Even older teens sometimes enjoy playing this game. But in all fairness, sometimes they cheat when they play it.
Illus: For example, did you hear about the teenage girl that said to her boy friend, “Let’s play Hide and Seek.”
• He said, “How do you play it?”
• She said “It is simple. I will hide and you try to find me, and if you do I will give you a kiss.”
• But he said, "What if I can't find you?"
• She said, "I'll be behind the piano in the corner."
Little kids, big kids, everyone enjoys playing “Hide and Seek.” They say everyone likes to play it but lawyers, because they know if they go into HIDING, NOBODY WILL LOOK FOR THEM.
But listen, when it comes to us playing this game with God, it is no fun.
Wouldn’t it be tragic if a person sincerely wanted to find God in their life and He was hiding and they couldn’t find Him? I can assure you, based on the Word of God, He does not play this game.
GOD WANTS YOU TO FIND HIM. He already knows where you are and He wants you to discover Him.
But let me ask you a question, “If you found Him, would you recognize Him?”
When some folks talk about God, they give you the impression that they can fool God the same way they can fool mortal man.
Illus: Did you hear about the woodcutter that was cutting a branch of a tree above a river and his ax fell into the river? When he began crying, God appeared.
"Why are you crying?" The woodcutter told Him that he had dropped his ax into water. God went down into the water and reappeared with a golden ax.
"Is this your ax?", God asked. "No"
God again went down and came up with a silver ax. "Is this your ax?", God asked. "No".
God went down again and came up with an iron ax. "Is this your ax?", God asked. "Yes".
God was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all three axes. The woodcutter went home happily.
One day he was walking with his wife by the river. She was noted to be the ugliest woman in the county.
But it so happens, as they were walking she fell into the river. When he began crying, God appeared again and asked,
"Why are you crying?" He said, "My wife has fallen into river." God went down into the water and came up with the prettiest woman in the county. "Is this your wife?", God asked. “Yes, I believe it is!”
There are people who think they can fool God the same way they fool mortal man. But I am here to tell you they do not know the God of the Bible. When you get to know the God of this Bible, you find you can not FOOL GOD!
Psalm 139 is a wonderful Psalm for those who are looking for God in their life. When you find the God of the Bible, what kind of God will you find?
Let’s look at some of the attributes of God that we find in this Psalm. First, let’s look at-
I. THE OMNISCIENCE OF GOD
Look at verses 1-6, we read, “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.”
God is too much for us mortals to comprehend with our minds. That is:
• He does not think like us
• He does not do things like us
Many times this frustrates us mortals.
Illus: Did you hear about the man that was taking it easy, lying on the grass and looking up at the clouds? He was identifying shapes in the clouds, when he decided to talk to God.
• He said to God, "How long is a million years?"
• God answered, "In my frame of reference, it's about a minute."
• The man asked, "God, how much is a million dollars?"
• God answered, "In my frame of reference, it would be the same as a penny."
• The man then asked, "God, can I have a penny?"
• God said, "In a minute."
The psalmist begins this psalm with the realization that God knows all about him. What is amazing about this is that God knows all about us and HE STILL LOVES US.
One of the reasons many are seeking a divorce is that when they were courting their mate they were one thing, but after they married them they found they were something else.
Illus: This reminds me of the woman who married a man she thought was a “Hunk,” but it turns out he was a “Chump”.
After 17 years of marriage, he dumped his wife for a younger woman.
The downtown luxury apartment was in his name and he wanted to remain there with his new love, so he asked the wife to move out and told her he would buy her another place.
The wife, with a broken heart, agreed to do this, but asked that she be given 3 days on her own there, to pack up her things.
• While he was gone, the first day she lovingly put her personal belongings into boxes and crates and suitcases.
• On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things.
• On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their candlelit dining table, soft music playing in the background, and feasted on several pounds of shrimp and an RC Cola.
When she had finished, she went into each room and deposited a few of the resulting shrimp shells into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.
The husband came back, with his new girl, and all was bliss for the first few days. Then it started; slowly but surely. Clueless, the man could not explain why the place smelled so bad. They tried everything to get rid of that odor:
• They cleaned and mopped the floors
• They aired the place out
• Vents were checked for dead rodents
• Carpets were steam cleaned
• Air fresheners were hung everywhere
• Exterminators were brought in
• The carpets were replaced, and on it went
Finally, they could take it no more and decided to move. The
moving company arrived and did a very professional packing job, taking everything to their new home...INCLUDING THE CURTAIN RODS.
A lot of folks entered a marriage madly in love, and they left it just mad. Why? Because they found out some things about this individual they did not know before.
God is Omniscient, there is nothing that God does not know about us. NOTHING! Isn’t that scary! We mortals do not know what is in the heart of people.
Illus: So often when a serial killer is caught, they interview the neighbors and ask them what kind of a man he was. Many times they will say:
• Friendly
• Hard working
• One of the nicest people you would ever want to know
And here they are talking about a serial killer.
Illus: Someone wrote many years ago, “You don't know it, but I watch you. My eyes know you, they follow you.
They see a different person. Someone that I don't know. A new person, but maybe only new to me.
My eyes were clouded before, but now they are clear. I see the answers, and I listen to them.
