YOU KNOW GOD KNOWS!
Arent
we generally speaking, fascinated by
genius? I am. For
years I have enjoyed reading after Marilyn
Vos Savant. Marilyn is listed in the Guinness
Book of World Records under
"Highest IQ". Her IQ at one time
tested out at 228.
Marilyn is best known for her "Ask
Marilyn" weekly column which appears
in 352 newspapers with a circulation of 36
million and a readership of 70 million.
Marilyn
Vos Savant is nothing though compared to
William ('Billy') James Sidis. Sidis was
born on April Fool's Day in 1898. He was a
genius. Here is a partial list of
Billys extraordinary capabilities and
accomplishments:
1.
His IQ was crudely estimated
to be somewhere between 250-300.
2.
Started feeding himself with
a spoon at eight months.
3.
Learned to spell
proficiently by one year old.
4.
Started reading The New
York Times at 18 months.
5.
At 3 he was typing and
teaching himself Latin and Greek.
6.
He read Homer in Greek in his fourth year.
7.
Wrote four books between ages of four and eight. Two
on anatomy and astronomy your typical
childrens books.
8.
At
six, Billy learned Russian, French,
German, and Hebrew, and soon after,
Turkish and Armenian.
9.
Billy started grammar school
at six, graduated grammar school 7 months
later.
10.
Calculated mentally a day
any date in history would fall at age six.
11.
Passed Harvard Medical
School anatomy exam at age seven.
12.
Mastered higher mathematics
and planetary revolutions by age 11.
13.
In
1909, became youngest student to ever
enroll at Harvard at age 11
14.
Billy graduated from
Harvard, cum laude, at the age of
16.
15.
Total recall of everything
he read.
16.
Could learn a whole language
in one day!
17.
Billy knew all the languages
(approximately 200) of the world, and
could translate among them instantly!
At
the age of 26, Sidis was working as a
$23-a-week clerk in a New York business
firm. He basically spent the rest of his
life going from job to job while
occasionally doing some writing. William
died on July 17, 1944 of a massive
cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 46.
Interestingly,
it has been said that William James Sidis
was arguably the brightest human who
ever existed on our planet Earth. He
was bright. Lets make no mistake about
that.
The
Bible, however, notes that there is one
who far exceeds William James Sidis in
knowledge. That one is God. This morning I
want to continue on with my series of
messages on the characteristics of
Almighty God. Today I declare that God
is omniscience -- all-knowing; He is
perfect in knowledge.
Paul
the Apostle wrote in Romans 11:33-36 (The
Message Translation), Have
you ever come on anything quite like this
extravagant generosity of God, this deep,
deep wisdom? It's way over our heads.
We'll never figure it out. Is there
anyone around who can explain God? Anyone
smart enough to tell him what to do?
Anyone who has done him such a huge favor
that God has to ask his advice?
Everything comes
from him;
Everything happens
through him;
Everything ends up
in him.
Always
glory! Always praise!
Yes.
Yes. Yes.
·
Psalm
147:5 adds, Great
is our Lord and mighty in power; His
under-standing has no limit.
·
Romans
16:27 also states, To
the only wise God be glory for ever
through Jesus Christ!
·
1
Timothy 1:17 (KJV), Now unto the King
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only
wise God, [be] honor and glory for ever
and ever.
·
Jude
25 (KJV), To the only
wise God our Savior, [be] glory and
majesty, dominion and power, both now and
ever. Amen.
Our
God is simply omniscient! There is no end
or boundary to His knowledge.
Thomas
Edison is quoted as having said that We
dont know one millionth of 1
percent about anything.
God,
though, doesnt relate to such
limitations! The Bible declares in both
Job 36 and 37 that God is perfect in knowledge. Lets
look at this word
perfect.
The word means absolutely
whole, entire, complete, finished, so full
that nothing can be added. Not
many things outside of your spouse --
are absolutely perfect; God is. He is
perfect in knowledge.
Then,
too, lets notice the word knowledge. In Job 37 where the term is found, it is
in the plural and should be translated knowledges.
In other words, God is not only perfect
in knowledge,
He is
perfect
in knowledges.
He is perfect and complete in all
forms of knowledge.
·
There
is nothing in the heavens.
·
in
the earth,
·
in
the host of the universe,
·
in
the depths of the sea,
·
in
the world of biology,
·
in
the world of chemistry,
·
Nothing
great or nothing small,
·
Nothing
from the past or nothing in the future,
·
There
is nothing anywhere at any time that He
doesnt already know at any given
instant!
