| Psalm 147 - 16 May 2010
Andrew Lim
John Wesley once said: “Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man
and then I will show you a man that can comprehend God”
God / who can fully comprehend Him?
Who can fully fathom the nature of God
His aseity (self existence) eternity / omnipresence / omniscience
omnipotence / immutability / sovereignty / glory
What does it really mean / that God is holy
What really is the wrath of God
What does the Bible mean when it speaks about
the goodness / wisdom mercy of God
What is the grace and faithfulness of God
What does it mean when it says “God is love”
These are not easy ideas to grasp
And we have another difficult one before us this morning
The doctrine that God knows everything
what is called the “omniscience” of God
comes from two Latin words
'omni' means 'all' / 'science' means ‘knowledge’
This is a very difficult subject to grasp
so much so that / presently as I speak / there is a vital debate
with regards to this doctrine
Now / I am acutely conscious this is a sermon / and not a lecture on apologetics
so / without going into details / I want to briefly bring it to your awareness
And that is this: / Some people including some evangelicals
have found this doctrine of God omnipotence unpalatable
and there is a growing trend to redefine it
I think immediately a new doctrine called
the Openness of God theory or Open Theism
We see it in the writings of Clark Pinnock / John Sanders
William Hasker / and David Basinger
They argue that the traditional view of God knowing all future events
is not a teaching of Scripture / but has its roots in Greek philosophy
Whilst they would agree
that God knows both the past and present exhaustively
they deny that He can know the future perfectly
With regards to the future / they affirm
that God can foreknow what He intends to do
if those acts are independent of any human participation
But / with any future action / that involves human participation
until we actually do it / God cannot know what we will do
They argue that God knows
a whole range of possibilities and potentialities
but not actualities / partly because
future actualities do not exist yet as objects of knowledge
Without going into all the details of a rebuttal of such a teaching
I want to quickly say that the central problem of Open Theism
is that they defined God in such a way
that implies that time is part of His nature
and becoming embroiled in a problem of their own making
But time cannot be a part of God’s nature
because time had a beginning and will have an end
It is not possible to have an infinite amount of time
because we here / at this present moment
witnessing time still moving on
If time were infinite / we can’t be here witnessing this moment of time
This present moment / would be the terminus
of that infinite amount of preceding time
Because by definition / infinity has no bound
This present moment sets a bound on time / so time is not infinite
If the past is infinite / we will not have the present moment
If this argument makes sense / then time must have a beginning
and if time had a beginning / God cannot be a part of time
because God has no beginning
It is clearly a teaching of the Bible
The Word of God says
* “The eyes of the Lord are in every place
beholding the evil and the good” / Prov 15:3
* He knows every intent of the thoughts / 1 Chronicles 28:9
* He knows the number and names of all the stars / Psalm 147:4
* Great is our Lord and mighty in power
his understanding has no limit” / Ps. 147:5
* He knew before Jeremiah was conceived in his mother’s womb
that he would be a prophet / Jeremiah 1:5
* He knew before the apostle Paul was born
that he would reach out to the Gentiles / Galatians 1:15-16
* He knew what was in Nathaniel’s heart
even before He spoke a word to him
The first time Jesus laid eyes on Nathaniel He said
“Behold / an Israelite indeed / in whom is no guile!” / John 1:47
* He knew who was going to betray Him
“Behold / The hand of the one who is going to betray me
is with mine on the table. Luke 22:21-22
* He said to Peter / “Peter / before the rooster crows
you will have three times denied that you know me” / Lk 22:34
* He saw Cain slaying Abel / He heard Sarah laughing in her tent
* He saw Achan burying the bar of gold in the sand
* He heard David plotting the death of Uriah / scheming to seduce his wife
* He saw the hands of Judas reaching out to receive the 30 pieces of silver
The omniscience of God is the teaching that God has all knowledge
God knows all things / everything
POINT 1
God knows and perceives all mind / all matter / all spirit / all being
He knows the configuration of every atom / and molecule
He perceives all thought / understands all mystery and enigma
He knows every desire / intention / psychological mood
He knows all things visible and invisible
motion / space / time / life / death
He knows the timing of every birth and death
He sees the rise and fall of each civilization before it happened
You could probably add to this list / had I given this to you as an exercise
POINT 2
And because God is eternal
He knows everything immediately and simultaneously
God knows by a simply natural act
It is in His very nature to know everything
Calvin defines Omniscience as
“that attribute whereby God knows Himself and all other things
in one eternal and most simple act”
God knows everything through one single sweeping act of intuition
He knows everything through one single instantaneous act of knowing
