If God knows everything, why do we have passages in the Bible that say things like, God tested
so and so in order to know all that was in his heart?
Hi, welcome to Little Lessons.
Today's question is a great one because we have passages in the Bible that talk about
God testing people in order to find out what was in their hearts?
One example that stands out early in the Bible is when God tested Abraham and it actually
says God tested Abraham.
Told him to go sacrifice his son, Isaac, up on a certain designated mountain.
When Abraham lifted his arm to slay his son, the Lord stopped him of course and said, "Now
I know that you fear me because you've not withheld your son, your only son from me."
So what's going on here?
If God know everything, why is he testing people?
And why is he saying things like now I know?
Well the truth is that God does know everything that there is to know, but if there's no outcome
in some kind of incident involving free moral agents if there is no outcome, if there is
no choice ever made, how could God know that?
It's not something that can be known because it never happens.
Let me put it this way.
If you ask God what will be the final score in the game today between the New York Giants
and the Pittsburgh Penguins?
Well, God would say, "I don't know," because there is no game today between those two teams,
okay?
So, it's an unknowable thing.
There's not going to be any outcome in the future so there's nothing for God to know.
So foreknowledge is not quite all that it's cracked up to me.
Let me give you another example.
This sometimes helps people to understand this concept.
Let us say that you had an amazing ability to predict the outcome of every football game
played this football season.
And before every single game you announced, "The final score will be," and lo and behold
you were right every single time the entire football season.
All right, well that would be amazing and maybe just maybe they would say the next season,
"Why should we even play these games and risk the injuries and so forth and go through all
of the trouble it takes to play these games?
Let's just gather everybody in the stadiums.
Gather the two opposing teams and then we'll bring you out onto the middle of the field
and we'll ask you who would have won this game today?
Because you've demonstrated.
You've hit it 100 times out of 100 in last season so you have this ability to foreknow
the future so tell us now.
Who would have won the game today and what will you say?"
Well you have to say, "I don't know because the game isn't going to be played.
And so there is no final score to know and so there's no final score to foreknow."
You got it?
Okay, great.
So when God says, "Now I know," well we can safely assume that he knew, foreknew, long
before but the ... the knowledge of the outcome became available to be known and to be foreknown
at the outcome.
Now, when I've explained this I found that a certain percentage of people can get it
and a certain percentage just can't get it no matter what I say.
But just think about this now.
If God would not have tested Abraham with that ... it's obviously a very serious test.
Go sacrifice your son.
This is a huge test.
And the New Testament says that Abraham actually believed God was going to raise Isaac from
the dead.
But nevertheless still a huge, huge test.
If God had say for example, stopped Abraham as he was unpacking the donkey and loading
... excuse me, loading up the donkey, putting the firewood on the donkey, maybe getting
ready to start on the journey, he wouldn't know for certain whether Abraham wouldn't
have changed his mind en route to the place of sacrifice because there's that possibility
you see?
Got could have said now I know that you certainly are looking like you intend to this but people
understandably you could change your mind between now and the time when you lift up
your knife to actually slay your son.
And so God let him to all the way to the last minute and then he stopped him and said, "Now
I know.
There's no debate as to what's in your heart."
And another interesting point revolving around all of this people think that God knows what's
in our hearts by looking with him kind of X-ray glasses there and he can look down in
our heart and say, oh, yeah, yeah, that person loves me.
Well, maybe God could do that and can do that, but the way that God finds out what's in our
hearts is by looking at what we do.
By our actions.
That reveals what's really in our hearts.
And when we say things like, "Well we don't know what's in their hearts," this person
who just did this horrible dastardly deed ... we don't know everything that's in their
hearts.
But Jesus said, out of the heart arise all these evil things.
Adulteries and murder and fornication and so forth.
So we know what's in the heart of the murderer.
Murder.
We know what's in the heart of the adulterer.
Adultery.
And guess what, so does God because he watched him.
And this is just the edge of the subject that really is fascinating when you begin to study
the scripture.
I wrote a book on it that covers a lot of the ramifications of it called God's Test.
You can read it at davidservant.com.
But it helps to understand ... helps to explain rather, a lot of the things that people are
scratching their heads about.
Why does God allow some of these things?
Well, part of the reason no doubt is because he's testing people and he has to test them
to know what's in their hearts because God has a plan one day to have a kingdom and it's
only going to be full of people whose hearts are his.
The most important thing is to make sure that your life reveals that you love God with all
of your heart.
Okay?
Thanks so much for joining me.
Hope to see you next time.