow. So God takes your whole life.

The path you've chosen you think you chose it. God really chose it, but you think you chose it because we live in time. And you going down that path and then you sleep at night and you get up again the next day and you continue down that path.

And the whole time God is throwing you up in the air and the wind is blowing the chaff away. And you're settling back down, but you know what? It ain't finished till when? Until it's done. Now that's what God is doing with your life he compassed you about it doesn't just mean he's Around you all the time doing nothing.

It doesn't imply that God is I'm not present only that he's just there. It implies that he's doing a work in our life. Every moment of every day of our walk and of our sleep and of everything we do is winnowing us.

Now he does that with his omniscience. Because he knows all things so he knows exactly what to do with our lives to make us come out in that day to be What he is going to have us be. When we see him we shall be like him.

Or we shall see him as he is when we get to that place. We will be the winnowing is finished now. He goes on and he says in verse 3 Not only does he winnow our path and our lying down, but he says thou art acquainted with all my ways.

This word Acquainted means to be familiar with but it also Implies to minister to now listen to me because this is good to minister to and to cherish. Now if the winnowing might be construed to sometimes be chastised.

Possibly wouldn't you think sometimes when the pitchfork goes in and throws us up in the air that? It's painful. But this word acquainted Not only means that God by his omniscience is fully familiar with us.

It has a deeper and more Special meaning it means he is acquainted with us and is familiar with us because he is always ministering and cherish. Minister ministering to and cherishing us. It has been translated in other places in the English Bible as the word treasure.

So God is not just acquainted with all my ways. He treasures them. Why. Because he's winnowing out the bad. What is he treasuring the wheat that's going to be left? And he sees that as a present tense.

Situation, you know, it's an interesting that God says that those who he foreknew he predestinated and those he predestinated he called etc. Etc. And then he goes in the same passage. It says and they are glorified which is present tense.

But we know the rapture hasn't happened and we're still in this body and we don't seem to be glorified yet. Do we but he sees us that way? Because he is acquainted with. He is treasuring. He is ministering to us, but he is treasuring that which we shall be and he sees it as if it's now.

Because he lives in the ever-present tense. God is omniscient. We can talk about it, but I don't know if we can understand it. It's foolish. Look at verse 4. We sure can get some comforting things from it, though.

Can't we? Isn't it nice to know that one who knows all things is the one that's in control? It's not man. Predominantly the churches today teach Arminianism even the Baptist churches. They teach the will of man.

They neglect the sovereignty of God. They want man to be in control. But all one would have to do is study the history of the world and one knows we don't want man to be in control. A man when he thinks he's in control becomes very prideful.

Truth is even when man thinks he is he ain't. Because God is the sovereign God of the universe is the only wise. God is the only omniscient being and the only omnipotent being that exists. So all is according to his will.

Now as he widows our life. From our viewpoint in the human viewpoint. We choose our path seems that way doesn't it? And in the human viewpoint, we do make choices. Do we not aren't we responsible for those choices?

If we're responsible then we made the choices. And then we think we choose a path and in reality from the human viewpoint. We do choose the path and we'll answer for it, but you know, what's beautiful.

You can't just stay in the human viewpoint. In fact, we do that too often anyway. The divine side of that is the winnowing. God is working in every moment of our day getting the chaff out and cherishing the treasured wheat.

Look at verse 4 for there is not a word in my tongue, but lo O Lord thou knowest it altogether. Every word that we speak young people. When we're at school or at home and the siblings call each other stupid.

Well, you don't let my my wife hear that in my home stupid. Well stupid just got stupider. If they say that word in our home because they get a whooping from mama. And then they get told about it to dad when he gets home.

But you know what? Did you know that God hears every single word that we say there is not a word in my tongue. But lo O Lord thou knowest it all together. You know what that means? God not only heard it like humans can do but he knows it in other words.

He knows the heart that it came from. God knows the motive that made you say it. God knows your heart and he knows why those words came out. He knows it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me.

Beset is sewer in the Hebrew word little little small word and it means to confine. Now, isn't that amazing? From our viewpoint we make our choices. Don't we we choose our paths. We should choose them wisely, shouldn't we?

But did you know that from the divine viewpoint? That This verse The first five says thou hast beset me behind and before do you know that the Hebrew word means confined. He has confined me from behind and in front.

So you made the choice, but guess who was in control? The one you want in control. The one that's omniscient. The one that is all-knowing. The one that knows the very best for you and the one who knows the very best for God.

And he knows the very best for all concerned he knows what will bring him the most glory and he knows what your end will be and. So while we're down here making our decisions and choosing our paths verse 5 says God besets us he confines us from behind and from in front and Laid thine hand upon me.

Do you know that while we're out running around thinking we're making all these choices boy? I'm gonna choose this path right here, and I don't care what my mama says. I don't care what my daddy taught me.

I am my own person now now college students. You might want to think with me a little bit here because there's a natural Tendency to get to that place where you're testing your wings and you need to do that.

But you have to be careful where you draw the line. Because when you get that attitude where you know more than mom and dad you'll never think that that's what you're doing. But you so I'm gonna do it this way and I don't like you telling me which way it's gonna go.