Our God is Omniscient (Part 5)

How many of you have known something and it didn’t seem to help you at all, right? Known something from the Bible and yet it’s like you still are troubled and it comes along with that, you don’t have the receiving of it in the same way. So we have to take God’s Word and these truths that we look at, we do not just study these things to fill our heads with knowledge, but to apply them to us and to gain comfort and to walk with God from them and use them in our own lives.

And that is the way the Lord intends his Word to be used. And so that’s what we’ve looked at, the providence of God in his omniscience in creation and in the events of history. And so what we’re going to do now is turn the page to the next way that it relates to our practice. And some of these things are just so important, so important to our walk with God.

And interestingly, and I don’t plan these things, but a lot of what we’ll look at here today will relate directly with our study this morning in the book of Matthew. So let’s pray and then we’ll look at a few things before we get to Romans chapter 14. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity again to study your Word. We thank you for your people that are here.

Thank you for the beautiful day. Thank you for every provision and blessing, Lord, that you provide to us, that you bring into our lives. Lord, we thank you for the assurance and knowledge that you know all things. And you’re a God who is, you are full of goodness and grace. And even when, Lord, we face things in your providence that are difficult, those things are nevertheless wrapped in your goodness.

And we know that. And that is a source of great comfort to us. And as we look at your Word, Lord, we pray that you give us understanding and wisdom. We pray that you would help us not only to learn, but also to receive and to act upon and gain comfort from the Word of God, help our faith to grow, and help us to apply the things we learn.

And so guide our study, we pray. Help me, Lord, to say the things your people need, Lord, because there’s no doubt people in this room that need your comfort, that need in some particular way in his or her life, they need the help that you can give them. And so, Lord, would you please give them that help? For we ask in Jesus’ name, amen. All right, well, the first thing I want you to see, the first thing we’ve seen already, which is our God is omniscient, and that relates to his providence in creation and in events that happen in our lives.

The second thing I want you to see from this is in relation to practice, God is omniscient, and that is related to certainty and completeness in judgment. Certainty and completeness in judgment. Now I’m going to, I said Romans 14, we’re going to get there in a second, but just to rearrange a few things, go to Ecclesiastes, if you would, chapter 12. I think it would be better to cover this first.

So Ecclesiastes chapter 12. And then after that, we’re going to be in Jeremiah and then Romans. So that’ll give you an idea of where we’re going. Ecclesiastes chapter 12.

All right, verse 13, the Bible says this, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Hear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. For some reason we have this idea that things that are done openly and publicly are somehow easier for God to see because we often view God in terms of ourselves rather than as he is.

We think of things, in other words, we think of a public matter as in some way different than a private matter. Something that’s done openly versus something that’s done secretly. But the Lord does not view it like that because remember, the day and the night, the darkness and the light are all alike to the Lord. His knowledge is not hindered or limited in any way because something is done in secret or behind closed doors.

So in that way, that is unlike us. So we can’t take the way we view the world and then kind of impose it upon the way the Lord views it. That’s why it’s important verse 14 says, God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing. And what that tells us is if God knows every secret thing, notice that every secret thing. And a secret thing is not just something you do that you don’t want other people to know.

It is something that is done that is not public, that is not hidden, or that is hidden rather. But that includes, what does that include? That includes all things that we do in private. That includes the things that are in our heart. Those are secrets. That includes things that are done in the dark. That includes motivations. It includes words spoken. It’s everything. And so if God knows the secrets, then he also knows the open things, the open matters as well.

And he says, the emphasis being here on the word, every work into judgment, every secret thing, whether it be good, whether it be evil, that’s all inclusive. Now look at Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah 17 verse number 9 says this, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Now what’s the answer to that question? Who can know it? God can know it, exactly.

Now here’s a little trick, right? Here’s a little, I guess not a trick, but here’s a good reminder for us when we think about the omniscience of God. Now I’m kind of going on a rabbit trail here, so bear with me. This verse, verse 9 reminds us that there are things about you that God knows that you don’t know. There are things about you that God knows that you don’t know.

