Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
 (Eternal Father, Strong to Save)

See C H Spurgeon's comments God's attribute - Eternal

As someone has said God is the great I Am, not the great I was! A W Tozer adds that...

In God there is no was or will be, but a continuous and unbroken is. In Him history and prophecy are one and the same. Whatever God is He is infinitely.

The great Puritan writer Stephen Charnock wrote that..

The eternity of God is nothing else but the duration of God, and the duration of God is nothing else but his existence enduring.

It is indeed a high and holy mystery to contemplate that God existed before He created anything. Time dwells within God. He causes, affects, and controls it, and yet does so without time exerting any control or hold on Him. Everything about God is "always" and "I Am". No hour glass can be turned over for the Creator of time, for He is not subject to time!

Ps 102:12 Thou, O Lord, dost abide forever and Thy name to all generations. (Spurgeon's Commentary)

 God’s nature is without beginning and without end, free from all succession of time. God dwells in eternity. Eternity is not just “extended time” but rather is existence above and apart from time. God contains in Himself the cause of time! Time has no control over God and He does not have to work within the strictures of time unless He so pleases. Being eternal, He is free to bestow eternality on His creation in His good pleasure. All of God’s attributes bask in His eternality. Since eternity neither wears out nor runs out, neither do His attributes.

Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? (Listen to the Song - Do You Not Know?) The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.

Man's life is short and the universe too is perishable but God is eternal. Be encouraged dear suffering saint. The night is almost over and your day is at hand. Take heart, for you will soon spend eternity with the Eternal God!

God, being the Author of time, is in no way conditioned by it. He is free to act in relation to time and is equally free to act outside its limitations. Acting in time He said to Abraham,

“Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son” (Ge 18:14).

Thus, again

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal 4:4).

Anyone existing before time began at the creation is eternal. And only God is eternal.

Norm Geisler describes God's eternality this way:

The Bible declares that God is eternal. He was before time, and he created time. Hence, he cannot be a part of time, though he can relate to time as its Creator in the way a cause relates to its effect. Many verses of Scripture support God’s eternality: “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am’ ” (Ex 3:14)..."The theological grounds for God’s eternality are found in several other attributes. For example, immutability implies eternality, for an immutable being cannot change. But whatever is in time changes. Hence, God cannot be in time. God’s eternality can also be inferred from his infinity. An infinite being has no limits, whereas a temporal being has limits. Hence, God is not a temporal being. Pure actuality is also a ground for eternality. Pure actuality (Geisler explains elsewhere that "pure actuality means that God is actuality and has no potentiality whatsoever. Everything He could be, He is and always was and always will be. He exists but has no potential not to exist) has no potentiality, but whatever is temporal has potentiality. Hence, God is not temporal but eternal." (Now are you really confused???) (from Why I am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe)

Ps 90:1-2 Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. (Spurgeon's Commentary on Ps 90:1, Ps 90:2)

Spurgeon comments

God was, when nothing else was. He was God when the earth was not a world but a chaos. If God himself were of yesterday, he would not be a suitable refuge for mortals. The eternal existence of God is here mentioned to set forth, by contrast, the brevity of human life." (from his Treasury of David)

Warren Wiersbe writes that

There is a difference between being immortal and being eternal. Man is immortal—that is, his soul will never die; but God is eternal—He has neither beginning nor ending. God existed before the mountains (the most durable thing known in Moses’ day); in fact, He gave birth to the mountains. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we become a part of eternity and possess eternal life." (Wiersbe, W. W. Wiersbe's Expository Outlines on the New Testament. Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books)

Our God, Our Help In Ages Past
by Isaac Watts
Click to play

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Henry Morris in the Defender's Study Bible commenting on "from everlasting to everlasting" writes

To the skeptical question as to who made God, the only answer that satisfies all the facts of both science and human reason is that God is "from everlasting." He is the Creator of time as well as space and all things that exist in time and space. This is beyond our mental comprehension, but there is no other rational explanation for our existence, and it is surely compatible with the intuitions of our spiritual comprehension. God satisfies the heart regardless of difficulties conjured in the mind.

