Our God is Omniscient (Part 1)

So remember, at each one of our lessons, in each attribute that we look at, we are examining four things. Anybody remember what they are? For each attribute, we’re examining four kind of parts. Number one, what? Did they hear? I thought I heard somebody. Number one is, we’re looking at the theology. In other words, we’re looking at what the Bible says about the attribute. Number two, we’re looking at how that attribute is related to our practice, how it’s practical.

We’re looking at, that’s number two. Number three, we’re looking at how that attribute relates to Jesus Christ. And then number three, we’re looking, four rather, we’re looking at how that attribute relates to the gospel. And so that’s what we’re going to do for this one. Now today, what we’re going to look at is God’s omniscience. So let’s go to Psalm number 147. That’s kind of our starting off point.

Psalm 147. Psalm 147. And we’ll come back to this verse later on in our study. Actually, we’ll come back to this verse today, this passage today, but we want to look just at verse number five. Verse number five says this, great, 147 verse five, great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. His understanding is infinite. Now this is a verse that speaks of God’s omniscience, but what’s interesting about this verse, by the way, this is a good short memory verse for you because this verse covers a lot of ground.

Look at what it says in verse number five. Great is our Lord. What does the word great mean in scripture? Not necessarily how we normally use it, but what does the word great normally mean? That’s kind of a figurative definition. I’m looking for the, we’re close. Unmatchable, okay. That’s similar to the way we use it, like we say, that’s a great man, like we’re talking about with Job.

But when the scripture in the King’s English, when it says the word great, it’s primarily referring to size. Something is big. So look at what it says. Great is our Lord. So when scripture says great, when it’s being used in a literal sense, it’s actually referring to size. Okay, now that, when you use it figuratively referring to someone’s character, well, you could also refer to like largesse or generosity, you might say that.

But you could also use it to refer to a quality of someone, like this is the way we use it today. All right, but being strict with it, here’s what this means. Great is our Lord. God is large, okay. Now the second part says, and of great power. All right, so that’s the second, there’s three attributes in this passage, in this verse rather. Great is our Lord, God is large.

Number two, great, God is of great power. And number three, God has infinite understanding, that speaks of his knowledge. Okay, so you have God’s omnipresence. God is so great, he is everywhere. God is so big, we’ll get into this later. The Bible says he fills heaven and earth. Okay, that’s number one. Number two, God is omnipotent, that is he has all power. And number three, what we’re looking at today is God is omniscient, God has all knowledge.

And so, good memory verse four, verse number five, because it covers three of the main attributes of God all at one time. All right, so let’s pray and then we’ll get into our study here. Our Father, we thank you for the opportunity again to study your word. Please, Lord, guide and bless our study. Lord, open our eyes to behold wondrous things out of your law and incline our hearts, Lord, to what the Scripture says.

And Lord, I pray that we would, each one of us, myself included, would just be awestruck with the truths of Scripture and the truths of who you are and that we might glory in our great God. And so, guide our study, not only today, but also throughout the study, we pray that you would just guide in the preparation, guide in the hearing, and guide in the practice of these truths as well.

So Lord, thank you for everyone that’s here in the Sunday School class this morning who has come, Lord, with a desire to know your word better. And I pray, Lord, would you please fill that desire to the brim and help us all to grow by your word this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen. All right, so what we’re studying, of course, is God is omniscient, God knows all things.

And there’s a lot of different, there’s a number of different questions that that raises, for instance, and we’ll try to address these things. For instance, is there anything God does not know? Okay, that’s an interesting question to consider. Is it possible for God to forget? What of the verses where God says that he forgets? We’re gonna try to look at those at some point, but these all deal with knowledge, with God’s knowledge.

And so, what I’d like to do is I would like to go and go through the various passages of scripture that describe everything that God knows. All right, if you just examine the scripture and you examine it just on a topical level, we want to look at and make a list of all the things that God says, that the scripture says that God knows. So we’re gonna start first in the book of Job.

So let’s start in Job chapter 28. So we are gonna be looking at a lot of scripture, but you might want to note some of these references. Of course, you can always look them up yourself if you like. Job 28 verse 23, and then if you want to go ahead and get ahead, you can turn to Proverbs chapter 3 as well. Job 28 verse 23. The Bible says this, God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.

