Boys and girls, I remember a minister telling a true story about his playing with his grandchildren. I'm sure you've heard of hide-and-seek, where you try to hide and the person who finds you, or grandpa, had to find his grandchildren. But one of his grandchildren wasn't exactly very thin, and she hid herself, so to speak, behind a very narrow tree. And she called out, Grandpa, you can't see me. Grandpa said, I can see you. And then this minister took that example and he went on to say, how many people, even in church, think to themselves, God does not see me. And yet God says, I see you. Adam and Eve's are not the only one who thought they could hide themselves from God. Many tried to do that in plain sight of him. And it's one thing if somebody sees us, catches us, saying something wrong, doing something evil and corrects us. But it's another thing if somebody knows everything about us. Imagine, boys and girls, if somebody followed you everywhere you went, every day. Heard everything you said. Could even read your mind and know what you were thinking. Saw what you were doing. The fact is there is someone like that. It is the living God. He sees everything we do. He hears everything we say. He knows every thought we think, even though we don't say a word about what we're thinking. This God has the time, he has the interest, and he has the ability to know us completely. Our text for tonight is not taken from Psalm 139, but a similar passage in Hebrews chapter four. You needn't necessarily turn there. I'm not going to spend any time in the context there, but simply to reaffirm that the truth we're going to consider about God is found in both testaments. Hebrews 4.13 reads, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his, that is God's sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. We're continuing our consideration of the attributes of God, we are looking at his attributes through the lens of the Belgic confession of faith, as well, of course, as the scriptures, article one of the confession. Our theme for tonight is the omniscient one. And I'll explain that word in just a second. The omniscient one. And we're going to do what we did with the other attributes we've considered. We're going to look at omniscience in God himself, omniscience in Jesus, God's son, also God, omniscience and man. What does the omniscience of God have to do with us? The word omniscience comes from two words, actually a prefix and a root word in Latin. Omni means all. Science or more properly scientia means knowledge. So taken together, omniscience And I think it's clear to all of us, there is only one being that can truly be called all-knowing, truly omniscient. And that is the true and living God. And as our text says, a God with whom we have to do. And so with reverence and all, let us consider this attribute, which like all of his attributes, sets him apart from every other being. that has ever existed, but more than that, may the consideration of this divine attribute affect us, impact us, influence the way we live our lives, the way we treat one another. And so first, omniscience and God. When I was young, and it wasn't a very nice expression, but every once in a while, you would hear somebody say to another person, you're just a know-it-all. And what was usually meant by that was the person who was saying it was saying to the other person, you think you know so much, you think you know everything. But of course, that person didn't really know everything. And there are, I suppose, some very smart people in this world who know a great deal about things. But my experience and perhaps yours has been that even the brightest people tend to know maybe a lot about some things, but not a lot about a lot of things. And so no one is truly omniscient, all-knowing. In fact, some people spend years studying one thing, and yet they can never quite say, I know everything there is to know about that one thing. But there is someone, and children, I want you to think about this. The living God knows everything there is to know about everything. In fact, I want to describe what it means that God is omniscient. God knows about everything there is to know in a single moment. He never had to study. He never had to learn. In fact, the scripture shows in a fascinating series of ways that he is all-knowing. So, just to give an example, scientists, and of course, their estimations, their prognostications don't always amount to much, but a recent scientist guesstimated that there are one, I'm sorry, that there are 10 trillion galaxies. And in each of those galaxies, on average, let's say, 100 billion stars. Now, I'm not a whiz at math, but that's a lot of stars. And that's only the ones we see with instruments. In fact, it's fascinating to me that what we used to think were stars, because of telescopes, we found out that star is actually an entire galaxy. or more than one. To us, it's just a point of light. Well, children, God doesn't have to guess how many stars there are, because the Bible says he not only knows their number, but he knows their names. Psalm 147, verse four, God telleth the number of the stars. He calleth them all by their names. And not just stars, he knows about nebula, which are gas clouds, he knows about meteors, he knows about planets, he knows about comets, he knows about everything there is to know because he created the entire universe. Imagine knowing about the entire universe, about stars and galaxies and phenomena that we don't even know about. But that's not