I
know something about the Bible. I can talk
with a certain degree of intelligence
about politics and current events. I know
a little about history and enough about
the medical field to be of some help in
the event of an emergency. In other words,
I have a little knowledge about a few
areas of life. By way of contrast, God is
not limited in His knowledge in any area
of anything--period!
God
just knows everything about everything!
·
He
knows everything about the height
of everything.
·
He
knows everything about the depth
of everything.
·
He
knows everything about the length
of everything.
·
He
knows everything about the weight
of everything.
But,
pastor, I cant grasp this.
Friend, you are not alone. When David
declared that His
understanding has no limit
he literally was saying that God was
indeed limitless! His wisdom exceeds all
means of measure and comprehension. 1
Samuel 2:3 therefore declares, Lord is a God who knows....
HAVING
SAID THAT, LET US NOTICE SOME SPECIFIC
INSTANCES OF THE AWESOME KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
Several
years ago Our
Daily Bread carried a devotional piece
entitled There Is No God.
I want to read it to you: All
the wonders around you are accidental.
No Almighty hand made a thousand
billion stars. They made themselves. The
surface of our land just happened to have
topsoil, without which we would have no
vegetables to eat, and no grass for the
animals whose meat is our food. The
inexhaustible envelope of air, only 50
miles deep and of exactly the right
density to support human life, is just
another law of physics. Water expands when
it freezes, while other substances
contract. This makes ice lighter than
water and keeps it floating on the
surface. Otherwise lakes would be solid
ice down to the bottom, and no fish could
survive. We have day and night because the
earth spins at a given speed without
slowing down. Who made this arrangement?
Who tilts it so that we get seasons? The
suns fire does not generate too much
heat so that we fry, but just enough so
that we do not freeze. Who keeps this fire
constant? The human heart will beat for 70
or 80 years without faltering.
How does it get sufficient rest
between beats? A kidney will filter poison
from the blood and leave the good things
alone. How does it know one from the
other? Who gave the human tongue
flexibility to form words, and who made a
brain to understand them? Is it all
accidental? Is there really not a God?
Have
you read the book of Job in the Bible
lately?
If not, please do. You can thank me
later. Personally, I love the book.
Chapters 36 and 37 give us a beautiful
picture of Gods wisdom as seen
in creation.
Lets
briefly run through a few of the verses.
In Job 36:22, Elihu, one of Jobs
comforters, notes, God
is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher
like him?
Then in verse 26 he adds, How
great is God-beyond our understanding!
How
did Elihu come to know that God was
exalted and great? He certainly did not
have a nice, thick, leather bound
Bible from which to read. He didnt
have a pastor who would feed him with
truth. He couldnt go off to some
Bible college and spend several years
learning such things. We do not even know
that he would have been a believer were he
to have been alive today.
So
how did he come to know that God was
exalted, powerful and great? Notice verses
27-29, He
(God) draws up the drops of water, which
distill as rain to the streams; the clouds
pour down their moisture and abundant
showers fall on mankind. Who can
understand how He spreads out the clouds?
Elihu
had watched the rain fall and collect in
pools. Then it evaporated and the
evaporation formed clouds, and when the
clouds were cooled, they spilled their
rain. He saw all of this and in wonder he
concluded that a God who thought all of
this up had to be a wise, exalted and
powerful God! Wouldnt you be led
to the same conclusions?
Notice
now his words as we skim through
Job 37:5-16, God's
voice thunders in marvelous ways; He does
great things beyond our understanding. He
says to the snow, Fall on the earth,'
and to the rain shower, Be a mighty
downpour. So that all men He has made
may know His work... The breath of God
produces ice, and the broad waters become
frozen. He loads the clouds with moisture;
he scatters his lightning through them. At
His direction they swirl around over the
face of the whole earth to do whatever He
commands them. He brings the clouds to
punish men, or to water his earth and show
his love. Listen to this, Job; stop and
consider God's wonders. Do you know how
God controls the clouds and makes His
lightning flash? Do you know how the
clouds hang poised, those wonders of Him
who is perfect in knowledge?
Isnt
that wonderful? As the young man looked at
the wonders of Gods creation he
had to confess in awe that God was mighty,
God was wise, God was perfect in
knowledge!
Then,
in Job 38:4-7, God speaks directly to Job.
He too uses creation to testify of His
wisdom and greatness. Where
were you when I laid the earth's
foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you
know! Who stretched a measuring line
across it? On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone while the
morning stars sang together and all the
angels shouted for joy?
Job was silent.
Then
in verse 8 God asked Job to consider the
sea. Who
shut up the sea behind doors?
