T H E B A S I C S PRIMARY TRUTH God is all-knowing, and He is the Source of all truth.

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1 CORRESPONDING LEVEL WEB #s Defenders: Detectives: Developers: THE GREATNESS OF GOD MATERIALS NEEDED Bible; Teacher Preparation Guide (optional supplements: K4T songbook and PowerPoint files of lyrics) SUGGESTED ORIGINAL KIDS 4 TRUTH SONG All Glory Be to You SUGGESTED HYMNS Great Is Thy Faithfulness, How Great Thou Art, Immortal, Invisible, To God Be the Glory OTHER SONG SUGGESTIONS Older kids: How Wonderful Art Thou, Great Is the Lord Younger kids: He s So Great [and I m So Small], My God Is So Big, This Great God [to the tune of the ABC s song] T H E B A S I C S PRIMARY TRUTH God is all-knowing, and He is the Source of all truth. PRIMARY SCRIPTURE PASSAGE Psalm 147:5 WHAT THIS DOCTRINE REVEALS ABOUT GOD God is omniscient (om-nish-ent), which means He is all-knowing. In fact, God is the only One Who knows all things. Humans can try to guess things, and humans can learn things; but only God knows all things for sure. God is to be trusted above all others since He has the fullest possible knowledge. Because He knows all things, He is above and beyond all others in His wisdom. God s omniscience proves His eternality the truth that He is before all things, and that He will continue on being all that He is, forever and ever. He is the all-knowing, eternal God. KNOWLEDGE OBJECTIVES By God s grace... The child will learn what the word omniscience means. The child will learn different categories of things that God knows. The child will understand the contrast between God s unlimited knowledge and very limited human knowledge. ATTITUDE OBJECTIVES By God s grace... The child will respect and revere God for His incredible knowledge of all things. The child will feel humbled by his/her own lack of knowledge, yet motivated to learn as much as he/she can in this world, especially about the things of God. P R A Y E R 1

2 T E A C H I N G P H A S E I N T R O (about minutes) OPENER* Psalm 147:5 teaches that God s understanding is infinite. The word infinite means without limit. If you have a line that is infinite, it keeps going and going without stopping or breaking off. There is no way to measure a line like that, because a ruler is too short to measure it. A tape measure would run out of tape after a while. Something that is infinitely deep is impossible to get to the bottom of. Something that is infinitely high is something we could never really measure the height of. And God s knowledge is like that. We as humans can never get to the bottom of God s knowledge. We can never take measurements of how high God s knowledge actually reaches. There is no way to measure how much God knows. Is your understanding finite? Yes! Your knowledge is measurable! It has limits. How can your knowledge be measured? Your knowledge is measured every time you take a test in school; and often, those tests prove that your knowledge is very, very limited! Your knowledge is finite. DISCUSSION Wouldn t it be nice if you could have infinite (limitless) understanding whenever you had to take a test in school? When are some other times you might wish you could have infinite understanding? COMMENTARY Theologians say that God is omniscient. The word part omni- means all. Can you think of an English word that is a lot like the last part of the word omniscient? [science] ACTIVITY Invite a child to come up front and look up the word science in a dictionary. The first definition listed should be something along the lines of the state of knowing. When we say that God is omniscient, it simply means He knows all there is to know past, present, and future. He even knows all possibilities. He knows possible pasts and futures. *NOTE: In the intro, we want to recap the primary truth and set the stage to use the primary truth to point the learners back to God. I N S T R U C T I O N & R E I N F O R C E M E N T (about minutes) BIBLE DRILL (#1) What does the Bible say God knows? 1 John 3:20 CHALK-/WHITEBOARD ACTIVITY [Tell children that the blank space of the whole board represents all the information that can be known. (Remind them: God knows all!) Ask a child to come up and draw a circle within the blank space that represents what that child knows. If possible, select a know-it-all child who will probably draw a fairly large circle.] 2