Adam Clarke in "Christian Theology" describes God's eternal existence this way --

All time is as nothing before Him, because in the presence as in the nature of God all is eternity; therefore nothing is long, nothing short, before Him; no lapse of ages impairs His purposes, nor need He wait to find convenience to execute those purposes. And when the longest period of time has passed by, it is but as a moment or indivisible point in comparison of eternity.

Eternity is God’s signature—it is who He is

Isaiah 63:16 Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is Thy name

His name “I Am,” expresses clearly His unconditional and independent existence and encompasses the idea of His continuous presence (Ex 3:14) because He simply “is.” Unlike His creatures who are bound by time with life that is brief and fleeting, the Creator is eternal. Everything in existence is dependent upon Him (Col 1:15, 16, 17 -see notes Col 1:15; 16; 17), always has been and always will be!

For God to be God, He, of necessity, must have always existed. Because God is infinite and exists outside of time, the past, present, and future are all one—the now to Him.

When man says that God is eternal he is saying something positive about the being of God even though, as far as his own conceptualization is concerned, he cannot think of this eternity otherwise than in terms of the passage of years.

God is eternal and not transitory like the fleeting strength of armies and nations.

Spurgeon wrote that

Man’s thoughts are for a time, and his ways but for a season; God is eternal: when he thinks his thoughts abide for ever, and when he acts his ways are everlasting

Spurgeon on the relationship between God's love and His eternality:

Do you not know that God is an eternal, self-existent Being, that to say He loves now, is, in fact, to say He always did love, since with God there is no past, and can be no future? What we call past, present, and future, He wraps up in one eternal NOW. And if you say that He loves you now, you thereby say that He loved you yesterday, He loved you in the past eternity, and He will love you for ever; for now with God is past, present, and future. Those who talk of God’s beginning to love His people know not “what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” They might speak of man beginning to love; they might speak of angels beginning to love; but of God we never can, since He, without beginning, had a deathless love in His heart; He has an affection which has no source except in Himself, He could not begin, for He is without beginning of years, and without end of days. From everlasting to everlasting He is God; and from everlasting to everlasting His mercies extend to His people. (from his sermon "Christ's Prayer for Believers")

Ge 21:33 And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.

Here this Divine name, El Olam,  assured Abraham of the unbreakable and everlasting nature of the covenant God had made with him, notwithstanding his being only a resident alien and a sojourner in the Land.

Ps 102:7 Thou art the same and Thy years will not come to an end (See Spurgeon's Commentary on Ps 102:7)

Isaiah 41:4 Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’

Revelation 1:8 (see note) I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever (dwells in eternity), Whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Eternality is the attribute associated with God alone, because God has no beginning point and no ending point. Furthermore, eternality applies only to God for only God is "uncaused".

LEAD ON, O KING ETERNAL
by Ernest Shurtleff
(Play hymn)

Norm Geisler addresses a question skeptics often ask about God's eternality...

The Eternality of God: ETERNITY: Scriptures: Ge 21:33; Ps 90:1, 2; Is 40:28; 1Ti 1:17; Re 1:8.

Eternity means much more than is commonly thought. It includes three ideas. It means that...

(a) The nature of God is without beginning or end

(b) God is free from all succession of time and

(c) God contains within Himself the cause of time

We should not consider time and space as antecedent to God. They are among the “all things” made by Him (Ps 90:1, 2; Jn 1:3; Heb 1:3 [literally, “through whom He made the ages”]). Thus we see that eternity means far more than endless time. We may speak of eternity without end, and of an eternity past without beginning, but this is not yet the eternity of God. To Him there is no past, present, or future. He does not live in time, but beyond it in eternity and, as the eternal God, He is not subject to time (Dt 33:27; Isa 40:28; 57:15).

God sees all events from creation to the last judgment in one glimpse. God is the eternal “now”; He is the “I AM” (Ex 3:14). This does not mean, however, that to God there is no objective reality of time. He recognizes that time exists and that we live in it. To Him, past, present, and future are one eternal now, not in the sense in which there is no distinction between them, but only in the sense that God sees that past and future as vividly as the present. There are two ways to view a parade: one who stands at his door by the street as it passes, and sees first the those in the lead, then others, and finally the last. But one who is at the top of a high tower sees the whole parade with one glance. Nevertheless, that person sees that in the procession there is order and progress. Thus it is with God. This is evident from Isaiah 46:10 and Acts 15:18.

Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;

Acts 15:18. Says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.

The eternity of God, as the Eternal I AM, is a part of His self-existence. He is uncaused and must therefore be without beginning. As such, He transcends the whole chain of causes and effects and, as He is without beginning, so He can never cease to be.

How does the eternity of God affect one’s life? For all of us as human beings, life is full of surprises. We never know exactly what lies around the corner, but while we do not know what the future holds, as believers in Christ, we do know Him who holds the future and for Whom nothing is a surprise. Since nothing ever surprises God, no problem I face slips up on the Lord who sees the future as clearly as the present.

Lam 5:19 Thou, O LORD, dost rule forever; Thy throne is from generation to generation.

Isaiah 26:3-4 The steadfast of mind Thou wilt keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in Thee. 4 Trust in the LORD forever, For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock.

Psalm 90 is a psalm in which Moses reflects on man’s temporality and sinfulness (Ps 90:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) in the light of God’s eternality (Ps 90:1, 2 ).

As the eternal One, regardless of the generation in which we may live with all its surprises, God is our Dwelling Place, our Place of Refuge and Fortress (cf. Ps 90:1 with Ps 91:1, 2). What then is our need? To know that regardless of the brevity of life (generally maybe seventy or even eighty years, vs. ten), we must know that God has a special purpose for each of us. As believers, we are a special part of the plan and purpose of God. In that regard, our need is to pray that we might number our days to bring in a full harvest of God’s wisdom (Ps 90:12) and seek God’s blessing on our lives to experience His joy and the confirmation of the work He has designed for us to do (Ps 90:13,14, 15, 16; Ep 2:10-note)."

Trust the Eternal
by William P McKenzie
(Play Hymn).

RELATED RESOURCES

Attributes of God - The Eternity of God - by Dr S Lewis Johnson - Recommended Resource - includes Mp3, page Pdf or MS Word document. This is only one study out of over 100 in depth lectures by Dr Johnson on Systematic Theology including studies of the doctrines of God, Christ, the Spirit, Prayer, Salvation, etc. (click for this extensive list)

What God Is Like by J. Hampton Keathley III

From Everlasting to Everlasting from the book "The Joy of Knowing God" by Richard L. Strauss, PhD

Discourse On the Eternity of God by Stephen Charnock (from his classic work "The Attributes of God")

C H Spurgeon note - see Eternal

See word study - Faithful - pistos

God tests our faith so that we may trust His faithfulness.1Pe 4:19 (note)

C H Spurgeon reminds us that...

We must be tried or we cannot magnify the faithful God, who will not leave His people.  (For more by C H Spurgeon click notes on Faithful)

Click to play the great old hymn GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS.

Webster defines faithfulness as

firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty

Faithfulness is God's attribute of UTTER DEPENDABILITY, the antithesis of everything fickle and fluctuating.

William Hendriksen rightly observed that...

Divine faithfulness is a wonderful comfort to those who are loyal. It is a very earnest warning for those who might be inclined to become disloyal.

In (2Ti 2:13 - see note) Paul says that faithfulness is a corollary of His self-consistency.

Because God is faithful, His promises are infallibly reliable (see note Hebrews 10:23). 

Forgiveness is rooted in God's faithfulness (1Jn 1:9), as is the child of God's certain victory over even the most difficult trials & testing (1Cor 10:13; 1Pe 4:19-note, 1Th 5:24-note).

Faithfulness exhibits God's character as worthy of the love and confidence of man and assures us that He will certainly fulfill His promises as well as execute His threats against sin.

God's faithfulness applies to His...