Because if verse 9 is true, and of course it is, if verse 9 is true, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? If my heart is deceitful, and it’s deceitful to the point that I can’t know it, then that means God knows things about my heart that I don’t know. And so ask yourself this, if God knows things about my heart that I don’t know, how does that affect the way I live?

How does that affect the way that I view my own heart? Think about that. You know, this idea of trust your heart, let your heart guide you. See we do not do a good job at discerning what that is. What should guide us is the Word of God, the proper application of the truths and principles of God’s Word. That should be what guides us. And we have to, if we’re going to be a person who follows the scripture, one of those principles is that what is in our heart can be deceptive, and only God knows that.

So that should give us cause to come to God and say, Lord, in this decision or in this matter, Lord, I could be deceived myself. My heart could be off and I don’t even know it, Lord, but here’s the comfort. But Lord, you know it. You know my heart better than I know my heart. Listen, that is comfort. Because by committing that to God, there’s a certain level of safety, right?

That even if I’m unsure about a particular decision or whatever, if I have, from a scriptural perspective, God’s guidance, then I’m safe. Especially knowing that I’ve committed that thing to God. By the committing of our decisions and our way to the Lord, like Proverbs says, commit thy way unto the Lord, right? Trust also in him. By committing our way unto him, it’s kind of a safety mechanism, if you want to view it like that.

It’s not that God’s going to shine a spotlight on our way and make everything perfectly clear, because in my experience, that does not happen. In the majority of the decisions that we make, or that I have made, whether they were big decisions or small decisions, it wasn’t like I prayed and then all of a sudden it was like, oh, you know, and I knew exactly what to do.

It wasn’t like that at all. But the fact that I committed it to him was a safety, because by doing that, I’ve acknowledged him. And then the burden is now on the Lord to get me to the place he wants me to be. And sometimes he doesn’t do it in the way that’s obvious. Again, that’s where trust in God comes in. And so our hearts can be deceived.

Our desires can be deceived. How many of you have made a decision that you believed was right and in God’s will? It was what the Lord wanted, but you were troubled and unsure about that decision? You know, what does that show you? That shows you that your heart is not always, is not a reliable judge of the rightness or wrongness of a decision. God knows better. God knows our heart.

So, we’ve got to keep that in mind. All right, that was my distraction. Back to Jeremiah, if you would. Jeremiah 17, verse number 10. Now, notice what we just read in verse number 9. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? God can know it. And here’s what he says directly following that. I the Lord search the heart. So he answers the question for us.

Who can know the state of the heart? The Lord. I try the reins. Now notice this. Now, what the Lord is saying is, in essence, I know that’s a statement of God’s omniscience of our heart. Okay? Now, how does he follow that up? What does he connect his omniscience to our heart with? He connects it with this. Even to give to every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

That’s pretty good. What does that mean? This means that the omniscience of God is what informs the judgment of God. The way God judges us is based upon God’s unlimited and complete knowledge of not only our ways and doings, like we read in verse 10, but also of our heart. That which motivates us. Look at Romans chapter 2. We see it again. We see God’s omniscience related to and connected to God’s judgment.

Romans 2 verse 16. It says, this is the end of a long statement of Romans 2, but I just want to read verse 16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, we already talked about that from Ecclesiastes, by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. He will judge the secrets of men. That’s his omniscience, the secrets, because only God knows those things. Okay, so what does that mean?

This means that there is certain, we can know for certain that there is going to be completeness in God’s judgment. That means every, you know, it’s the knowledge that every single thing, now this is hard for us to wrap our mind around, is it not? It is hard for us to wrap our mind around. Every single thing that you do, that you think, that you say, every intention, every motive, every thought at the judgment will come under the all-seeing eye of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s, I mean, that’s a powerful truth. How many things do we do that we pay no attention to at all? I mean, some of us have gone through a whole day not giving any thought at all to anything that we’ve done, thought, or said. Right? I know I have. But here’s the thing. This is a warning, if you will. This is a warning. Not to just strike fear in us, although we should have a healthy fear of God, but the Lord, when He comes to judge, He doesn’t judge in a partial judgment.