For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven. Okay, so this tells us one thing about God’s knowledge versus man’s knowledge. Now note this in your mind that one of the statements that is often used to describe God’s knowledge is what he can see. Now we know that God, the Bible does say God has eyes, but it’s not in the sense of physical fleshly eyes.

The Lord is using that, using the term eyes or sight to relate to our understanding of knowledge. We’ve observed it. And so the Bible, the scripture describes God’s knowledge in those kind of human terms to help us understand it. But the difference is this, is there anyone on earth that has the ability to see the whole world? You can go to the highest mountain and you can see a lot, but you cannot see the whole world.

But that is exactly what the scripture is describing here. It says this. He looketh, note that, to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole heaven. See that’s how we know that the earth is flat. I’m joking. I’m joking.

Because God could not, maybe someone uses this argument, there’s no way that God could see all the ends of the earth unless the earth was flat and could be visible from one vantage point. Well that never stopped him. The Lord is not limited by the physics of a sphere so that he can see what’s on this side of the sphere just the same as he can see what’s on the other side of the sphere, like the back side of the moon.

So the earth does not have to be flat for that to, yeah. Exactly. So see now you’re getting all theological with me. Exactly. So it says he looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole heaven. That’s kind of a, in a figurative way describing God’s knowledge. Everything under heaven. Again, another scriptural idiom to describe everything that is in God’s creation. Everything under God’s heaven, that is everything God created.

So you have that and then we’ll go to Proverbs chapter 3, if you look there. Proverbs 3. Proverbs 3 verse number 19. Alright verse number 19, the Bible says this. Now this is all in the context of wisdom personified. Now when you read Proverbs 3 and you see the description of wisdom, how that happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and you go into, there’s a lot of different Proverbs where wisdom is personified.

What you always find is that wisdom has its origin in God, which tells us that he’s the source and fount of all knowledge. Okay, now when you get to verse 19, notice what it says. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, and by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the dew. You know what I love about this?

This is a verse describing God’s knowledge that connects God’s knowledge with what we call scientific knowledge. So by looking at verse number 19, the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth. So if God founded the earth, and verse 19 continues to say, by understanding hath he established the heavens. So the heavens and the earth, if God created and founded and formed the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1.1, by his wisdom.

So he tells us the mechanism he used, the means he used to do it. It wasn’t just his power, although that was definitely true, but it was also his wisdom. So that means in God’s created universe, we expect to see evidence of wisdom. If he used wisdom to create it, then we should expect to see evidence of that wisdom. So in the same, like you might say, skill or knowledge, know-how.

In the same way when you see a, when you go to a, like you see the pyramids as an example, or you see some grand temple, ancient temple, or even some modern house, like the Biltmore House as an example. Some of you have probably been to the Biltmore House. How much skill and ingenuity and wisdom was required to build that? And the evidence of that is stamped all throughout that thing.

The knowledge involved. Well, you just scale that up and what you have is the Lord’s knowledge is stamped over all of his creation. This is why that we can study his creation and learn about his wisdom. And that’s something, you know, a lot of people, they talk about intelligent design, and that’s basically what they’re describing. Now we don’t necessarily follow the line of intelligent design as far as that theory, if you will, but for sure that’s kind of like a subset of creationism, kind of like a watered down creationism a little bit.

Some people that argue for intelligent design actually are like true creationists, but they just argue from the perspective of intelligent design. That is, they look for intelligence in God’s creation. Patterns, shapes, things like that, structures. You know, there’s some interesting, even as far as like single celled organisms that are of course smaller than the human eye can see, they’re built into them, which have been observed with microscopes, built into them are actual machines that provide the locomotion and movement for these single celled organisms.

There’s actual true biologic machines that, I mean not just that, every cell in your body is a factory. It is amazing. But here’s the thing, God’s wisdom founded it all, right? God’s wisdom is what set all of the laws that govern those things as well as assembled all of those things and then the mechanisms which allow those things to be, to assemble themselves later. It’s just mind boggling.

