Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Attributes of God - The Omniscience of God

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Attributes of GodIn this episode Jonny discusses the Omniscience of GodWatch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this series, we're looking at the attributes of God and in this episode, we're going to talk about God's omniscience. Let's dial in. I love these words from Yahweh in Exodus chapter 3 verse 7. As Yahweh appears to Moses at the burning bush, he says this, I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries because of their slave drivers, and I care about their suffering. This is who God is. He is a God who sees, who hears, who cares, and who knows. I love this. The God that we worship, the God that we call Father, is an omniscient God. Now, what does that mean? God's omniscience comes to us from

two Latin words, and we need to understand this. Omnis, which means all, and scientia, which means knowledge. God's omniscience means that he is all-knowing. The idea means that God, who is self-existent and self-sufficient and eternal and holy, is also all-knowing. He knows everything, and everything he knows, he knows perfectly. And everything that he knows perfectly, he knows exhaustively. And because God knows all things perfectly, he knows no thing better than he knows another thing. He knows all things equally imperfectly well. I have two main points as we examine the omniscience of God, each possessing some sub points that will provide us with some unique points of emphasis. And without understanding

this first point, the second point will never be received with the level of preciousness as it should. Number one, the immensity of God's omniscience. Now, all of our understanding, your understanding, and my understanding is based upon acquisition, but God does not acquire knowledge. All of God's knowledge is not derived. It is inherent to who he is. He knows everything, and this means that God's knowledge is always immediate. Sometimes due to the incomprehensibility of the subject before us, it is easier and expedient for us to describe what God is not like so that we can understand what he is like. And the Bible does this as well.

It says, God who cannot lie or with God, nothing is impossible because this sets up who God is against the backdrop of the inability of man. So in the realm of our theme, God's omniscience, this means that, listen here, God never counts. He never discovers. He is never surprised. He is never amazed except at himself. He never wonders. He never learns. He never remembers because he never forgets. And so he is never reminded. He never understands something more clearly. He never misinterprets so he is never reminded. He never understands something more clearly. He never misinterprets. He has never made aware and he never receives counsel. Ralph Waldo Emerson is a famous poet and philosopher. And maybe you're familiar with

one of his most famous lines. He says, you learn something new every day, but not God. God never learns. He knows the end from the beginning. Isaiah 40 verse 13 says, who has directed the spirit of the Lord or who is his counselor that can inform him? What's the answer? No one. Romans 11 34, Paul says, for who has known the mind of the Lord and who has been his counselor? Now under the banner of the immensity of God's omniscience, I want to provide three subheadings. The first one denotes why God did not create the world or the universe out of any existing need amongst the Godhead, and that is because, number one, God's knowledge of himself is perfect. God has perfect self-knowledge amongst the Trinity. The Father knows the Son, the Son knows the Father, and they are in complete communion with the Spirit.

We see this idea in Matthew 11, 27, and also in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11, which says, For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Between the Godhead and their Trinitarian relationship, there is no gaps in their understanding and knowledge of each other. Jesus says this in John 10, 15, Even as the Father knows me, I know the Father. So number one, God's knowledge of himself is perfect.

And number two, God's knowledge of nature is perfect. Scientists today provide us with a rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Take one galaxy as an example, the Milky Way, and there are an estimated 100 billion stars in that one galaxy. And if there are 10 trillion galaxies in the universe, that means that the number of stars in the universe is one septillion, or one with 24 zeros after it. This is proclaimed to be even a gross underestimation of the stars as we look to

more detailed accounts of the galaxies and the universe. And yet under the banner of God's omniscience, Psalm 147 verses four and five says that he determines the number of the stars and he gives to all of them their names. Great is the Lord, abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. People have the ability to name their kids because they made their kids. Names provide identity and personalization. And God names the stars because he made them. God is not just aware of the galaxies. He has named the remotest star in the remotest galaxy because he is glorified to do so. And at no point throughout eternity has God been more aware of the sun than he was of that remotest star. Job 38, 33, God says this to Job. He says, do you know the ordinances of the heavens

or fix their rule over the earth? Verse 35, can you send forth lightning that they may go and respond to you and say, here we are. Lightning taps God on the shoulders and says, where should we strike? I love that. Job 39, verse 1. Do you help the goats give birth, Job? Are you the doula of the mountain goats is what God asked. He says, I'm not only aware of the sun and the universe and the galaxies. I am with the remotest mountain goat on the remotest cliff. And I help them give birth. Job 39 verse 26.

God asked Job, is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, stretching his wings towards the south? No, it's by my understanding. In Job chapter 41, God is revealing his knowledge and creativity over all of creation, describing the Leviathan. And he says in Job 41 verse 18, his sneeze, speaking of the Leviathan, flashes forth light. God is proud of his omniscience pertaining to nature. Matthew 10 verses 29 and 30, not only is God aware of the stars, it says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. This is a breathtaking reality. Every shooting star and every dying sparrow is in the mind of God. So God's knowledge of himself is perfect. God's knowledge of nature is perfect. And number three here, God's knowledge of the nations is perfect. There are currently 16,543 people groups in the world. And God knows the happenings, the doings, the rulings of all of them simultaneously with a perfect, complete, and exhaustive knowledge. God knows the hearts of kings, kingdoms, and nations, and no strategy of insurrection was ever devised that was not known by God. God is never surprised and he never gets a word from the front. No one ever has to fill God in on the deets.