In verse 10 God notes that He fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said,
This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt....
Think
with me about the oceans
shoreline. It is basically the same today
as it was hundreds of years ago,
maybe even thousands of years ago. The
restless, surging tide throws itself upon
the beach but it never changes the
shoreline.
Why?
Because God put the ocean in a bed
of sand, and the sand will sustain the
movement of the waters without eroding the
shoreline away. If God had not thought to
cradle the sea in sand, every lap of the
waves would have eaten away a little bit
more of the land. Eventually that water
would have carried
away the land and deposited it in
the bottom of the sea. Only a god, our
God, would have been so wise to have
figured such a plan out!
Next,
God points Job to the morning. Job, the
Lord asked,
can you cause the sun to come up each day? Again, Job was silent. Yet, this is something that the Lord
has been doing through the ages. The
sunrise is so precise that scientists know
its cycle and call tell the exact moment
the sun will appear over the horizon.
It never varies.
The only wise God is the creator of
such order and design!
Then
again God asks of Job in verses 19-21, What
is the way to the abode of light? And
where does darkness reside? Can you take
them to their places? Do you know the
paths to their dwellings? Surely you know,
for you were already born! You have lived
so many years!
Does the Lord have a sense of
humor, or what?
He
is simply asking, what causes night and
day?
The answer, of course, is not what
but who? -- God!
One
more. In verse 22, God asks, Have you entered the
storehouses of the snow...?
Even
the snow testifies to Gods
wisdom and power. Gods handiwork
is revealed in the exquisite geometry of
the snowflake. He takes a drop of water,
turns it from liquid to solid as it is
falling through the air and forms a work
of art that is truly awesome in design and
detail. How many snowflakes have fallen
since snow began to fall and yet science
tells us that no two snowflakes have ever
been duplicated. (By the way, the
average large snowflake runs around 2
across while the largest snowflake ever
found measured a whopping 8 by
12".)
Notice
Job 37:14 with me once again. Listen
to this, Job; stop and consider God's
wonders.
Elihu is making a very difficult
request here. To stop is difficult in our
culture. Erma Bombeck once asked,
Whatever happened to summer evenings
when life was slower and you sat for hours
on the front porch and listened to the
swing squeak?
God
has fabulously filled our world with
wonders. Let us not go so fast that we
miss them. Stop
and consider God's wonders.
How does omniscience of god relate to you and me?
1.
it assures us that God knows and
cares
Have you ever heard of a guillemot? Well a guillemot
is a small arctic sea bird that lives on
the rocky cliffs of the northern coastal
regions. These birds flock together by the
thousands in comparatively small areas.
Because of the crowded conditions,
hundreds of females lay their pear-shaped
eggs side by side on a narrow ledge, in a
long row. Since the eggs all look alike,
it is incredible that a mother bird can
identify those that belong to her. Studies
show that she knows her own eggs so well
that when even one is moved, she finds it
and returns it to its original location.
What
does the guillemot tell you about God?
How is the Lord revealing Himself
in this little bird? I dare say that the
guillemot pictures just how intimately
acquainted God is with each and everyone
of us that belong to Him. He knows us just
as surely as that mother bird knows her
eggs!
Matthew
10:29 notes that not one sparrow falls to
the ground without His notice. Sparrows
were one of the cheapest items sold for
poor peoples food in the
marketplace. Two of the little birds could
be purchased for little or nothing. In the
book of Luke we see that the birds were so
cheap that the dealer oftentimes threw in
an extra one for free. Nonetheless, the
Lord attends to the funeral of each fallen
sparrow.
Verse
30 then adds that even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Now I dont want to make more
out of this than is really here, but I do
hope that you noticed something in the
verse. It says that our hairs are all
numbered. Notice, they are not counted
in total, rather they are numbered
individually. When He says that He knows
us, He knows us down to the individually
numbered hairs on our head! Think of it!
Psalm
139:2-4 adds, You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying
down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it
completely, O LORD.
Notice
how complete His knowledge of us is as
pictured in this passage:
·
He
knows
when we get out of bed in the morning.
·
He
knows
our every thought.
·
He
knows
when we leave to go somewhere.
·
He
knows when
we go to bed.
·
He
knows
our ways -- by this He knows our manners,
habits, the course of our life, as well as
our moral character.
·
He
knows our
words before they are even on our tongue.
·
He
knows
us inside out.
An
example of such caring is found in Exodus
3:7, The
LORD said, I have indeed seen the
misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard
them crying out because of their slave
drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering.