Temporal blessings (1Ti 4:8; Ps 84:11; Isa 33:16, Spurgeon)

Spiritual blessings (1Co 1:9)

Support in temptation (1Cor 10:13)

Support in persecution (1Pe 4:12, 13-notes; Isa 41:10 Spurgeon)

Sanctifying discipline (He 12:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-see notes)

Direction in difficulties (2Chr 32:22; Ps 32:8)

Enabling of His own to persevere (Jer 32:40)

Bringing to glory (1Jn 2:25).

As very God of very God, our Lord Jesus Christ is fittingly designated FAITHFUL in every way...

(1) THE FAITHFUL ONE

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war (See note Revelation 19:1)

(2) THE GREAT HIGH PRIEST

Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (He 2:17-note)

(3) THE APOSTLE

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; 2 He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. (He 3:1-See notes He 3:1; 2)

(4) THE WITNESS

Jesus Christ, the faithful WITNESS, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood  (Re 1:5-notes)

The Amen, the faithful & true WITNESS, the Beginning of the creation of God  (Re 3:14-note)

GOD'S FAITHFULNESS

PART OF GOD'S CHARACTER
Isa 49:7; 1Cor 1:9; 1Th 5:24
Dt 7:9, 9:5 1Ki 8:56 Ps 36:5, 89:1, 105:8
1Cor 1:9 Hebrews 6:18 1Pe 4:19

DECLARED TO BE
Great - Lamentations 3:23
Established -Psalms 89:2
Incomparable -Psalms 89:8
Unfailing -Psalms 89:33; 2 Timothy 2:13
Infinite -Psalms 36:5
Everlasting -Psalms 119:90; 146:6

Should be pleaded in prayer -Psalms 143:1

Should be proclaimed -Psalms 40:10; 89:1

Great Is Thy Faithfulness from The Joy of Knowing God by Richard L. Strauss, Ph.D. published in 1984 by Loizeaux Brothers, Inc.

Since God’s faithfulness is part of His essence, it affects everything He says and everything He does. Several specific applications of His faithfulness are made in the New Testament. First of all, He is faithful in assuring our salvation....Secondly, He is faithful in providing for our victory. God wants us to enjoy victory over sin and triumph through trials, but He has not left us on our own to achieve it. He offers us help....In the third place, He is faithful in forgiving our sins. Unfortunately, most of us only use God’s resources for victory intermittently, and as a result we sin. But God’s faithfulness reaches us even then....Finally, God is faithful in sustaining us through suffering. One of the times we are most tempted to doubt God’s faithfulness is when suffering strikes our lives. It often makes no sense to us and we see no reason for it. We may search our lives, and although we find some sins which we have previously overlooked, we still cannot believe we deserve what God has allowed to happen to us. We begin to think that He has forgotten us or really does not care about us....God will not only be faithful in assuring our salvation, providing for our victory, forgiving our sins, and sustaining us through suffering, but He will also be faithful in keeping every promise He has ever made. That is the greatest encouragement we could possibly have. The Bible contains thousands of precious promises from God, and at least one of them will have application to every conceivable situation we can possibly encounter—financial reversal, terminal illness, the loss of a loved one, family tensions, or anything else. A faithful God can be trusted to keep every promise. The writer to the Hebrews encouraged his readers with these words: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (He 10:23-note)." (See Great Is Thy Faithfulness  for full discussion) .

God's Faithfulness:
Do you have a "Rushmore Reminder"?

These stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever. --Joshua 4:7

In 1941, sculptor Gutzon Borglum completed his work on Mount Rushmore. The 60-foot-high granite heads of four US Presidents now stand like sentinels of democracy over the Black Hills of South Dakota. The imposing likenesses of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt remind visitors of our nation's heritage and history. God told Israel's leader, Joshua, to take 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan River for a similar purpose (Josh. 4:1-7,20-24). The Lord wanted future generations to have a memorial to their national history. He wanted them to remember that as He parted the Red Sea to get them out of Egypt, He also parted the Jordan to get them into the Promised Land. He wanted them to live not only in the present, but with the reminder of the values, faith, and experiences of their founding fathers: Moses, Aaron, and Joshua. God understands our human nature and knows that "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" occurs all too often in our spiritual lives. We need physical reminders of spiritual truths. We need to pile up stones, write journals, and tell family stories to help us remember the miracle of God's provisions that neither we nor our children can afford to forget. --M R De Haan II (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved)

Think About It -- How has God shown Himself to be faithful to you and your family in the past? How can you make sure you'll remember? With whom can you talk about it today? Precious memories of yesterday can be precious moments today.