all. He not only knows the grand things, like a universe, but he knows the tiny things. He knows about bacteria. He knows about viruses because he controls them. He sends them at times as a judgment upon people. In the Bible, when that happens, he calls it a pestilence. Now, researchers are always trying to find ways to detect smaller and smaller items. They tend to call them subatomic particles, smaller than an atom itself. And yet, even though we can't see these things, even with instruments, we know they're there because of how they affect other things around them. But think this, God knows all about them, every one of them. There is not a blade of grass in the world that God doesn't observe. The smallest things, the greatest things are known. And Jesus tells us this. Remember where Jesus said that not one sparrow, a little bird, not one sparrow is forgotten before God. Now, we might see birds fly all the time, and we might pay special attention to the more beautiful ones or the ones with the beautiful singing. Sparrows, pretty ordinary. We see them all the time. God has not forgotten any of them. And Jesus says not one of them falls to the ground without his father's will. I find this beautiful. Luke 12, 24 says God feeds the ravens. So we put out maybe bird feeders, hummingbird feeders. Well, God's way ahead of us. He feeds the ravens, the Bible says. And then he says he clothes the grass with lilies. He knows the very hairs of our head. Imagine that, he knows how many there are. and it's our own hair. Now, if God knows, boys and girls, if he knows about these seemingly unimportant things, do you think he knows about you? Do you think he cares about, if he cares for sparrows, do you think he cares for you? He most certainly does. Now, that's not all. He also knows everything about the past. meaning he knows right now everything that every person who ever lived has done and thought and said. We know that from what Jesus tells us, warns us about. I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Now how could God judge every idle word we speak if he didn't remember them all? He remembers everything you've ever said. And he not only knows the past, but he also knows the present perfectly, what we're thinking. In fact, he knows every thought of every person on the planet right now. He also knows the future perfectly well. He knows exactly what you're going to do tonight. He knows what you're going to say tomorrow. He knows everything about the future, literally everything. Everything that happens in every part of his creation, in the past, in the present, in the future. Every galaxy, every atom, he not only knows about it, but as we're going to hear God sparing us in a future time together, he controls it all. Not a leaf falls from a tree that God has not willed to fall. And we'll consider that more, God willing, when we consider Article 13 of the Belgian Confession on Providence. But here's the most amazing thing of all. God knows everything, past, present, and future, in the same moment, at the same time. God doesn't need to sort things out in his mind. He doesn't need to pause and to consider things. God's knowledge is so infinitely great. It is so infinitely vast that all of this seemingly impossible to contain amount of information is known by him not only at the same moment, but at all times. And yet he is able to process everything perfectly so that Maybe right now there are hundreds, if not thousands, or maybe tens of thousands of people praying to him at this very moment all across the world, and he hears every one of those prayers as if it was the only prayer to hear. Ponder these beautiful words in Psalm 9, verse 12. He forgetteth not the cry of the humble. Which means prayers that you prayed, perhaps years ago, that maybe you forgot, they are right there before the mind of God. We know that, for example, from Zacharias and Elizabeth in the early part of the New Testament. The angel appears to Zacharias, thy prayer is heard. What prayer? He was an elderly man. A prayer for a child. which in all likelihood he ceased praying maybe decades before. That prayer was still there. And prayers that we can't even express, he hears. You know that beautiful verse, likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. So when you're very sad, or you're in distress, or you're very anxious, or you're worried, and you don't know how to put a prayer together to God, you're just groaning or sighing, God the Spirit can take those groans and sighs and turn them into prayers before the throne of God. As all of this taken together prompts us to say with Psalm 147, verse five, great is our Lord, and of great power. His understanding is infinite. And then Jeremiah 32, 19, thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. But now, okay, let's bring this all down to our level. Let's bring this down to your life and to mine. The passage we read began, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting when I sit down, mine uprising when I get up. Thou understandest my thought afar off. David realized by the grace of God that nothing is hid from God. And our text in Hebrews 4 affirms that. There is no creature that is not manifest, that is not obvious to God in his sight. All things are naked and open before the eyes of him. Do we live that way? Do we live our days and nights in the consciousness that God sees us at all times that God hears us every word that God knows what we're thinking that we're never truly alone that there are really no secrets, that