Imagine if there was such a thing as a partial judgment. Well, I’m going to judge you based upon the things that I know. You know what we would do? We would try our best to put ourselves in the place where God didn’t know that part of, that He didn’t know. But there is no partial judgment. We can’t hide from God. Now that’s for the saint, right? So the Lord’s going to bring every work into judgment for the saint.

But think of how dreadful, think of what a danger this is for a sinner. All the things, all the refuges, all the hiding places that people without Christ go to hide from Him, to conceal what they do, thinking that somehow God doesn’t see. That’s a dreadful danger. Even in the book of Revelation, the Bible says, not only in Revelation, but also in the prophets, that those who reject Christ when Christ is coming, they’ll go into the mountains and call upon the rocks to fall upon them, to hide them from the face of the Lamb.

And it’s like, that’s not going to work. It’s just, it’s a sobering thought. It’s a sobering thought. There is truly a danger for the person who does not have Christ. They are in absolute peril, and no matter how they might try to hide. So there’s a certainty and a completeness in judgment because of God’s omniscience. And then the next thing, number three, there is a foolishness in hypocrisy because of God’s omniscience.

I won’t spend a lot of time here because we’re actually going to talk about that. We’re in Matthew 23 in our Matthew study, right? And the word there, the key word is hypocrites in Matthew 23. Well, the reason why hypocrisy is so foolish is because hypocrisy is the action of doing things for the eyes of the limited knowledge of man. That’s the idea behind hypocrisy. We act in such a way to be seen of men, and we act in such a way that, because we know man’s knowledge is limited.

But the foolishness of hypocrisy is that the hypocrite forgets or doesn’t see or understand perhaps that God sees all things. And so if God sees all things, then what is the purpose of hypocrisy? How foolish it is to live our lives in such a way to please men and to, you know, for men’s approval. And it’s not even for men’s approval. It’s actually to maintain a facade is really the better way to describe it.

But man’s knowledge is limited. Now that’s not to say, however, that we should never care about what men think. Because remember, the Lord will bring that into judgment as well. The carefree, I should say careless life that pays no heed to how what we do affects others. That also will be brought into judgment. You see the two extremes to this. On the one side, you have somebody who is a faker, who all is only concerned with maintaining appearances for others.

And on the other side, you have the person who, as they say, lets it all hang out and pays, you know, has puts no value at all on how what they do appears to others or how it might affect others. And that’s also that’s also an extreme that’s not biblical, that’s not right. And the Lord sees that as well. He sees the motivation where we don’t love our neighbor as ourself.

We don’t care how it affects them or how it might affect another person. And so we just we live in such a way that’s that’s careless in that way. Look at Romans 14, if you would. Romans chapter 14. Romans 14. Look, if you would, at verse number 12. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another anymore.

All right, think about that. I know, you know, judge not, judge not. We’ve already covered all that. But why does God tell us not to judge one another anymore? Do you know why? Because because our knowledge is limited and judgment is based upon omniscient knowledge, not limited knowledge. This is why the Lord says you need to withhold the tendency to pass absolute and complete judgment on a person because there are secrets of their hearts that we can’t know.

What if a person is doing a thing, and again this touches on what we’re going to see in Matthew 23, but what if a person is doing a thing that is perhaps wrong but with a right motive? You don’t know that motive. And you know what? That kind of mediates the evil of what that person is doing. It doesn’t make it right, but it also makes it not as bad as we think it is.

If a person does something that’s maybe not exactly right, but they do so with a good motive, only God knows that. But the reverse is also true. A person can do what appears to be the right thing with the wrong motivation that only God knows, and the judgment would be severe. And we might think it’s good. This is why, listen, this is why the Lord says withhold it.

Just withhold your judgment. We cannot judge beyond that which we know to be true. That’s all. We can look at something like a person goes out to the bar and gets drunk. That’s objectively wrong and evil. That’s without any kind of excuse. But beyond those things that we do know, because judgment is based in knowledge, we can’t go any further than that. This is where we really get into trouble.