Now, but notice what I want you to see is in verse number 19, notice what it says, the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth by understanding hath he established the heavens. Now what scale are we talking about in verse number 19? Are we talking about a massive scale or a minute scale? Massive. He says heavens and earth. So we can look at it like that. But when we take the principle of verse number 19 and we drill down to it, which is by his wisdom he founded these things, what we find is we can find his wisdom all the way down into the smallest of things also.

So it’s not just the grand things, it’s also the minutest things. And we’ll see this a little bit more later. So we have the largeness of God’s knowledge and the things that he knows far exceed the scale of human understanding. And that’s what these two verses describe to us. Now notice Psalm 147, if you’ll go right back there, I want to show you this verse. Psalm 147.

Psalm 147, verse 4. Now we read verse 5 a minute ago, but look at verse 4. He, this is God, telleth the number of the stars. You know, you go to a bank and you walk up to the counter to make a deposit. Who do you talk to? A teller. Why do they call him a teller? Because they tell you stuff? Because they count your money. That’s what tell means.

He says all these old King James words, we can’t understand it. Yeah, we use it all the time every time we go to the bank. But a teller, someone who counts, here, he telleth the number of the stars. He counts the stars. He calleth them all by their names. So not only does God know his whole created universe, God also knows all of the stars. Now here’s what’s interesting.

One of the books I’ve been kind of referencing and reading, I’ve been reading two, The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer. I think it’s Tozer. Does that sound right? Yeah, I think it’s Tozer. The second book I’ve been reading is The Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock, who’s a Puritan. So that’s an old book. It’s kind of the go-to book when it comes to the attributes of God.

A lot of people use it or reference it. Okay, we’re talking big, thick, single-spaced, ten-point font kind of thing. It’s a big book. Here’s what he said about Psalm 147 verse 4. I thought I kind of got a kick out of this. Stephen Charnock mentions a few ideas in his day, 1600s. The few ideas in his day as to the number of stars, because it says, he telleth the number of the stars.

So in his day, he suggested that there were some people who had estimated the number of stars. One person suggested there were 1022. Another suggested there was 1025. Another 1098. And another person with great faith suggested 7000. This is what he put in his book. And you think, man, the Lord can count a thousand stars, all the stars you see in the sky. You say, wow, and he knows all their names, and we say wow.

But as human knowledge has increased, what have we learned about the actual number of stars? It’s a number that’s higher than we can maybe rationalize, but it’s a number that we can’t make sense of. Like, it makes, I mean, we’re talking trillions. Now, that’s not the number of stars that we can see, but we can see like millions and millions of stars just with the technology that we have that can perceive the light coming from those stars to us, right?

And this is scientific observation. Now, imagine Charnock back in his day, they could only, with the naked eye, count about a thousand, and they had telescopes and things, but that’s all that they could see given their observation technology. But the truth of this verse, right, he telleth the number of the stars, he called them all by names. Think about it now. Is the truth of this verse still true now? Yes.

Technology has not changed at all. In fact, what has happened, if you can kind of understand my visualization here, so man’s knowledge has expanded with the ability to observe stars in this case. And as man’s knowledge has expanded, the meaning of this verse has expanded exponentially. So if man’s knowledge expanded an inch, the meaning of this verse has expanded a mile, because now we know there are literally millions of observable stars, and it is estimated that there are trillions and trillions.

Nobody knows even, nobody even knows if there’s a limit. We assume there’s a limit because of existence is supposed to have a limit, right? But nobody really knows. And God knows all of that. So this is one reason why we should not, you know, the Bible is a timeless book. The Scripture is a timeless book. You go back to the time in which this was written, David, as far as we know, there were no telescopes to speak of in David’s day.

It was kind of a rather modern invention. So all that you could see, if you had perfect vision, the darkest night, that’s it. That’s it. You’re into the hundreds. That is all. It was true then, it was true in Charnock’s day, and it’s still true now. Nothing has changed. You know what? There is no scientific discovery or technology that will be invented that will change this, or that will change any other thing in Scripture.

It’ll just be shown and it happens over and over and over. Think about what I just mentioned about the single-celled organisms that have motors, biological motors in them. We didn’t know about that until recently, relatively recently. Does that change the wisdom? No. Our knowledge actually enhances our ability to understand God’s knowledge. That has always been there. So really, we can come to this conclusion. Is not our knowledge the greatest use of our knowledge to find out God’s knowledge and God’s wisdom in the things He’s created?

