Indianapolis, IN. Conference Video – November 17-18, 2007

Study Topic: All Things Work Together For Good by Mike Vinson

Mike,

Thank you for your last email. It was very helpful! You’re really good at getting all of the details.

I have another question (please forgive me) which has been bothering me. Does God know all?

Thank you,

I____

Hi I____,

You are welcome, and thank you for your question.

You ask, “Does God know all?” This is an easy question to answer. The answer is, “Yes, God does know all, simply because God, as the all powerful Creator of all things, is the ultimate cause of all things both good and evil.” I am not saying that God Himself commits evil. What the scriptures do declare unequivocally is that God, through evil spirits, works and creates evil for the purpose of carrying out a predetermined plan.

Our natural man either hates God for what He tells us He causes, or our natural man will simply ignore and deny what God himself unabashedly admits and claims. The stories of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the stories of Joseph and his brothers who were used by God to sell Joseph into Egypt, the story of Job with Satan saying, “Put forth your hand and take all he has and he will curse you to your face.” Then God tells Satan that He was placing Job in Satan’s hands, but instructing Satan exactly how far he could go, explains how God controls and operates in all things.

Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

“You sold me into Egypt… you sold me hither… So now it was not you that sent me here, but God”. Yes, God does “know all” because it is God who is ‘working all things after the counsel of His own will.’

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Now let’s examine the story of Job.

Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Job 1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Job 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

It is God who calls Satan’s attention to Job and to you and me when He chooses us as His elect who “must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” and who “cannot enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels is fulfilled.”

Act 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

Including these “things written therein”:

Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

In this story of Job, God demonstrates for us in very graphic language how He calls Satan to do His bidding. Satan is sent by God to do two evil things to Job. First Satan is commissioned by God to destroy all Job owns. However, Satan can go not one inch further:

Satan is next commissioned by God to “put forth his hand” and touch Job himself, but that is Satan’s limit. Satan can do nothing he is not sent to accomplish.

Job 2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
Job 2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

Satan does nothing beyond the will of God. That is so simply because Satan is, and has always been, nothing more or less than an instrument of God to accomplish His predestined plan and purpose. Notice how the scriptures speak of God’s creation of “the crooked serpent”.

Job 26:13 By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.

So much for the false doctrine which attempts to pervert prophecies addressed specifically to the vanities “in the hearts” of the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14) and the prince of Tyrus (Ezekiel 28), into prophecies concerning Satan, who was formed as a serpent in the hand of God.

Isa 14:4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

Isa 14:13 For thou [king of Babylon] hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

So just how far does God’s knowledge of ‘all’ extend? Here is the Biblical answer:

Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

Pro 20:24 Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?

Isa 66:18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

Mat 9:4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?

Col 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Col 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Psa 94:11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

So yes, God does know all, even all of the thoughts of men, simply because, in the final analysis, “the preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue are from the Lord.”

That is how He is “the beginning and the end”:

Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

That is how Paul could say that even pagan Athenians ‘live, move, and have their being in Christ.’ That is how we “were called in him before the world [Greek: aion, age] began”.

Act 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

I hope this has answered your question. Even “the first man Adam” also known in the scriptures as ‘the man of sin, the son of perdition… the seed of… the serpent’, is “in Him… in Christ.

Luk 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike