_The exercise of God's omnipotence is limited by His own wise and holy and loving will._ God _can do_ anything, but _will do_ only that which infinite wisdom and holiness and love dictate. This comes out, for example, in Isa. 59:1, 2: +"Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: (2) But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."+
3. _The God of the Bible is also omniscient._ In 1 John 3:20 we read: +"God knoweth all things."+ Turning to the Old Testament, in Ps. 147:5, we read: +"Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; his understanding is infinite."+ The literal translation of the last clause of this passage is "Of his understanding there is no number." In these passages it is plainly declared that "God knoweth all things" and that "His understanding is infinite." In Job 37:16 Elihu the messenger of God is represented as saying that Jehovah is "perfect in knowledge." Along the same line, in Acts 15:18 we read: +"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world."+ The Revised Version makes a change in the translation of this verse but this change does not alter the sense of the truth here set forth that God knows all His works and all things from the beginning of the world. _Known to Him is everything from the most vast to the most minute detail._ In Ps. 147:4 we are told that, +"He telleth the number of the stars; he knoweth them all by name."+ While in Matt. 10:29 we are told that _not a sparrow_ falleth to the ground without Him. The stars in all their stupendous magnitude and the sparrows in all their insignificance are all equally in His mind.
We are further told that everything has a part in His purpose and plan. In Acts 3:17, 18, the Apostle Peter says of the crucifixion of our Lord, the wickedest act in all the history of the human race: +"And now, brethren, I wot that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But the things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled."+ In Acts 2:23 Peter declared on the day of Pentecost (although the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was the wickedest act in all history) that nevertheless the Lord Jesus was +"Delivered up by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God."+ According to the Psalmist (Ps. 76:10) God takes the acts of the wickedest men into His plans and makes the wrath of men to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath doth He restrain. Even the present war with all its horrors, with all its atrocities, with all its abominations and all its nameless wickednesses, was foreknown of God and taken into His own gracious plan of the ages; and He will make every event in this present war, even the most shocking things, designed by the vilest conspiracy of unprincipled men, utterly unhuman and beastly men and Devil inspired men, work together for good to those who love God, for those who are the called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).
_The whole plan of the ages, not merely of the centuries, but of the immeasurable ages of God, and every man's part in it, has been known to God from all eternity._ This is made very clear in Eph. 1:9-12, where we read: +"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will; to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who before hoped in Christ."+ And in Eph. 3:4-9, we read: +"Wherefore when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy prophets and apostles in the Spirit; to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages has been hid in God who created all things."+ There are no after-thoughts with God. Everything is seen, known, purposed and planned for from the outset. Well may we exclaim: +"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God: how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out."+ (Rom. 11:33.) God knows from all eternity what He will do to all eternity.