God's knowledge is also not dependent upon any sort of sensory experience. So even when we read in Exodus chapter 3 that he sees and hears, that is not actually what enables God to understand and to know. God's knowledge is not dependent upon any sort of experience. He knows everything before it happens. Now, as I was studying for this episode, a pastor that I respect said that God's omniscience is often left unattended because it's hard to apply. He says, I get it.

God knows everything. He has full, complete, perfect, and absolute exhaustive knowledge of himself and nations and us. But how does that apply to our life? And I have to disagree because it's only as we pause and reflect on the immensity of God's knowledge that we can't help but recognize that God's omniscience frees us from trying to be God. That alone is liberating, but it's not just that. God's omniscience is not just immense. I'm reminded of the psalmist's words in Psalm 8 where he's looking up at the stars,

the one that God has named every single one of them. He's named all the stars and it says, as I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, what is man that you are mindful of him? He's looking up at millions of stars and saying, man, I see all of these galaxies. I see every single one of these stars. And he says, God, why would you even know that I exist? I'm so small in the grand scheme of things, but God's omniscience is not just immense. Point number two is God's omniscience is intimate. In Psalm 139, the psalmist says, Oh Lord, you search me and you know me. You search me and know me. He is saying here that God, you don't just know that I exist. You don't just occasionally check in on me. You don't just know my name.

You search me and you know me. He's saying here that you know every nook and cranny of my heart, every freckle, dimple, hair, and wrinkle. You know it completely. Augustine said this hundreds of years ago. He says, I have become a puzzle and a mystery to myself. And God responds and says, you are not a puzzle and a mystery to me.

God's omniscience means that he gets you. He understands you. The God who knows a million things at once, billions of galaxies, 16,543 people groups, has also set his mind upon you. So that you tonight are listening here in this episode are looked at by God as if throughout space there was not another creature or object of his care but yourself. Spurgeon says this, God does not merely take note of your actions. He does not simply notice what is the appearance of your countenance. He does not merely take you into

his eyesight, whatever your posture may be. But remember, God sees what you are thinking. He looks within your heart. God has a window into your soul and he looks at it. He searches you and knows you. Matthew 10 30 says, he knows the very hairs of your head and they are numbered to God. God truly looks at you this very moment as if you were the only human being his hands had ever made. This is wonderful, is it not? And when you pray, when you approach his throne, it is as if you are the only one praying and approaching him at that moment. God's omniscience means that he offers you his undivided attention, not because you are so great, but because he is so great. And when the psalmist is reflecting upon these realities that God searches him and knows him,

he says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. And then he says, God, you formed me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God isn't just aware when people are born. The psalmist says, You knit me together in my mother's womb. Of all of God's creations, the most marvelous of his creations is the one that he made in the depths of the darkness in a mother's womb.

And God's omniscience means that he's not just flinging stars into the remotest corners of the universe. He's also forming together through divine omniscience every single human being in a womb right now. This is amazing, is it not? Now the question is, what is our response to the intimacy of God's omniscience and the immensity of God's omniscience. Three things, briefly. Number one, security. The knowledge of God's knowledge of you is the truest security blanket for the children of God. You can, in a very real sense tonight, lay your head upon the pillow and say,

Good night, Lord God. When I awake, I will still be with you. And while I sleep, you are perfectly mindful of me. This is a source of great security for the Christian that their heavenly father knows them and knows what they need. So number one, security. Number two, integrity. The psalmist prays, search me, oh God, and know my heart. This word for search is the same word used to describe a treasure hunt. He says, God, I want you to know every single thing that's within my soul and know me through and through as you already do, God. And this is the reality of God's omniscience. And when we think about it and we contemplate this reality, it should cultivate within us a great sense of integrity,

knowing that John 2.25 says that Jesus doesn't need anyone to testify concerning man because he already knows what is within man. God already knows every single thing there is to know about our hearts and souls. Hebrews 4.13 says that all of our lives are revealed before the God who sees everything and to whom we will give an account. Ezekiel 11.5, God says, for I know the things that are in your mind, every single one of them. God is not just aware of our actions. He is aware of the thoughts upon our mind. And this is why Moses says in Psalm 90 verse 8, you have set our secret sins in the light of your countenance. They're before you.

God's omniscience cultivates a great sense of integrity, knowing that the watchful eye of God is never snoozing or slumbering. It is always upon us. God's omniscience produces a sense and desire for integrity. So number one, security. Number two, integrity. Thirdly and lastly, it produces doxology. That means worship. Can you think this with me? God who knows every single star in the sky, the God who knows every single sparrow that falls, is also a God that knows your name, who holds your tears in a bottle, it says in the book of Psalms, who knows your deepest struggles. And maybe sometimes you pray and go, man, God, if you've known what I've done, if you only knew my thoughts, my past, my God, if you only knew,

the reality is God already does. And he extends to you his grace and love and mercy and forgiveness with a full and complete knowledge of every single sin you've ever committed. God's omniscience also produces and cultivates doxology when we call to mind that it was in God's complete and perfect knowledge that he sent his son to earth, and at the appointed time, according to his perfect knowledge, went to the cross willingly, because the God who knows your heart with complete knowledge loves you with all of his.

Stay dialed in. knows your heart with complete knowledge, loves you with all of his. Stay down then. Thank you.