Man's Fickle Feelings &
God's Forever Faithfulness

"Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies." - Ps 36:5

When I was in college, my roommate was engaged to a woman who lived 800 miles away. He was a worrier and a pessimist, so he was constantly questioning the closeness of their relationship. He would worry that they were drifting apart. If a day came without a letter, he would convince himself that she didn't love him any longer and was about to break up with him. I would get so fed up with his worrying that I would insist he call her. He always discovered that nothing had changed and that she was not wavering in her love. Greatly relieved, he would kick himself for having doubted, and he would promise not to worry again--which lasted about 3 days! Although we sometimes falter in our faith and question God's love for us, He remains faithful. Even when we doubt His promises, or don't feel close to Him, or choose to sin, His faithfulness still "reaches to the clouds" (Ps. 36:5). We can be sure God will do all He said He would do (1Th 5:24; 2Th 3:3). His promises are backed up by His flawless character. In those times when you don't feel close to God, remind yourself that His feelings for you haven't changed. It's not a matter of how you feel at the moment, but the fact of the rock-solid faithfulness of God. --D C Egner  (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved)

ALMIGHTY FATHER OF MANKIND

CAST THY BURDEN ON THE LORD

GOD OF THE CHANGING YEAR

GOD SAVED HIS PEOPLE FROM DISTRESS

GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS

HE SUPPLIETH ALL OF MY NEED

HE’LL WALK WITH ME ALL THE WAY

I WILL NOT FORGET THEE

LORD, THOU HAST BEEN OUR DWELLING PLACE (Gill)

MY SONG FOREVER SHALL RECORD

O GOD, THOU FAITHFUL GOD

O GRACIOUS GOD, FORSAKE ME NOT

THOU WILT REMEMBER ME

RELATED RESOURCES

The Faithfulness of God by A. W. Pink

The Faithfulness of God - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology

Is He still faithful when I am suffering? John Piper has over 40 messages on various aspects of SUFFERING indexed @ "Suffering"

Thomas Constable commenting on God's foreknowledge in (1 Peter 1:2 note) writes that

God’s foreknowledge has an element of determinism in it because whatever really happens that God knows beforehand exists or takes place because of His sovereign will. Therefore when Peter wrote that God chose according to His foreknowledge he did not mean that God chose the elect because He knew beforehand they would believe the gospel (the Arminian position). God chose them because He determined beforehand that they would believe the gospel (the Calvinist position; cf Ro 8:29, 30-see notes Ro 8:29; 30; Ep 1:3, 4, 5, 6 -notes Ep 1:3; 1:4; 1:5; 1:6; 1Th 1:4-note; 1Pe 5:13-note).

Warren Wiersbe says that

Foreknowledge does not suggest that God merely knew ahead of time that we would believe, and therefore He chose us. This would raise the question, “Who or what made us decide for Christ?” and would take our salvation completely out of God’s hands. In the Bible, to foreknow means “to set one’s love on a person or persons in a personal way.” Commenting on Judas' betrayal of our Lord, Wiersbe writes that "before He chose His 12 Apostles, Jesus spent a whole night in prayer (Luke 6:12, 13, 14, 15, 16), so we must believe that it was the Father’s will that Judas be among them (John 8:29). But the selection of Judas did not seal his fate; rather, it gave him opportunity to watch the Lord Jesus closely, believe, and be saved. God in His sovereignty had determined that His Son would be betrayed by a friend, but divine foreknowledge does not destroy human responsibility or accountability. Judas made each decision freely and would be judged accordingly, even though he still fulfilled the decree of God (Acts 2:23)." (Wiersbe, W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor or Logos comments on Luke 22:14)