Is
human terms, hardly anything was as
worthless as was a slave. The people
spoken of in this passage were the
children of Israel suffering in Egyptian
bondage. They had no doubt began to wonder
if they had been forgotten by God
altogether. They were beaten down,
oppressed, forlorn and seemingly forsaken.
Nonetheless, The
New King James Version says, quoting
God, I know their sorrows.
He
was at that very moment preparing a way of
deliverance for each and every one of
them! Do you realize that one of the
reasons that God put that story in the
Bible is to encourage you? Thats
right. Some of you may feel as worthless
and insignificant as an old slave on the
backside of Egypt, but the Scripture
declares, I
know their sorrows.
He does. He knew their sorrows; He knows
your sorrows!
It
is such a comfort to know that God is
never taken by surprise.
·
He
is never caught off guard.
·
He
is never asleep.
·
He
is never ignorant of our circumstances!
You
know, He knows.
2.
God will win
Look
with me at Matthew 16:18, And
I tell you that you are Peter, and on this
rock I will build my church, and the gates
of Hades will not overcome it.
The
gates spoken of here by Jesus were
considered the strongest parts of the
city. The gates stood for power. The gates
also stood for the government and the
courts. In effect, the gates represented
city hall. Strategies and plans were set
in place at the gates. The wise men of the
city sat at the gates.
The
gates of Hades then would symbolize the
organized power of death and Satan. Jesus
is saying, that all of the plans, the
strategies, the brain trust of hell itself
cannot overcome or outsmart the church of
the Lord Jesus Christ. In short, compared
to the wisdom of the Lord, even the plans
and strategies of hell itself fall flat!
1
Corinthians 1:25-27,30, For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness
of God is stronger than man's strength.
Brothers, think of what you were when you
were called. Not many of you were wise by
human standards; not many were
influential; not many were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the
world to shame the wise; God chose the
weak things of the world to shame the
strong. 30. It is because of him that you
are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us
wisdom from God....
No,
friends, Satan is not going to:
·
outwit
the Lord,
·
defeat
Him,
·
terrorize,
·
or
spoil Him.
God
is simply smarter and wiser than the devil
and all of his evil imps put together! The
Lord is going to win and the church will
triumph right along side of Him. For the
Lord is our victory, He is our fortress,
He is our wisdom!
3.
God judges
Hebrews
4:13 warns, 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.
Lafayette,
the famous pirate, told of how he was once
shut up in a tiny room in a gloomy prison
for some extended period of time. A very
small hole had been cut in the door of the
cell. At that hole a soldier was placed to
watch his every move both day and night.
All that Lafayette could see through the
hole was the ever leering eye of the
soldier. Never was it gone. Oh,
he said, It was awful.
There was no escape, no hiding.
When he would lay down and when he would
get up that eye was watching. To a wicked
evil man, this was a dreadful means of
punishment. It might even be considered cruel
and unusual today.
God
is also watching us -- unceasingly and
unrelentingly. To those who are in Christ,
this is not a means of judgment, rather,
it is a blessing and source of comfort.
To
those who are not right with God, though,
such a thought should be most distressing!
In this sense, He knows
takes on a new and threatening meaning.
·
Are
you a hypocrite? He knows.
·
Are
you given to rage and fits of violence? He
knows.
·
Are
you jealous and unforgiving? He knows.
·
Are
you vain and proud? He knows.
·
Are
you trying to get into heaven by your good
works and without true repentance? He
knows!
He
knows all that there is to know about you.
1
Samuel 2:3 declares,
Do
not keep talking so proudly or let your
mouth speak such arrogance, for the LORD is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.
It
is said that an elderly grandfather, who
by the way was very wealthy, decided to
buy a hearing aid to help his faltering
hearing. Two weeks later he stopped at the
store where he had bought the devise for a
simple check-up. Everything was going
great. In fact, he said that he could even
pick up conversations that were going on
in the other room. The delighted manager
volunteered that the old mans
relatives must be very pleased now that he
was able to hear so much better. Oh,
I havent told them yet, the
fellow chuckled. Ive just
been sitting around listening--and you
know what? Ive already changed
my will three times!
God
also hears us. He too is listening. Psalm
139:1 therefore says, O
Lord, you have searched me and you know
me.
Luke
8:17 adds, For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing
concealed that will not be known or
brought out into the open.
·
Many
think that God doesnt see what
they do.
·
God
doesnt hear what they say.
·
God
doesnt know what theyre
thinking.
·
God
isnt interested in what they
listen to.
Dear
friends, dont fool yourself; you
know God knows!