3 [Allow the child to continue standing next to the whiteboard; and/or, if you d like, invite other children to come up and draw their own circles depicting what they know of all the things that God knows. Then use the illustration of a tree to bring into perspective for the children what little they actually do know. (You might enhance this part by drawing a tree or showing the kids a picture of a tree in your yard.)] Let s think about just one tree. What is there to know about one single tree? [Teachers, the idea here is to bring the children to an understanding of just how much there is to know about one tree. How many leaves? How many bugs? How many rings? How deep do the roots go? There are literally hundreds of things to be known about even one tree.] Now, how many trees are there in the whole, wide world? Does God know everything there is to know about each one of them? Yes! [At this point you might want to ask the children if they would like to adjust their own knowledge circles.] But what about the WHAT IFs of that tree? What about the potential (possible, stored-up choices of) lifetimes for that tree? How might that tree have grown if it had been planted ten feet closer to or farther from a river? What if it had grown up half-way across the world someplace far away, like North Africa or Sweden? You could make educated guesses about these questions, but you could never know for sure! God does know for sure. He knows exactly what will happen, but He also knows exactly what might have happened, had the circumstances been different. When we think about all God knows, we must realize that part of what God knows are things that humans do have the ability to learn. But part (and probably most) of God s perfect knowledge is made up of those things that no person, no angel, nobody other than God could ever know with certainty. [Again, you may want to ask the children if they would like to adjust the size of their knowledge circles on the whiteboard.] [Next, ask the children to imagine that they see a soccer field paved with whiteboards, all picturing a lot more of the information that God knows. Now have them imagine the whole world encased in whiteboards, or the whole Milky Way stacked full of whiteboards! Even those massive measurements could never contain the whole of God s knowledge! He created the universe and everything in it, including our imaginations! God s wisdom and understanding has no limits. It goes even beyond our imaginations! Neither a whiteboard nor a whole universe could ever begin to contain all that God knows. And what any of us knows in comparison to God s understanding is just extremely tiny!] Now let s sum up five categories of things that God knows... TRUTH TO TALK UP (#1) God knows what has happened in the past. Since God is eternal, He is not limited by time. Although things may become dull in our memories over time, those things are still as fresh in God s mind as if they were currently happening! But there is something that God puts away from His knowledge. Can you guess what put away from means? BIBLE DRILL (#2) What is it that God chooses no to remember? Hebrews 8:12 If your sins have not yet been confessed and forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ, then God remembers perfectly all the wrong you have ever done. The psalmist wrote my sin is ever before Thee, LORD. God has not forgotten or overlooked the sins of unbelievers. Their sin is as fresh in His mind as if they were committing that sin even this very second. God s omniscience teaches us that we cannot count on the passing of time to help our consciences 3

4 get over the guilt from the wrong things we ve done against God and others. We must run to God and depend upon Him to forgive our sins. He can forgive us because of what Jesus Christ did in His life and sacrificial death and resurrection. Because of Christ s perfect righteousness, God can look at us like He looks at Christ! This is how He can put the memory of our sins away from His holy mind. This is how He chooses not to remember our sins or hold them against us through Christ! TRUTH TO TALK UP (#2) God knows what is happening now. Have you ever been trying to decide what to do and suddenly remembered that God is watching you right now, and that He is very much aware of what you are thinking in your heart this very moment? What does this statement mean? The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of His all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy. Richard Baxter (Puritan preacher and theologian) BIBLE DRILL (#3) 2 Chronicles 16:9 TRUTH TO TALK UP (#3) God knows what will happen in the future. 1 John 1:5 states that God is light. This has the idea that God, Who is the Source (beginning, start point) of all wisdom, is both holy (pure, separate from sin) and complete (total, perfect, full to the best possible amount) in knowledge and understanding. Since God knows all things, even the future, He is the wisest of all beings. And we can be glad about that! If an evil being were omniscient (all-knowing) like God is, an evil being would use that power to do evil things. But God is light.his decisions are always best because He is both holy (He will not work things for bad) and omniscient (He knows all things). If you are trusting Christ as your Savior, here is an amazing thing to consider: Because God knows everything, God knew you would keep on sinning against Him, even after He saved you and yet He still chose to save you, anyway! God loves us very much. He loves us with an unconditional love (unchanging, freely-given love that doesn t depend on whether we earn it or deserve it). ( ) (Here would be a great place to insert what you learned from your Teacher Truth Study.) TRUTH TO TALK UP (#4) God knows what might have happened. One of the most amazing aspects of God s knowledge is that He knows things that might have happened had circumstances been altered. In other words, God knows even potential or possible futures. BIBLE DRILL (#4) According to this verse, what possibility did God know? Matthew 11:21 Have you ever wished you could go back and change your mind about something you decided? Have you ever regretted an action or wondered what would ve happened if you had handled a situation differently? [This would be an excellent place for a personal illustration about how you made a personal choice that you could ve decided differently, one that you most likely would have handled differently if you had known ahead of time all the consequences. (For example, you could talk about a time you got in big trouble.)] 4