We do when it comes to judgment. Notice what it says in the next verse. Verse 13, let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. Notice how he’s talking about judgment. Like I said a minute ago, he’s talking about judging one another, and the apostle Paul kind of turns it around.

And he says, remember that there is going to be something that’s going to be judged, and that is, do we cause another to fall in our carelessness? He says this, I know, verse 14, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, that is thy food, now walkest thou not charitably.

Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. And every American on earth says, it’s my right to eat whatever I want to eat. And it is, right? It is. But exercising that right in a way that causes harm to another is a matter that the Lord will bring into judgment. So does the Lord care that we, does the Lord want us to be careless in what we do and how it affects others?

Well of course not. He says, destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. This is the principle, let not then your good be evil spoken of. Let not then your good be evil spoken of. That would be a good verse to memorize right there. Hint, hint. Let not, it’s a short one too, it’s short. So it’s easy. Let not then your good be evil spoken of.

So does God care about the things, the way that what we do, how it affects others? Should we be careful? Yes. So on the two sides of the hypocrisy question, yes, it is foolish to live with a facade. Yes, because God knows all things. But it’s also foolish to live haphazardly where we don’t consider how it affects other people. That is also a matter that the Lord will examine.

All right, the fourth thing, number four, if you’re writing these down, our God is omniscient and that should be an encouragement to the secret and sincere saint. It’s encouragement, God’s omniscience is an encouragement to the secret and sincere saint. How many of you know that I have a lisp? Okay, all of my kids raise their hand. I actually try very hard to say my S’s right, but if I don’t, the lisp will come out.

So saying secret and sincere saints is very cumbersome to my mouth. I took speech when I was in elementary school for it. So all right, that was just a side note. All right, Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six. Look at that if you would.

Matthew six, verse number one. The omniscience of God should be an encouragement to the secret and sincere saint. What do I mean by secret? What I mean is not that we have a secret life, but in a way, every Christian should have a secret life of devotion to God. That’s what Matthew chapter six says, verse one. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven.

Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be, and here it is, secret, and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

What is your father seeing in secret? What is that? That’s omniscience. That’s God’s omniscience. The Lord Jesus is encouraging us to exercise our devotional life with a knowledge of God’s omniscience and based upon that truth, do things that only God sees. That’s what he’s saying. And he gives three categories, alms is the first, verse five. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet. And when thou shalt shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. God knows when we pray when nobody else knows when we pray. We don’t have to announce it. We don’t have to tell people. Did you know, and listen, I encourage you to tell other people that you pray for them.

As long as you pray for them. But did you know that it’s better, not that it’s a binary choice, but it is better to pray for them than it is to tell them. If you pray for them, tell them, be an encouragement to them. Ask them how you can pray, how you can pray for one another. The most important thing as a matter of priority is that you do, whether they know it or not, in secret.

This is the secret, Christian. Not that our faith is secret, but our devotion to God is secret. Why? Because we know that God knows all things. He knows what other people don’t. And that is enough. Is it enough? Listen, is it enough in your devotion, in your relationship to God? Is it enough for you that God knows how you live for Him and serve Him? Or do other people have to know for you to be fully satisfied?

That’s a probing question, is it not? But it’s a valid one. He goes on to say this, verse 7. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions as they even do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth, omniscience, what things ye have need of before ye ask him. And that leads directly into the next thing.

How should this, how should God’s omniscience affect our prayer life? Two things. Number one, we should pray with confidence, knowing that God knows our needs. That’s what the Lord says. But number two, we should pray with absolute and complete transparency before God. How many of you, you don’t have to raise your hand, but how many of you have been guilty of going to prayer and for some reason acting and praying as if God didn’t know the things that were going on in your heart?

What was truly there? And even before the Lord trying to set up and maintain a facade. It’s foolish, it’s silly. In our prayer life, in that secret closet prayer, that’s the place where we ought to lay bare before the Lord. Why? Because he sees it all anyway. If there’s ever a time we need to do that, that’s the time. There should be things in your life that nobody but God knows, that you bring to him in prayer.

Say amen. Right there. Amen. Amen. That would be a secret prayer. Look if you would at 1 Chronicles 28. We’ve just got a few more verses to cover and we’ll be finished with this section. 1 Chronicles 28. First Chronicles 28. Verse number 9. David here is speaking to Solomon, giving him a charge. Think about it. David’s giving his son a charge about this. So think about it.

David lived this. Whatever he’s telling Solomon, he did it. Which is why we have the book of Psalms and everything else about David. And thou, Solomon, verse 9, and thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father and And serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind. Notice this. So what is he talking about? He’s summarizing. Know God. Serve him. Right? That’s kind of summarize.

We would say, you need to maintain, in our modern vernacular, we would say, Solomon, you need to maintain a close personal relationship with God. Right? Is that how you would say it? Know God. Serve God. Notice what he says after that. For, and this is the reason, the Lord searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee, but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee all forever.

Notice he says, live for God in sincerity because God sees you through and through. Serve God with sincerity. Know God with sincerity because God knows the imaginations of the hearts. He’s warned. I mean, it’s kind of a warning, an encouragement and a warning. He’s saying, Solomon, be careful. Listen, God knows if you’re real and you’re sincere. Let me say this about being a secret and sincere saint is this.

There are few things, maybe nothing, that will make you and me more sincere and authentic in our relationship to God than the knowledge of God’s omniscience. If you and I truly believe that, it will produce a sincerity, a deep sincerity and a true authenticity in our first and foremost, our private life with God and also in our public life with others. Now, we know the public part gets a little more complicated because there’s other factors like Romans 14 as an example, but for sure in our private life.

All the talk these days about authenticity, that’s one of these trendy terms these days, the catchphrase being authentic, authentic. Listen, we should be authentic. We should be sincere. We should be the real deal on the inside that we are on the outside. The way we do that is by remembering the omniscience of God and by making what God knows our first and foremost concern. Because if we know that and if God’s knowledge of us is our first and foremost concern, then whether other people see it or not is of lesser importance.

And every one of us should be that. We should be the real deal. All right, a couple more things. Let’s go to Psalm 69 and Psalm 103. I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this off and leave one last one for next week. Psalm 69 and Psalm 103. So we have one, two, three, four, five. We covered this one a little bit already. Number five is this.

God’s omniscience is a warning to the sinning saint. You say sinning saint. Yeah, that’s a thing. Psalm 69 verse number five, the Bible says this, Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee. Listen, this is the truth. It’s just the truth. The Lord knows what we do and we step out of the way. And if he knows what we’re doing when we step out of the way, he is an explicit verse.

My sins are not hid from me. That means the Lord is going to do whatever is necessary to bring you back into the way. So it is a warning to the sinning saint. And number six, Psalm 103, it is a comfort to the suffering saint. Look at Psalm 103. Psalm 103 verse number 14. For he knoweth our frame, he rememberth that we are dust. He knoweth, see that?

God knows omniscience. He knows what we’re made of. I’ve heard that used so many times to excuse evil. That’s how people often use it. Well, God knows I’m a sinner, so I’m going to sin. No, it’s not that. But there is a comfort there. God knows our weakness. God knows our tendency, our proclivity to evil. God knows how frail we are. He knows that if he presses us too much, we’ll faint.

He knows this. And he knows how affliction affects us. And God looks upon that with pity. How then should we look upon others who are afflicted and give them a large measure of grace? When you do that, you’re being God-like. You know that? Because that’s exactly what God does. When someone’s afflicted and they can’t really do or aren’t interested or able or willing to do maybe all the things that they should do under normal circumstances, God gives us huge measure of grace, right?

Because he pities us and he knows our frame. It doesn’t make it right, but he gives us that extra grace. And so when we do that and we remember that person’s under affliction, sometimes they’re going to, you know, we’ve got to give them some grace. That’s a God thing. That’s what the Lord does. And that should be a comfort to us when we’re suffering. Let’s pray together.