“For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.”  (Romans 13)

“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…”  (2 Corinthians 5)

“Thou knowest…” (Psalm 139)

“…and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread [the letter] before the LORD.”  (2 Kings 19)

 

One of the very, very foundational and basic truths of the Christ-ian faith is God knows all things. In Acts 15, we are told, “God knoweth the end from the beginning….”  Paul tells the Ephesians and us that God knew us (loved us) before the foundations of the world. God tells Jeremiah that He knew him before he was formed in the womb of Jeremiah’s mother. Paul tells Timothy that there is a foundational truth, that has the seal of God upon it and that truth is that God knoweth them that are his from eternity pass. This truth and these passages and those above should give us tremendous, great and sobering confidence in God’s love and knowledge of His own and all things that pertain unto us past, present and future.

David took comfort in the fact that God could search his opened and pure heart at all times.  Peter said unto Christ,  “Lord, [T]hou knowest all things…” and this was comfort to Peter. In one of the chosen texts above King Hezekiah took comfort and was glad to know that the LORD saw the letter that he set and spread before Him. Hannah, with her open, pure and broken, yet hopeful heart laid her petition before God and knew He heard her.

Reader, the chosen, the few, those that are loved of God and love God WANT God to know all things in their heart, their mind, and their life.  This openness and purity of heart is a sign, a mark, a comfort, an assurance, a hope, a confidence, a comfort, a consellation to the person of God.  Reader, this is one of those realities that tell and reveal unto us our condition before the Lord.

However, this is not true of the lost.  Either the lost care not what the Lord thinks of their thoughts, feelings, or actions or they pretend and hope it doesn’t matter. If this is true of a person, they are an atheist even if they say or pretend to believe in a god or higher power, but have no experiential knowledge or walk with this god or higher power.

If a person who is lost, knows the condition of their soul and believes that God knows all things about them, they would be, and should be terrified.  If these persons knew that God is, and that God knows, and recognised their condition before the Holy and sin hating God, they would be, and should be terrified.  An analogy: Imagine what a horror it would be and what kind of feelings one would have if one learned that their spouse has found out about a long time extra-marrital affair.

Another analogy:  Remember what it feels like when are caught speeding?  Remember the heart drop or the knot in the pit of your stomach? Remember when you were a kid and report cards were coming out and you knew your grades would disappoint your parents?  Try and imagine what it must feel like when a political or religious leader finds out a secret has been found out.

Reader, Again, this is one of the great differences between a child of God and the unsaved. When we sin, we know God knows yet it is still a comfort to know this. This speaks to a pure heart…even when we sin we want God to know and we are comforted by His knowledge and then we are thankful and grateful to receive His Fatherly forgivenness. We are comforted because the God-incarnate Man knows about the realities of temptation for He was tempted in all points as we are yet He remained without sin and sins.  Even His enemies could not find fault, they had to make up faults to project upon Him.

A word about the temptation(s) that were put before Christ. We know He was tempted by the Arch-(t)empter and failed not to remain Holy, Pure, and Righteous.  We know that He faced temptations everyday, all day.  The temptation to lash out against His enemies, think about this, He knew everyman’s thought at every second every day. He heard the sins of the flesh barking at Him at every moment as a guard dog would bark at strangers as they approach. He heard, and felt the sinfullness of sin that oozes out of every person.

Let me be very, very clear on this point of temptation and the Christ. Was Christ tempted by outside agents of sin and evil? Yes, there is no doubt. HOWEVER, in Christ’s purity and hunger and thirst for righteousness, He never felt the compulsion and the call to commit sin.

Christ never struggled with, “should I  or shouldn’t I.”  With that said, He did and does know the strength of compelling sin and the compunction to sin. An analogy: it would be like knowing it is freezing cold, but not feeling the cold or being hindered or effected by it’s effects to the human body.

This sinlessness was absolutely necessary for His future work on the part and the behalf of those in Him from the foundation of the world. It can be likened unto Superman (Christ is, by the way, the Original and Preeminent Super God-man). Superman, in the comics, would know he is being hit with a spectrum of bullets, but there is no effect to Him.  This is a way to understand Christ and temptation.

Another way to understand Christ and temptation. One who has never had crack cocaine would not have any kind of temptation or drawing toward the demon possessive likeness. This is what Christ meant when He said, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.”

Christ had no strings of sin for the enemy to pull or play upon. It is because of His impeccability and purity and knowledge of sin and it’s power to kill that He could, would, and did hang upon your cross and my cross in our very stead and place. He put on the sinner and the sinner’s sin so that the sinner (You and me) could put on Christ and thereafter make no provision for the flesh. The grace, the faith, the hope, the love, the purity, the impeccability, the power, the strength, knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ was His defense and our defense against sin’s temptation and it still is.

We, with the Holy Ghost’s inhabitation, have a measure of Christ’s grace, faith, hope purity, power, strength, knowledge, and wisdom within us all and it is waiting to be used and appropriated, for He has given us “all spritual blessings.” As for Christ’s impeccability, it is still our future, our hope or expectation because God promised and predestinated us to that end.

The more we grow into Christ’s Image and likeness, the less will sin and sins call upon us and draw us.

God knows all of this and we do to. God knows we know all of this. We know that God knows we know all of this. God knows we know that He knows that we know all of this and that is one of the things that make our walk with God so Wonderful and assures us of His love.

Godspeed.