That’s one of the greatest uses of our knowledge. That’s why He gave us the ability and technology and those kinds of things. So He tells all the stars, He calls them by name. Next, Matthew 10, Matthew chapter 10, verse number 29.

Matthew 10, verse 29. Does anybody have a comment up to this point? Covered a good bit? Yeah. Maybe their eyesight was worse back then. I don’t know. This is what the book said. Honestly, I think the 7,000 figure is probably a little closer to what you could observe. So I don’t know the criteria for how they were counting, but I just thought it was interesting. Alright, okay. Matthew 10, verse 29.

Alright, Matthew 10, verse 29 says this. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your father. One of them shall not fall on the ground without your father. Look at Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews 4. And I’m going to give you this statement in just a minute. Hebrews 4, verse number 13 says this. 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 we have, God knows, the scripture says that God knows his whole created world, that God knows all of the stars, and now God knows every creature. Notice what 413 in Hebrews, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. Every creature. So again, this reminds us of, we can look at this, the idea of the omniscience of God on different scales. We can look at it at the universe scale, the stars and all the stars.

We can look at it at the human scale. But then we can also drill down with our microscope and look at it in the smallest scale humanly possible. Every, so we can look at God knows how many men there are, but God knows every individual man. God knows how many animals there are, but God knows every sparrow, which you say, well there are animals that are, you know, it would be technical and ordinary, there are animals that are smaller than sparrows.

Well we know that, but the sparrow is a stand-in for the most insignificant of God’s creatures, right? Living creatures. Just a nothing, a farthing. In other words, attaching this creature to a value of money, a farthing, which is the least value, right? And describing and saying God knows every sparrow that falls, right? The idea being the smallest of things, every creature, every man, every animal, every plant, everything in his creation, okay?

Next let’s go to Psalm 44. We’re also going to be in Daniel 2, Psalm 44. And Daniel chapter 2, Psalm 44, verse number 21 says this, Daniel chapter 2, Daniel 2, verse 22, this is when he’s trying to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Daniel 2, verse 22 says this, So he knows his whole created world, he knows all the stars, he knows every creature, he knows every secret. He knows every secret.

The idea being a secret is something that is unknown to man. Now there’s two reasons a secret might not be known. Number one, the man might not have been privy to the information, but it is something he could know, right? Like the number of stars in the universe, right? That is something that perhaps we could know, but we don’t know at this point, right? But then there are other secrets that are unknowable.

One of those secrets is actually mentioned in Psalm 44, and we’ll talk about it a little bit later, which is the thoughts of man. That is something that is unknowable to man. For that reason it’s called a secret, but to God every secret is known to him. All right, look at Psalm number 33. For the next one, Psalm 33. One of the reasons I want to go through these is because there are so many passages of Scripture that describe God’s omniscience.

So obviously on the principle of just sheer volume, it’s an important truth to understand. Here’s something else to remember, and we’ll probably get to this a little bit later. There’s a few places in some of the prophetic books in which Israel is described when they’re not right with God, when they’re in idolatry. Israel is described as thinking that God didn’t know things. In other words, they were away from God and they said, God doesn’t see, or they would say, God doesn’t know, or they would say, God has forgotten.

Now this is a number of places in the Proverbs, and that stands in direct contrast to the omniscience of God. Now what’s interesting is, is it possible for a believer, is it possible for, just for our purposes, is it possible for a believer to know and believe in the omniscience of God, but then think somehow in contradiction to that, that God doesn’t see, or God has forgotten, or God doesn’t know?

Can we live in a way that denies that we believe in the omniscience of God, even though with our mouth we say we do? Is it possible to do that? I think this is just a question of human existence. This is just what it is to be a human being in a fallen world. It is absolutely possible to believe a thing as a fact and then yet live as if it’s not true, or even think it’s not true.

How many times in the Psalms have you read David say, God have you forgotten? Well David, you need to go back to Bible school and take theology 101, you know, the omniscience of God. But that’s not the point. Remember the Psalms is the heart of the Bible. He’s expressing his heart, his emotion, his emotional reaction to what’s happening to him. And it’s like, Lord, if you said you know, then why aren’t you acting, right?