In one single glance / God’s eyes pierces right through all things
from eternity to eternity”
Because He does not live in time
He does not come to know things sequentially / or successively
in a linear fashion / and that brings us to the next point
POINT 3
God's knowledge is intuitive / it is innate and immediate
Our knowledge is what is called discursive knowledge
We come to knowledge through study observation and reasoning
God’s knowledge is innate and inherent
Nobody taught God what He knows
He does not acquire knowledge
through observation / consultation / or study
And because God knows innately
there was never a time / when something was unknown to God
for if God needed to learn something new
that He didn’t know before / He would be imperfect
He does not know more now / than He did 500 centuries ago
He has always known all things infinitely from all eternity
He cannot learn anything about anyone or anything
He never discovers anything / He never learns anything new
He never wonders about anything
If He asked questions / like He did in the garden with Adam
“Adam / where are you?” / or “Who touched me”
when someone touched the hem of his garment
those questions are not an expression of ignorance
Rather He asked questions to draw a person to see a truth
that He Himself already knows
Tozer says / To think of a God who must sit at the feet of a teacher
even though that teacher be an archangel or a seraph
is to think of someone other than the Most High God
maker of heaven and earth”
Isaiah 40 / “Who has understood the mind of the LORD
or instructed him as his counsellor?
Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him
and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge
or showed him the path of understanding? / Is 40:13-14
POINT 4
God’s knowledge is perfect complete / all-encompassing / comprehensive
* Our knowledge is often inaccurate / imprecise and often prejudicial
they can be proven wrong / they are fallible
God’s knowledge is complete / perfect / infinite / accurate / precise
God knows all things infallibly / He can never be proven wrong
God holds no false beliefs / God is always correct in what he knows
* And He knows all things thoroughly and exhaustively
Nothing lies outside the scope of God’s grasp
The Psalmist tells us / “His understanding is infinite” / Ps 147:5
You’ll remember Job / in the thick of his pain and grief
he starts to question God / He wonders if God was even aware
of the grief he was going through
And Elihu comes along / and rebukes him / saying
“Do you know about the one perfect in knowledge?” / Job 37:16
Kuiper says
“All things are constantly before the mind of the timeless God
and His remembrance of them is perfect”
* Further / God has knowledge not only of the things that have happened
but also things which could have happen / but didn’t happen
and all things that could have existed but didn’t exist
- in philosophy / we call it “all possible worlds”
He not only knows all actualities / He knows all possibilities
- not only things that are / but things that could possibly be
He knows all actualities and all possibilities past present and future
He knows the future infallibly / He knows all future contingencies
Study all the prophecies of God in the Bible
and you will come away amazed
by the way that God knows the end from the beginning
He prophesied that the Israelites
would be afflicted in a strange land for 400 years
He prophesied a time of captivity in Babylon for 70 years
He prophesied the destruction of the Temple
He prophesied not only the birth of the Messiah
but pinpointed the exact location of His birth
He knows all the “what if’s”
He says “Woe to you / Bethsaida!
If the miracles that were performed in you
had been performed in Tyre and Sidon
they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes”
Mt 11:21
He know what the response would be like
if I was to preach this sermon in Kuala Lumpur this morning
POINT 5
And God knows all things most clearly / most distinctly / difinitively
God does not suffer from amnesia
His knowledge is certain / Nothing is opaque or fuzzy to Him
There is no cloudiness to His knowledge
There is no dimness no obscurity to His vision
1 John 1:5 / “God is light / and in him is no darkness at all”
In fact / “Darkness and light are both alike to him” / Ps 139:12
Heb 4:13 / “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes
of him to whom we must give account”
And because God sees everything clearly and distinctly
One / His knowledge never changes / or wavers
Two / He is never deceived
POINT 6
Some people think that it is beneath the dignity of God
to trouble himself with such lowly questions
as how many gnats / a kind of insects are born or die every moment
But God’s Word leaves no room for doubt
whether it is beneath the dignity of God
to trouble himself with such lowly questions
For the Word of God says:
He knows every bird of the mountains
and every wild beast in the fields / Psalm 50:11
He knows the fall of every sparrow / Matthew 10:29
He knows the number of hairs on our head / Matthew 10:30
He determines the number of the stars calls them each by name Ps 147:4
Someone says it well when he said:
“Anyone can count the seeds in one apple
but only God can count the apples in one seed”
It is not a troubling thing for God to know such small things
God knows them all / effortlessly
____________________________________________________________
Now / how do we stack all this up? / the “so what” question
If God knows all / what does this mean for me / for you?
