Foreknowledge of God

Have you ever heard this from a believing Christian? “I believe God has foreknowledge, but I think He may choose to not tap into it all the time.” What is that all about? What motivates such a statement? I think that it likely stems from the great difficulty in our minds to accept the fact that God has always known the depths to which evil would sink and still does not do anything to stop it within the timeframe that we think He should.

To help you understand this struggle, let me just ask you a few, potentially disturbing questions.
– Before He created the world and Adam, was God thinking about all the terrible abductions, physical abuses, torturous murders, cannibalistic mutilations, and ridiculous wars that would occur after the Fall?
– Before God said, “Let there be light,” did He realize all that His Son would have to experience at the time of His crucifixion?
– How far in advance did God know that I would have a son who would have a big hole in his heart, scores of needles poked in his body, a ventilator tube shoved down his throat several times, medicines and blood transfusions pumped into his body, a feeding tube inserted through his nostrils and then through his belly, and a surgeon’s knife across his chest, only to die 102 days after his birth?
He is supposed to be a God of love, right? What kind of love is it that allows all this, especially if He knows about it long before it ever occurs? So it seems that some have concluded that God apparently doesn’t think about it unless He wants to.

But have we not read the Holy Bible, the very Word of God? Or have we forgotten what God says of Himself in the writings of Isaiah? “I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isaiah 45:6-7). “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure’” (Isaiah 46:9-10). “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). Have we not read the first couple chapters of Job, where God initiates the discussion with Satan that would lead to Job’s great trials? Have we not read of the Holy Spirit’s prophecy concerning Judas hundreds of years before Christ (Psalms 69:25, 109:8; Acts 1:15-26), and that “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him” (John 6:64)? Have we not noticed that the Lord says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending” (Revelation 1:8)? Have we not read? Have we forgotten? Or do we just refuse to believe?

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” – Proverbs 3:5