And that’s kind of where it plays into the omniscience of God. So if we know God is omniscient, that can help us go to him whenever things are contrary with the confidence. God not, have you forgotten? Although we would say that because we’re just like David. But sometimes we might go to God and we might say, Lord, you know, you know every part of this. I know for myself, I have said that on occasions when other people did not know things, and other people were drawing wrong conclusions or whatever, right?

And there’s nothing I could do about it. But God knew. And there’s a great deal of comfort in that fact, knowing God, you know. You know, you will deal with it, you’ll take care of it, you’ll help, because you know. And so our faith is built upon that truth. I know it’s a simple truth. It’s a simple truth, but our faith is built upon it. All right, Psalm 33, verse, Psalm 33, verse number 13.

It says this, the Lord looketh, you notice how many times we’ve seen the word look, right? God’s eyes, his sight. The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. So God sees, God knows rather, his whole created universe. He knows all the stars. He knows every creature. He knows every secret. He knows every man.

He knows every man. Well, we’ve already covered that. Yeah, I know we already covered it. But man being the the pinnacle of God’s creation deserves a special category. Because we’re going to build on this truth in just a minute. Now notice the knowledge of God, and just as a sidebar here, the knowledge of God is the foundation of what we will learn later in scripture as the judgment of God.

The knowledge of God is the basis and foundation of the judgment of God. God cannot judge what he does not know. And if God is judging men, and if he is going to judge them, then he must know all there is to know about them. And he does. And he does. And so the knowledge of God in this way, verse 13 of Psalm 33, he beholdeth all the sons of men.

This knowledge of God is a great equalizer when it comes to men. Just like the judgment of God is a great equalizer when it comes to men. Just like the cross of Christ is a great equalizer when it comes to men. All of those things are related. Because no matter the man’s rank or station, whether it’s Donald Trump or the Pope or the panhandler, or the inmate in the prison, or whatever the person might be, God knows all about every one of them the same.

God will judge each person exactly the same based upon that knowledge. Right? And so in that way, they’re all the same. No matter the position they hold or rank they have, every one of them is equal in that way before the Lord. They’re exactly the same. All right, the last one we want to look at this morning is this. Get Psalm 139 and Matthew 10 again. Psalm 139.

Psalm 139, verse number 14. Verse 14. Let’s start in verse 13. Psalm 139, verse 13. For thou hast possessed my reins, now the reins in scripture is not something you hold when you’re riding a horse. The reins refers to the inner part of man. All right? It says, verse number 13, for thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. Now remember, in your mother’s womb is the point in which our body, at least, is not fully formed.

It’s in the process of formation. Verse 14. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, which is direct, which is referring us back to the womb. Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee. When I was made in secret, we already saw God knows all the secrets, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Don’t even ask me what the end of verse 15 says, the lowest parts of the earth. I don’t have an answer for you, okay? But the thing I want you to see from this is, in addition to all the things we’ve seen, God knows his whole created universe, the stars, every creature, every secret, every man. God knows every man’s substance. That is the very building blocks that make him, him, whether it be inwardly or outwardly, whether it be spiritually, emotionally, or physically.

For that reason alone, for that reason alone, especially when we’re dealing with the inner part of us, the substance of our inner man, God is the one that we should seek to help that part of us. And he has answers for that. That doesn’t mean other people can’t help us, because they can. Just like with the body, sometimes we need help with the body, so it is with the inner man.

But here’s what I want you to see. God is the one who knows that substance. Even before we were born, when we were in the womb, he knew that substance. And lastly, Matthew chapter 10, we already saw verse number 29. I’ll read it just to get the context. Matthew 10 verse 29, Now the hairs of your head, that’s basically saying the smallest part of you is counted and numbered and catalogued by the Lord.

Is that also true of every skin cell and eyelash? It includes all the Lord is saying is every part of you, God knows all about it. And again, there’s a comfort for a believer. There’s a comfort in knowing there is someone who knows everything that could be possibly known about you. There’s someone who knows that. Someone with whom you can communicate and to whom you can make your request known and someone who can help you.

He knows everything that could possibly be known about us. Anybody have a comment before we close? No? Alright. Let’s pray then.