nothing at all is hid from Him. Do we live that way? And not only does He know our thoughts, our words, our deeds, but He knows what motivates us. He knows why we do what we do. He knows why we say what we say. He knows why we think what we do. All known to Him. And in fact, in verse six, you'll notice David confesses This is overwhelming to him. He says the thought of this is just too high to fathom it. It's out of the reach of our finite creaturely understanding. We realize this. We realize that God knows everything about us. And does that prompt us to repent to him when we sin? Even if no one else would ever know Do we realize, because he knows everything about the very bottom, as it were, of our heart, our very motivations for doing what we do, does that bring us to the Savior? Does that acquaint us with our desperate need of Christ and his powerful grace? Has he turned your heart and mine to the only one who knows completely about us, and yet nevertheless, knowing us better than we know ourselves, he's willing and able to deliver us from our sins. And the fact is, I hope we understand from God's omniscience, we can never escape him. So either we have dealings with him now, or we will have dealings with him later. Because later, His judgment. So the living God, our God, is all-knowing and he's all-seeing. Everything is open before him. In the second place, what about the Lord Jesus? What about God assuming the human nature in the person of Jesus Christ? And is that significant for us? Well, it is. And I will start this part of our time together by confessing that the interplay, the interrelationship between Jesus' divine wisdom and human wisdom, the two natures that he shared, is admittedly mysterious. So for example, as a young man, we read in Luke 2.52 that Jesus increased in wisdom in stature, and in favor with God and man. So, boys and girls, just like you have to learn and study, and as time goes on, you know more and more, so did Jesus. It is human nature. In fact, as a young man, he began to show signs of remarkable growth in learning. At the age of 12, we find him in the temple, sitting with so-called experts of the Bible, and he was hearing them, but then he was also asking them questions and answering their questions to the point where they said about him, they were astonished at his understanding and answers. So there we see, yes, Jesus was growing as a human boy, but that divine wisdom, that infinite wisdom of God would shine through him from time to time in ways that made other people marvel years later. the Jews were still marveling at what they call the carpenter's son, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? In other words, Jesus apparently never went to school or not the divinity school that they went to. And yet he seemed to know the Bible inside and out and could apply it with tremendous wisdom. There were other times that this divine or God nature would shine through. For example, he knew what other people were thinking. When his enemies were thinking ill of him, he told them, even though they said nothing, he told them what they were thinking. So for example, Matthew 9, verse four, and Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? And we read the same thing in Matthew 12, 25, Luke 5, 22, Luke 6, 8, 11, 17, 24, 38, he was constantly searching the minds and hearts of the people he dealt with. Now, sometimes we can guess what people are thinking. Maybe we look at their face, they're sad or they're happy and we have a sense of maybe where they're at, but Jesus knew their thoughts and he answered them. And in fact, there's a remarkable passage. When Jesus was on the cross, it says he knew that he had accomplished all that scripture had said of him. If you think about how many passages of scripture there were that spoke of him, he knew that he had fulfilled them all. All things that scripture had foretold of him, John 19, 28. But Jesus also demonstrated, just as God does, his knowledge of the future, his perfect understanding of the future. In Matthew 24, Mark 13, he was able to say to his apostles, behold, I have foretold you all things. And then he began to lay out those all things. He began to talk about the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. He began to talk about his return in glory upon the clouds. In the book of Revelation, we learn that the Son, the Lamb of God, was the one who opened those symbolic seals of the book, showing that all of history was controlled by Him. And it foretells the exact train of events that will take place from now till the end of time. And there was that poignant moment when Peter had fallen into sin, denied the Lord three times, Jesus met him by the Sea of Galilee. Peter appealed to Jesus' omniscience, to the fact that he knew him. And he said, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. This brings up a very important question. If he knows us this way, If he knows everything about us, everything we've ever done, everything we've ever thought, in our unsaved state, in our state of grace, why would he ever deal with us? Knowing us through and through, knowing what motivates us, the mixed motives, the discontent, the anger, the lusting, the covetousness, the myriad other twists and turns and depths of our heart, why? Would such an all-knowing God have anything to do with people like us? Consider this verse again. O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Verse one. Verse two, thou understandest my thought of far