Now I realize, that I never knew you before.”
We all find ourselves from time to time saying, “I thought I knew them, but I did not know them at all!” But while we can fool people, we can not fool God.
We read in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Jeremiah, speaking of what is in the heart of man, says, “WHO CAN KNOW IT?”
I know someone that can, and it is God almighty. HE KNOWS EVERYTHING. But here is what is amazing, GOD KNOWS EVERTHING ABOUT US but still loves us.
God is Omniscient!
A. WHAT IS OMNISCIENCE?
Let’s break it down:
• "Omni" means "all"
• And "science" in its original sense means "knowing."
So omniscience means "all-knowing."
In classical theology, the doctrine of God’s omniscience means that God knows all things, past, present and future, and he knows them all at the same time.
And if that was not enough:
• He not only knows what was
• He knows what is
• He knows what will be
• More than that, he knows everything that could be but is not
God does know everything about us…EVERYTHING! I mean EVERYTHING!
B. WHAT DOES HIS OMNISCIENCE MEAN TO US?
It means a great deal, for example:
• In Luke 12:7 He numbers the hairs on your head.
• In Psalm 139:4 He knows your words before you speak them.
• In Psalm 139:2 He knows your thoughts before you think them.
• In Matthew 6:8 He knows your prayers before you pray them.
• In Psalm 139:2-3 He knows when you get up in the morning and when you go to bed at night.
• In Psalm 139:16 He knows everything you are going to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and every moment of every day until the moment of your death.
• In Matthew 12:36 He records every word you say and will some day call you to account for every careless, thoughtless, unkind and unchristian comment.
• In Matthew 6:4 He sees everything you do in secret—both the good and the bad.
• In Luke 12:3 He hears every whispered word and will one day shout them from the housetops.
No wonder David said that God knew all about Him.
C. WHAT KIND OF KNOWLEDGE DOES GOD HAVE?
When it comes to the knowledge of God, there are several things we need to consider. Such as:
(1) GOD’S KNOWLEDGE IS INDEPENDENT, OURS IS DEPENDENT
No one has ever taught God anything, because his knowledge is complete from the beginning. But our knowledge is dependent in that we must learn what we know from others.
Illus: Eight-year-old Sally brought her report card home from school. Her marks were good...mostly A's and a couple of B's. However, her teacher had written across the bottom: "Sally is a smart little girl, but she has one fault. She talks too much in school. I have an idea I am going to try, which I think may break her of the habit."
Sally's dad signed her report card, putting a note on the back: "Please let me know if your idea works on Sally because I would like to try it out on her mother
We learn from each other. We can even learn a lot from children.
Illus: One little boy said, “Grandpa, I bet you I can stick this worm back in this hole that he crawled out of.” The grandpa said, “I bet you five dollars you can not do it.”
The little boy took the worm in the house, and in a few minutes he came back and that worm was straight as an arrow, and he slid the worm back in the hole it came out of.
Grandpa gave him the five dollars and said, “Son, how did you get that worm to be so straight that you could slide him back in that hole?” He said, “Grandpa, you know that old hair spray that grandma sprays on my hair that makes it straight and stiff? I sprayed the worm and that is why he is so straight and stiff.”
God’s knowledge is independent, ours is dependent.
(2) GOD’S KNOWLEDGE IS INFINITE, OUR IS PARTIAL
He knows everything that could be known, we know a tiny fragment of what could be known.
Illus: Here in the South, sometimes you can hear a song that I love to hear sung on the radio. It is called, "Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God?"
That sounds odd at first, because things occur to us all the time, but it is true: nothing has ever "occurred" to God. He never wakes up and says, "A great idea just occurred to me."
He knows all the great ideas all the time, from the beginning of time. He knows all the time what will work and what will not work.
(3) GOD KNOWS US BETTER THAN WE KNOW OURSELVES.
Specifically, he knows what is in the human heart. That is why David prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139:23).
Someone said that God’s omniscience is a comfort to believers and a terror to unbelievers. Why? For two reasons. Let’s consider-
(a) THE COMFORT OF HIS KNOWLEDGE
If he truly knows all things, and if he ordains all things, then everything that happens to me or to those I love must happen as part of His plan.
(b) THE JUSTICE OF HIS KNOWLEDGE
If God did not know everything, how could He reward those who have been faithful?
Listen, I see Christians today who are saved by the grace of God. They will go to heaven the same way that we will go there, because of God’s grace. But these same Christians:
• Will not invite people to church
• Will not pray for the church
• Will not give to the church
• Will not say anything nice about the church
To watch them live the Christian life, you would think the whole purpose of the Christian life is to sit around doing absolutely nothing, and to say something negative every now and then about someone or about God’s church.
Now listen, I love these people and God loves these people. But when we get to heaven, and they get to heaven by the same grace of God that gets us there, I am going to be upset if they get the same rewards as those who have faithfully served the Lord.
The good news is that God is OMNISCIENT and He knows those who are faithfully serving Him.
Conclusion:
WE have looked at the-
I. THE OMNISCIENCE OF GOD (1 of 3)
(next)
II. THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD (2 of 3)
III. THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD (3 of 3)