One of the clearest implications of God’s omniscience / is this:
There are no secrets / you can hide from God
There isn’t one thing secretive in our heart / He does not know
“He knows the secrets of the heart”/ Psalm 44:21
Eugene Peterson translates Proverbs 15:11 this way
“Even hell holds no secrets from God
Do you think he can’t read human hearts? / Proverbs 15:11
There isn’t one of us here / who does not have some things
tucked deep away in our heart / that nobody else knows about
Psalm 90:8 put it bluntly / “You spread out our sins before you
our secret sins / and you see them all”
The writer to the Hebrews simply says:
“All things are open and laid bare
to the eyes of Him / with whom we have to do” / Heb 4:13
Like Adam some of us think we can run to the garden
and hide among the trees / But where can we hide?
(woman and man from Foxton)
That / is the first implication / there is no hiding from God
Second / because God knows everything about us
then if we have made Him our God and given our lives over to Him
we / of all people are the safest place
because He already knows / all there is to know about us
Tozer puts it this way / “No talebearer can inform on us
no enemy can make an accusation stick
no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet
to abash us and expose our past
no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light
to turn God away from us
since He knew us utterly before we knew Him
and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything
that was against us”
What is clearly the most shameful thing you have ever done in your life?
Where have you been
that brings deep regret whenever you think back over it?
God knows all that / and if you have confessed / He’s forgiven you
We can rest secure in God / knowing that even when He knows
all about us / He still accepts us just as we are
Thirdly / because God is all-knowing / God knows your grief and pain
He knows the suffering you are going through
Has anyone ever poke her finger right in your eye?
The very thought of it repulses you
But that is the way God feels when someone touches you offensively
Psalm 17:8 says God watches over us “as the apple of His eye”
What grief is troubling you today?
Are you in a grievous place over a child / a spouse / a grandchild?
Are you in some pain / some rejection / betrayal / regret
Is there something you are deeply worried about?
Job is so confident of the omniscience of God he said:
“He knows the way that I take'”
Just when you’re in your deepest despair and thinking “No one cares”
remember Ps 103:14,15
“As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him
for he knows how we are formed / he remembers that we are dust”
God knows your plight / your sense of despair
This portion of Scripture should encourage every one of us
“And the Lord said
I have surely seen the affliction of my people / which are in Egypt
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters
for I know their sorrows” / Ex. 3:7
The psalmist is most confident: “My groaning is not hidden from You
You hear my every sigh” / Ps 38:9
“You have taken account of my wanderings
Put my tears in Your bottle / are they not in Your book? / Ps 56:8
God is here saying: “I put your tears into a bottle
I’m making a count of them / I’ll be remembering them”
Isn’t this so comforting
to know that even when every friend has forsaken you
when everyone else misunderstands you
God knows your hearts / he knows what’s there
Revelation 12 depicts Satan as a dragon with seven heads
It speaks of the pride of Satan
thinking he has knowledge / ability / intuition
to plan / to scheme to bring down God and His children
But when we turn back to Zechariah 3
right there in verse 9 / God is depicted / as having seven eyes
Finally it is not Satan but God who has total knowledge of everything
And He sees the lies / the deception / the accusation of Satan
hurled against you / to debilitate you / He knows it
As Christians / we need not be defensive
God knows the truth / that’s all that matters
There’s no gossip that will harm you
no false accusation that will stick
no hidden sin / that might be exposed
for which God hasn’t forgiven
God knows your hearts
and He will judge you on the ground of what He sees there
And ultimately / it is God who vindicates
Fourth / He knows your future
Someone has said: God knows the plan of the ages!