Paul writes about foreknowledge in Romans 8:29

For (anytime you see "for" ask what it's there for? Here Paul is explaining how it is that God can work all things out for good for those who love Him) whom He foreknew (proginosko from pro = before + ginosko = know = to know about something before it happens, cf related Greek word prognosis - word study), He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren". (See Commentary)

The truth is that the salvation of every believer is known and determined in the mind of God before its realization in time. This is "heavy" theology and I believe cannot be fully comprehended by finite men. Instead of complaining that God is not fair (as some who think too much on this attribute do) we should bow to the incredible truth that in eternity past, before Adam and Eve even sinned, God planned the redemption of undeserving sinners through Jesus Christ. Stated another way, the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden did not take God by surprise. He knew it would happen and He also knew and had planed what He would do in view of it and that His only Son would carry out His plan. The ultimate cause of Jesus’ death was God’s plan and foreknowledge.

1Pe 1:20 (see commentary) teaches that Christ, the Lamb, was

was foreknown before (proginosko) the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you" 

Christ was foreknown because God had planned and determined in His eternal counsel to provide His Son as a sacrifice for His people. The point is God's foreknowledge means more than that God knew ahead of time that Christ would come and die.  God’s foreknowledge is the cause for His Son’s sacrifice–because He planned and decreed it.

In other words...

There is a modern school of so-called "scholars" ("open theists") who believe among other things that God’s foreknowledge is limited, because of the limitations He has placed upon Himself in giving man free will. How incredible that finite men would dare describe any limitation to the infinite, omniscient, sovereign God. This website takes the conservative, classic approach as summed up nicely by Easton's dictionary which says that foreknowledge is

one of those high attributes essentially appertaining to Him the full import of which we cannot comprehend. In the most absolute sense his knowledge is infinite.

Job alludes to God's foreknowledge declaring

Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with Thee, and his limits Thou hast set so that he cannot pass." (Job 14:5, cf Ps. 139:16 - Spurgeon's commentary)

The Foreknowledge of God by A. W. Pink

Resources at Desiring God (Dr John Piper)

Click for a rather lengthy article on foreknow, foreknowledge in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (generally very conservative).

Click article in Holman Bible Dictionary

When was the last time you paused to ponder the goodness of God? Would you consider taking a moment today from your busy schedule, finding a quiet place, turning off your cell phone, and choosing to purposefully set your mind on the things above rather than the things of this earth, which is passing away, and even it's lusts?

Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Ro 2:4-note)

Then Moses said, "I pray Thee, show me Thy glory!" And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion. (Exodus 33:18,19)

Have adverse circumstances caused you to struggle with whether you really believe God is good? Beloved, if this describes you (and it probably describes all of us from time to time if we are honest), then try this exercise over the next few days (cp Ps 27:13, 14,). Ponder (cp Meditate; Primer on Biblical Meditation) the following passages (you will derive the most value by reading them in context) that relate to the goodness of God. Make a list of your observations (observation), as you ask simple questions (interrogate with the 5W'S & H - eg, What must I do to understand God's goodness? Ps Ps 86:5, 34:8 Who can expect to be the beneficiary of God's goodness? Ps 31:19; How long can we expect to bask in His goodness? Ps 23:6 When will the Lord's goodness cease? Ps 100:5 - you get the idea! Simple questions that yield profound answers!)

Praise to the Lord, Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
(Play hymn - cp Ps 135:3)

Ask God to lead you into all the truth about His goodness, yielding yourself to the truth He illuminates (Ps 119:68). The truth of His great goodness can be ignored (cp Ne 9:35).  Let the water of His Word wash over you and renew your mind (cp effect on one's heart, our "control center" - 1Ki 8:66). Truth always demands a response. What shall we say to the goodness of God? Trust and obey. Turn the truths you glean into a time of worship,  praising and thanksgiving to Him for His infinite, eternal goodness poured out richly through Christ Jesus our Lord (cp David's declaration in Ps 16:2).

Therefore my songs, my Savior,
E’en in this time of woe,
Shall tell of all Thy goodness
To suff’ring man below;
Thy goodness and Thy favor,
Whose presence from above
Rejoice those hearts, my Savior,
That live in Thee and love.
(P