off. Not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. And then this, whither shall I go from my spirit? In other words, where can I hide? Whither shall I flee from thy presence? Heaven, thou art there. Hell, thou art there. If I say the darkness will cover me, the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. And in verses 13 to 16, David said, the Lord knew me before I was even fully formed. He knew me in my mother's womb. He knew me when all the parts of my body were not yet there. Now, if you think about this soberly, if you think about this carefully, I could just speak from personal experience. The very first time I read this song, I was petrified. I was terrified. God knows me through and through. And at that time, I was not reconciled to him. I was not a saved person. I was living in sin. And this song, when you read it from that perspective, is utterly dreadful. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. We can run from God, for sure, but we can't hide from God, nowhere. But David didn't write this as an unbeliever. David wrote this as a believer. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, let's say I ran as far away as I could, look what he says, even there, shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them. When I awake, I am still with thee. What a difference. What a difference the grace of God makes. God knows you. God hears you. that God is with you in the darkest hours, in the deepest pit, in the most distressing of circumstances, he's covered you. What a difference between living as an enemy of God and living under the shadow of the Almighty, where perhaps we can fool other people, maybe we can appear to be godly and successful or whatever. and everybody else can think well of us. You can't fool God. Is that frightening? Is that concerning? Are you living a life that's just appearance? Do you know deep down inside that if you were to die today, you would be judged by God and condemned by God because you have not a right spirit in you? Well, this psalm ought to certainly do that for us, but we need not to run. We need not to suppress our guilt, our sin. And we know what will happen to us if we do that the rest of our life. It will be dreadful, eternally will be awful, beyond anything we've ever known. And the day will come when the whole truth about us will come spilling out before the eyes of the assembled world, all who ever lived, standing before Christ when we die in judgment and at the end of time in the great disease. and yet look at the difference. When we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So when you think about it, the fact that he knows everything, denial is faulty, hiding is fruitless, excuse-making futile, denial is pointless, poisonous. So whether the first time or the thousandth time, Yisrael is calling us to cry out to the God who knows us, to bow our knees before his Son, the Savior, to confess our sins, to ask of him the grace to live in a repentant state and to trust his faithfulness to forgive for Christ's sake. Because actually there is no point in delaying. We only increase our guilt. And yet, even though he knows us, it hasn't changed the fact that God is still the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. He has not changed. And even though he knows us, he has not changed. That is why the scripture says, I, the Lord, change not, therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And then finally, as we draw to a close, omniscience and man. During much of a person's life, God can allow us to live with the illusion that we control things, that we actually know what we're doing, that we actually know where we're going. But as we have seen recently, God created man to be dependent upon his word even before the fall. A friend of mine some years ago, he said, when scripture talks about thy word is a lamp to my feet, a light upon my path, he says, don't think of these really bright flashlights we have nowadays that can look out a hundred yards or so. No, he said, those lamps show you about a foot or two in front of you. So the word of God works that way, boys and girls. The word of God teaches us how to live the next moment. how to make the next decision. God doesn't show us the whole future and say, okay, here's who you're gonna marry, this is the job you're gonna have, and this is how many years, no, he doesn't tell us all that, we can't handle it. He knows, we don't. But he wants us to depend on his teaching. He says, I'm gonna show you just enough for the next day. That's why Jesus says, take no thought for tomorrow, What you shall eat, what you shall drink, wherewithal you shall be clothed. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things you need shall be given unto you. So far from man being omniscient, the word of God says we're actually blind. We can see with our natural eyes. that our souls are blind until God begins to show us reality from his perspective, the perspective of his word. That's what's meant by Ephesians 1, verse 18. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened. And again, ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And Paul confesses in 1 Corinthians 13, 9 that believers know only in part. A more fulsome understanding of things is reserved for the realm of glory. Then, Paul says, we shall know even as we are known by God. So to know ourselves rightly, to begin to see ourselves as God sees us, We absolutely need God's word. To interpret and discern life in this world, we need God's word. To know the Lord rightly, to worship him in the way he would be worshiped, we need God's word. And we need the ministry of the Holy Spirit to open our understanding that we might understand the scriptures, Luke 24, 45. So boys and girls, we should pray for the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that he would open our minds, open our eyes to see things as God sees them, to see them through the eyeglasses of the word of God. And the Lord is so kind that when we stumble into trouble, when we go astray, he raises up others in the church of God, office bearers and fellow Christians to surround us and to correct us. And why do we do that? Because we know our own infirmity and our own need of our fellow Christians. He is the physician who opens the eyes of the blind. But what a privilege if you may be an instrument in the physician's hand to help others to see. But we also need humility. We need to come to the Lord with the painful realization that we are blind, that we need his healing touch, that we also must trust that God's word is enough, that it's sufficient to guide us in literally every decision we need to make, every path we need to take. And the Lord says, I'm here to help. Help is here to be had. Hebrews 4 verse 10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Matthew 9, 28 to 30, blind men came to Jesus. He said unto them, believe ye that I am able to do this. They say unto him, yes, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, according to your faith, be it unto you, and their eyes were opened. Now, do you think that the same Jesus who is living today at the Father's right hand, if we ask him, Lord, open our spiritual eyes, that he won't do the same? He called it faith, believing that he was able to do it all. And so we may trust him to do that, to give his spirit when we ask according to Jesus' promise. He gives grace to the humble. So we want to know. We want to know all kinds of things. God says you don't need to know all kinds of things, you need to trust. We tend to pray for outcomes, that this or that will take place. But we are not to pray for outcomes so much as to rely upon him that he will give the outcome that is best. So we may certainly pray for things, but we do so with uplifted hand, with an open hand to heaven, which is basically, Lord, this is what I think I need, what I think will glorify you, but do what truly is best. Because as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, your Father knows. And we can trust that, that he knows what's best for you. One of the most beautiful promises in Jeremiah is found in Jeremiah 24, verse seven. I will give them in heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. What a beautiful promise. And what's the result? of coming to know the Lord as promised here, they shall return unto me with their whole heart. That's what David was saying in his song. There shall thy hand lead me, thy right hand shall hold me. So yes, children, we have to study, we have to learn the word of God, we have to read, we have to listen, maybe take notes in church sit there and pour over the Bible with prayer, and yet, there is one we can turn to when we don't know, when we don't understand, when we don't have answers. He has it all. We can go to him for any problem, any need, any answer to any question, and then wait. Wait upon him for the answer. His promise, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. He gives to all men liberally, that means a lot, and he doesn't upbraid, and it shall be given. The writer of Psalm 119 prayed, teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments. In the book of Proverbs, if thou cryest after knowledge, liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seek her as silver, search for her as your treasure, Shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Do you see what God is doing to him? Adults. He's saying this infinite knowledge and wisdom that is mine, I'm willing to open it to you for the asking. Trust that I have it. Come to me for it. And I will give it liberally. You shall have what you need in life. So we end with this question. Are we going to be like that granddaughter who thought she was hiding from grandpa when grandpa could clearly see her where she hid? Or are we going to come out of our shadows and come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy from Christ Jesus to gain help in time of need. The Savior, who knew everything about us, gave himself for us, gave himself up to the accursed cross, gave himself up to the wrath of God, for those like us who don't know how heinous, how awful our sins are. He knows us, and yet he still calls us. Tonight even, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Isaiah 53, 11 summarizes the whole thing by saying, by his knowledge, shall my righteous servant, that is Jesus Christ, justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Let me close by simply quoting a few passages of scripture. Know therefore this day and consider it in thine heart that the Lord, he is God in heaven above And upon earth beneath there is none else. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. And then I want to close with this quote. It's a quote that David said to his own son, Solomon. And so God says to us, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind. For the Lord searcheth all hearts, understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts. And then this promise, if thou seek him, he will be found of thee. But if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off.