5 God knows all things real or possible, and He works in His Creation always in a way that will bring about the best possible results, for His own glory and for His people s best good. Because God is omniscient, He really can and does consider every angle, He really can be sure of every possibility, and He can and will make the wisest choices every single time. He is to be trusted as the wisest and best of beings. TRUTH TO TALK UP (#5) God knows the intricate details of our lives. You may think that only your parents know the real you or maybe you even have your doubts about them. Maybe you cannot think of anyone who knows the tiny details about you. If that s the case, then you ve forgotten Someone very important!. Did you realize that God knows you even better than you know yourself? If that sounds too good to be true, there are Bible reasons why you shouldn t find it hard to believe God knows you so closely: BIBLE DRILL (#5) What does God know about tiny animals? What kind of information does God know about you? Matthew 10:29-30 BIBLE DRILL (#6) How does this verse show that God s omniscience is a very good thing for you? Matthew 6:8 BIBLE DRILL (#7) Can anything or anyone keep any secrets from God? Hebrews 4:13 BIBLE DRILL (#8) When we consider all that God knows, we should come to the same conclusion King David did: Psalm 139:6 GETTING BACK TO GOD* {Recap WHAT THIS DOCTRINE REVEALS ABOUT GOD: God is omniscient, which means He is all-knowing. In fact, God is the only One Who knows all things. Humans can try to guess things, and humans can learn things; but only God knows all things for sure. God is to be trusted above all others since He has the fullest possible knowledge. Because He knows all things, He is above and beyond all others in His wisdom. God s omniscience proves His eternality the truth that He is before all things, and that He will continue on being all that He is, forever and ever. He is the all-knowing, eternal God.} God s depth and reach of knowledge is superior to (greater than, higher than) any human being s or any of the creatures God created. This only makes sense, doesn t it? If something is know-able, then God already knows about it. If something or someone is alive, it is because God Himself gave life. God knows all things. He existed before all things, and He is never-ending. God s wisdom is eternal and superior to any creature s wisdom because this is the nature of God Himself: God Himself is eternal, and God Himself is superior to any of His creatures. God knows everything there is to know about His creatures! We might think that we have deep secrets hidden from people, but God knows everything there is to know about us. Nothing is hidden from God. When we decide about what to do, we have to guess how things might work out in the end. But God knows everything already everything that happened in the past, everything going on right now, and everything that will happen in the future. He even knows what possible things might have happened that did not happen! To say God is really smart or that He knows what He s doing barely scratches the surface of all that He is! God is all-wise and totally worthy of all our trust. His decisions (including the decisions He makes for us!) are the best possible! *NOTE: Teachers, please remember that this section should include the fruit of your Teacher Truth Study and one or two personal illustrations or anecdotes from the Personalize It! activity in the Teacher Preparation Phase. 5

6 A P P L I C A T I O N & A S S E S S M E N T INTERNALIZE IT! from Teacher Preparation Phase (about 5-10 minutes) You might begin this section with: Boys and girls, as I ve been preparing for this TruthTime Lesson, here s what God has been showing me... You might continue by saying: Because of what God is teaching me, here s what is going to be different in my life during this next week... You might conclude with something like this: Finally, here s what God has taught me about Himself through these truths... DISCUSSION TIME QUESTIONS Why is God wiser than anything or anyone else? What does God know about you? Why should God s omniscience cause us to trust Him more than we trust anyone or anything else? How might the truth of God s omniscience affect (change) you this week? A P P E N D I C E S O R I F T I M E (optional) ACTIVITY After reading through Psalm 139 with the children, ask them to find all the things that this psalm says God knows. Next, challenge the children to think some more and write down at least ten more things that God knows. For example, God knows how many grains of sand there are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The more intricate and complex, the better! The idea of this exercise is to help put in perspective how weak and feeble our knowledge is when contrasted with God s omniscience. 6