God’s Omniscience

[All passages ESV unless noted otherwise.]

Opening Prayer

Our loving heavenly Father, thank You for graciously bringing each of us through another week and gathering us together today to worship You through song and listening to the proclamation of Your Word. Please open everyone’s hearts and minds to receive the Word this morning about Your essential attribute of omniscience. And make us to understand why a proper understanding of all Your attributes will elevate our worship, and a specific understanding of Your omniscience can be a source of great comfort for us. Thank you for the salvation You have provided for us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Your Son, Jesus. And it is in His name I pray. Amen.

Introduction

Here is an interesting question: How do we know things? We gain knowledge through learning. You may have never considered this, but God does not learn anything because He knows everything. This is called omniscience, and God is the only being that possess this quality.

Omniscience is one of God’s essential attributes.

Before we get to the sermon’s topic of God’s omniscience, I think it will be helpful to define what an attribute of God is.

The Baptist theologian, Augustus H. Strong, not to be confused with James Strong who wrote the Strong’s Concordance many of us are familiar with, gives us a useful definition of an attribute of God.

Strong said that God’s attributes are “those distinguishing characteristics of the divine nature which are inseparable from the idea of God and which constitute the basis and ground for his various manifestations to his creatures.”

To state it another way, these attributes are the qualities which are inherent in and manifestations of the being or essence of God.

In short, without His divine attributes, God would cease to be God.

These attributes are essential qualities of God and are inseparable from His essence.

So what? Why is it important to know about the attributes of God? Well, let me give you a couple of reasons.

First, it is important to know about God’s attributes for the same reason we want to know all that we can about those we love most dearly in our lives such as our spouse, children, parents, or even a best friend.

If you were to tell any of those people they were not interesting enough to learn about, think of how crushing it would be to them. It would hurt them deeply.

How much more does it grieve God, the one who made us and gave His Son for us, when we find Him boring and not worth the time to learn all that our finite minds can learn about Him?

Ask yourself how much time do you devote to social media and TV compared to the study of God and the Bible?

A second reason we need to know more about who God is because when one denies an attribute of God, such as omniscience, they are engaging in heresy because they are redefining who God has revealed Himself to be through the Bible. They have created a false god different from the God of Scripture.

Another wonderful theologian, A. W. Tozer, said, “What you think of God is the most important thing about you.”

There’s a lot of truth to that because what we believe about God determines whether or not we will be saved, and for the one who is already saved, our knowledge of God has a practical impact on our walk with the Lord.

In our spiritual lives we can never transcend the God whom we worship, but it is also true that we can never rise higher than the highest beliefs we have about God.

Our concept of God has a marked effect on our practical lives.

If we have a low view of God, then our Christian life will be marked by shallow theology with a defective view of God. These are the folks who see Jesus as their cosmic buddy, their pal, the big man upstairs.

But if we cultivate a high view of God, we will begin to see the holiness of God, which will drive us to then pursue holiness in our lives, since God has given us this command: “…You shall be holy, for I am holy”” (1 Pet. 1:16).

When we have a high view of God we will echo the words of the seraphim in Isaiah 6:3 “And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!””,

and Isaiah’s response in Isaiah 6:5 “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!””

This is the kind of high view of God we need to energize our worship and our lives for Christ. We need to be in wonder and awe.

And learning about God’s attributes is part of raising our view of God and empowering the pursuit of holiness in our lives.

So, today we look at God’s essential attribute of omniscience. Along with all of God’s other attributes, omniscience is not just a nice feature of God that we can take it or leave it, but is essential to His very nature.

Omniscience reflects who God is. Omniscience is part of what makes God, God. God is not the God of the Bible if He is not omniscient.

Today I will share with you three realities that flow from God’s omniscience:

God knows our days.

God knows our deeds.

God knows our destination.

God Knows Our Days

First let’s go to the Old Testament and spend some time in Psalm 139 to see how God knows in infinite detail every detail of every day of all of our lives even before we were born or before the world was created.

We could spend a couple of weeks in this psalm, but for today we will focus on a few passages that touch on God’s omniscience in this magnificent portion of Scripture

God, in His omniscience, knows every minute detail of our lives, to include our thoughts. He knows when we will lie down to sleep each night and what time we will wake up each morning of everyday of our lives: Psalm 139:1–3 “1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.”

There’s no hiding anything from God. He knows when we are waking and sleeping. He examines our thoughts. He is acquainted with all our ways.

The psalmist explains in Psalm 139:4 that “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”

Before we even speak, God is aware of the thoughts that precede and prompt our words before we even utter them.

God orchestrates our lives Psalm 139:5–6 “5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

The psalmist is amazed at the fact that God is able to guide his paths and protect him through strategic hemming or hedging around his life.

How is God able to do all of this? Because He is omniscient, which leaves the psalmist astounded and should astound us as well.

All of this should be of great comfort to us knowing that God guides our steps by His perfect knowledge.

Psalm 139:13–16 “13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 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.”

Before our parents even conceived us in a secret, private moment, God knew every intricate detail of us. God formed us just as He wanted us to be.

In verse 16 God, seeing us before we were even formed, had all of our days planned out before even the first day of our life happened. (Verse 6 “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

Psalm 139:17–18 “17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”

I encourage you to read Psalm 139 on your own, and then re-read it. I believe it is one of the most profound and personal psalms that God has given us. It gives my life purpose and direction.

Please look back with me at verse 15 for a moment: Psalm 139:15 “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.”

