Is God Really Omniscient?

God “tests” us, not for His sake, but for ours. For example, Ecc. 3:18 tells us, “God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals…” In school, students are given periodic tests to show them their current progress—what they think they know but don’t, where they are wrong and need to relearn—so they can have a “course correction” before it is too late. After seeing God’s miraculous provision, both Abraham and the children of Israel were “tested” to see if they had learned the lesson that they could trust God (Gen. 22:1; Exod. 15:25). God brings tests and trials to those He loves, to cause them to mature and develop godly character. Tribulation, temptation, and persecution “establish, strengthen, and settle” the godly (see 1 Pet. 5:10). See also Psa. 66:10–12.

Judges 3:4 And they were left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.

Valiant Christian Soldiers

“Valiant” soldiers of Christ are those who bear the shield of faith and carry the sword of the Word of God. They are able to “shoot with the bow” of God’s Law, giving the arrow of the gospel its power. This is what makes them skillful in the battle for souls. They have success, not because they trust in themselves, but because they trust in God and cry out to Him in battle. Their strength is in the Lord.

“Brethren, do something; do something, do something! While societies and unions make constitutions, let us win souls. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov’s idea of war is mine: ‘Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the center of the enemy! Our one aim is to win souls; and this we are not to talk about, but do in the power of God!’” Charles Spurgeon

1 Chronicles 5:18 The sons of Reuben, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh had forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty valiant men, men able to bear shield and sword, to shoot with the bow, and skillful in war, who went to war.19 They made war with the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab.20 And they were helped against them, and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand, and all who were with them, for they cried out to God in the battle. He heeded their prayer, because they put their trust in Him.

Scare Tactics

In the late 1980s, TV commercials in the U.S. asked, “What goes through the mind of a driver who is not wearing a seat belt in a head-on collision?” Then they showed a crash dummy having its head crushed by a steering wheel in a collision, and said, “The steering wheel!” Those were scare tactics, but no one complained because they were legitimate scare tactics. We should fear what happens in a head-on collision if we are foolish enough to not put on a seat belt.

Fear itself is not a bad thing. Fear stops us from stepping off a 500-foot cliff. It keeps us away from fire. It holds us back from sticking a fork into a live power outlet. These types of fear are self-preserving, but the ultimate self-preserving fear is the fear of the Lord. That fear is called “the beginning of wisdom,” and because of it, the Bible says men “depart from sin.”

To warn of hell is fearful, but it is absolutely legitimate, because the Bible says that it is a fearful thing for a sinner to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.