|
TODAY SOME MIGHT CALL IT ABUSE
Something happened to me many years ago that I must tell about. It happened in the very early 1950's when I was in second grade. It was then that there came to our little edge-of-the-mountains town of Heavener, Oklahoma our new pastor. He had classes for us kids and he stuck three needles into me injecting into my head things which eventually made their way to my heart. He infected me with what some call a disease and which has only grown in the intervening 65 years. The “needles” he stuck into my head were these three words: omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence. He taught us that “omni,” the prefix of each of these words means “all” or “universally.” So “omni” (all) plus “presence” means that God is universally present (perhaps better that all things are present to God). The Psalm writer wrote: “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Psalm 139:7). This was the first needle. The second needle, “omni” (all) plus “science” (knowledge) means that all things are known to God. He never had to learn anything because He always has known all things. He never had to “look down through time” and see who would believe or do this or that. “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” the Scripture says, (Acts 15:18). And Daniel 2:22 says of God that, “He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.” Nothing, then, is hidden from God. All things are known to Him “from the beginning of the world.” But the third needle seems to me to be the most life-changing. That third needle was the word “omni” (all) plus “potence” (power) means that God is all powerful. Psalm 62:11 states: “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God.” Again we read: “Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee,” (Jeremiah 32:17). These three great truths are devastating to the ideas of natural men and their religious views. This thing that was injected into me was a high view of God: the view of God the Sovereign as taught by the Bible. Thinking God is like man is a sin: “These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes,” (Psalm 50:21). These three ideas combine to set before us the God of the Bible: not the failure that can be resisted by man, but the God who has a plan and the ability to carry out that plan. If your god can be hindered or stopped from doing as he pleases then your god is not the God revealed in the Bible. |