He knows the plan of the ages because He has planned the ages!
Now of He knows the plan of the ages / will He not know your future?
We can take great comfort in the fact that God knows
what will happen to us / because He is the one who has planned it
Finally / because God is all-knowing / it comforts us to know
that on the Day of Judgement / God will know those who are truly His
And He will reach out to them to receive them
The Bible speaks of “a book of remembrance” / Malachi 3:16
The Bible speaks of “the books being opened on the Last Day
The books will indeed be opened / Daniel 12:10
but His wrath will not fall upon our heads
for our names are written in the book of life
and we will be vindicated
“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” / Ro 8:1
When we all stand right before the Great White Throne of Judgement
and the Book is opened / we will have nothing to fear
for “as many as received Him / to them He gave the right
to become children of God / even to those
who believe in His name” / Jn 1:12
Because God knows all / He knows all who are truly His
When all the water of life seems gone
and everything around us sniffs of the stench of despair
God comes to us to rescue us / because He knows
It is reassuring to know / that God knows
every trap laid in your path
every enemy who lurks behind the door
every step to plot your downfall
and no one touches you except he touch God also
I want to close with a true story
that came from the conflict of civil war in El Salvador
This gripping but harrowing story is recounted in a book called
The Massacre at El Mozote / by a journalist named Mark Danner
The Atlacatl Battalion which is a special unit of the Salvadoran Army
was waging a counterinsurgency war against the leftist guerrillas
They came across this small hamlet of El Mozote on Dec 11th 1981
the villagers were seeking refuge
But the government troops / instead of providing refuge for them
plundered a village / separate the men from women and children
The men were the first to die / decapitated with machetes
Then the older women were taken to another place and killed there
The boys were led to the nearby playing field to be impaled and hanged
The young girls were then taken to a nearby hill and raped
then murdered
All this came from a women
who managed to sneak behind a crab-apple tree and later escape
She saw her husband decapitated / her children killed crying for her
She saw everything / her name is Rufina Amaya
Her testimony would eventually be heard worldwide
In a place called fittingly called La Cruz / the Cross
there was a young woman / an evangelical Christian
She had been raped many times in a single afternoon
Then she was tortured in the most gruesome manner
But throughout her ordeal / this young woman
clinging to her belief in Christ / had sung hymns evangelical songs
This is how one of the soldiers described it to Danner:
“She kept on singing / too / even after they had shot her in the chest
She had lain there in La Cruz with the blood flowing from her chest
and had kept on singing / a bit weaker than before / but still singing
And the soldiers / stupefied / had watched and pointed
Then they had grown tired of the game and shot her again
and she sang still / and their wonder began to turn to fear
- until finally they unsheathed their machetes and hacked her neck
and at last the singing stopped”
Danner / who wrote the book / tells us that after this massacre
some soldiers told him
how they were haunted by one of their victims / and
how they could not get her out of their minds long after her death
A critic reviewing Danner’s book / in the New York Times
tells how / after reading his story / he kept “straining”
to hear the sound of that singing
- he found that he kept “straining” to hear the sound of that singing
And maybe you too / as you hear this story
may strain to hear the sound of her singing
But if we strain to hear her / how much more God
And that’s my point / God heard her singing
If God sees the fall of a sparrow / He hears the cries of this songbird
God knew what she went through / God was right there with her
Remember when Hagar and her little baby Ishmael
was sent away to the wilderness to perish
No one was there in that dry arid forsaken place
yet God was there and saw her plight
and sent an angel to provider her with water
Remember what she did / She gives God a name
She calls God / El Roi = “You are the God who sees me” Gen 16:13
Is anyone here in a deep agonising crisis in your life?
When you think that no one understands you / no one cares
remember the name Hagar gave to God / El-Roi / the God Who sees you
God knows where you’re at / He sees / He empathises
Rest in the fact / that He is right here with you
He knows all that is in your heart / Proverbs 15:3
But if you’re here listening to all that I have been saying
and you haven’t handed your heart over to Jesus
Remember / All things lie bare before Him
And He is the One you have to contend with
This morning He comes to us / and He says:
“I / the Lord / search the heart”
___________________________________________________________
|