I want to leave you with a thought that came across my mind many years ago while reading this Psalm. “Intricately woven in the depths of the earth” in v. 15.

Explain the idea of the Russian nesting doll as God looked at the dirt the moment before forming Adam, and He saw Eve, Cane, Able, Seth, and everyone all the way to the last person who will be born in the Millennial Kingdom.

This is profound, absolute, astonishing, awesome nature of God’s personal knowledge of each of us.

Job 14:5 “Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,”

God can only keep this promise if He is omnisicent. There is no way to plan our and order each of our lives if He does not know all things, to include the future.

And notice, this promise only applies to “those who love God.” His children, believers.

Their end has been determined from eternity past just as certainly as believers’ home in heaven has been known to God from eternity past.

The first reality of God’s omniscience is that God knows our days. He knows us. Now, we must understand that God also knows our deeds.

God Knows Our Deeds

Because God is omniscient He knows all who will be saved, but He also knows why He saved us. He created us, speaking of Christians specifically, for good works, and in His omniscience He knows how effective we will or will not be in carrying out the works we were saved to perform.

Many of us are familiar with Eph. 2:8-9, but I want to concentrate right now on verse 10 because it makes very clear for what purpose we were saved: Ephesians 2:8–10 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We are not saved to warm a pew and sit around waiting for the rapture. We are to get busy doing the Lord’s work.

Paul also said that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ. Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

Romans 9:23 “in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—”

Not only does God know the deeds He wants us to do, but He knows the thoughts we will think before we think them.

We already looked at Psalm 139:2 “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.”, but also consider a couple more verses about God’s omniscience when it comes to our thoughts.

Matthew 9:4 “But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?”

John 2:24–25 “24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

Whether believers or unbelievers, God knows all that we have done with our lives in service to Him or in opposition to Him.

For the believer consider Paul’s words to the Corinthians: (2 Corinthians 5:10) “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” We will give an account to God for what we have done as Christians. If you are at this judgement, you are saved. This is a matter of God distributing heavenly awards.

For the unbeliever, the will stand before God at the Great White Throne judgement of Revelation 20:11–12 “11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”

God Knows Our Destinations

God knows our eternal destination because He knows who belongs to Him and who does not.

In 2 Timothy 2:19 Paul wrote to the young pastor, “But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.””

God is not sitting in Heaven on the edge of His seat, biting His nails waiting to find out who will be saved and who won’t.

Because He is omniscient, He already knows who are Christians, and who will be Christians, and those who will ultimately reject Christ..

Jesus knows His sheep—believers—and it is for them He laid down His life.

Jesus also said in John 10:14–15 “14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Remember, Christ’s death is sufficient for everyone, but only effective for those who have faith in Him alone for salvation.

God knows our destination because He is the one who transforms sinners into saints when justifies those who place faith in Jesus and adopts us into His family to be God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ.

Paul said in Romans 8:16–17 speaking of believers, “16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

Before He spoke everything into existence He knew those He would adopt into His family.

We find parallel statements of God knowing whose are His in the Old Testament.

For example, Psalm 100:3 states, “Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” He knows our eternal destination because He knows who are the sheep of His pasture. And He could only know all of this if He is omniscient.

Not only does God know those who are truly His children, but He also knows those who falsely profess to be His, but are not. God is not deceived by anyone’s empty profession of faith based on some head knowledge of God, church membership, good deeds, or anything else that people believes will merit them salvation.

The reality is that not everyone who calls themselves a Christian is a Christian.

And while we cannot validate someone else’s salvation, God can, and as Pastor Randy taught us last week in the parable of the wheat and the weeds, at His Second Coming, Jesus will send forth His angles to sort the wheat from the weeds. This is when the wheat, believers will be gathered to heaven, and the “weeds,” unbelievers, will be gathered and thrown into the fiery furnace where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:36-43).

Many of these people have a belief in God that is no better than that of demons: James 2:19 “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

One day many will say that they know Him. They know His name. They know what sorts of works they should be doing. They know the Christian lingo. They go to church. They know God, or better yet, they know about God. But tragically, He does not know them, nor did He ever know them:

That terrifying passage goes to the heart of God’s knowledge. Does God know you in a saving way?

So, how exactly does God’s omniscience relate to everyone’s eternal destination and when were the destinations determined by God? When were the travel arrangements made?

Revelation 17:8 “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.”

Final destinations

For believers: Revelation 21:1–4 “1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. 4 He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””

Revelation 21:27 “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Here we are saved from the very presence of sin.

For unbelievers: Revelation 20:11–15 “11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Closing

We have really just scratched the surface of God’s omniscience and His sovereignty over creation at large, and our lives in particular. But I hope you will be comforted by the thought that, if you are a believer, God loves you and is working out your life according to His perfect and wonderful plan, even when hardships and adversity come into your life. Please let this awesome knowledge of God comfort you and energize your Christian walk.

And if you are an unbeliever here today, I want you to leave here knowing that God does love you as well, and He desires you to come to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But, if you do not, please understand that He also knows Your final destination, and it will not be with Him.

I want to close with a fairly large quote from J. I. Packer’s book, Knowing God:

Knowing God Being Known

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it – the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him, because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort – the sort of comfort that energises, be it said, not enervates – in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love, and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see (and am I glad!), and that he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and p 46 desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realise this purpose. We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely to mention them is enough to show how much it means to know, not merely that we know God, but that he knows us.

Close in Prayer