Testimony: The All-knowing God
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You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. -
What is God like, his character?
His Omnipresence, He is everywhere in every time Psalm 139:7-10 everywhere.
His Omnipotence, he is Almighty, all powerful; Job 42:2 “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
For the purpose of this talk I would like to focus on a third ‘Omni’ -
God’s Omniscience - God is all-knowing.
Job 37:16 ‘God is perfect in knowledge.’ 1 John 3:20 teaches that God is all-knowing. He is perfect in wisdom, he is always wise.
We have just heard the song, ‘He knows my name,’ God knows everything about us even before we were born, so the scriptures tell us. Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’
When the scripture says in Isaiah 41:1 he calls me by name, it doesn’t mean ‘hey Kelvin, that’s your name, or ‘hey Kelvin I want you on my team, you’ve got what it takes.’ He knows I haven’t got what it takes.
Our God who is all-knowing knows what will become of me, he sees the full potential of what we will become if we submit our lives to him.
Testimony
In Summer of 1966 I left the tent mission of Rev Sam Workman thinking I had blown my chances of being good enough to be a Christian, I failed to respond to the ‘altar call.’ That night, following the wise counsel of my mother, Rita, I gave my life to the Lord Jesus. I became a Christian. There was no excitement, no fireworks. Just simple trust that what Jesus says is true. That ten-year-old child-like prayer was the day I was born again, the Lord began his transformative work in me.
My faith was tested in school, I went to a Quaker school, ‘Friends’ in Lisburn about ten miles from Belfast. There were a few practising Christians at school. I used to think most of the believers in my year were quite nerdy. I liked to think that I was different, I was into sports and messing around but my faith was tested and honed by my encounters in that school. I attended the school’s Christian Union and I was encouraged by a few Christian teachers who gave a lead there. One of them, Barbara Burgess was my maths teacher, she was a ‘take-no-prisoners’ type teacher but a gentle soul in our CU - I saw another side to her and learnt a lot from her.
On 2 November 1971 she was shopping in Belfast when the IRA detonated a bomb without giving warning to evacuate. Miss Burgess was caught up in the explosion that followed moments later. 500 stitches in her face, 500 on her torso, her right leg was blown off and countless other injuries. The following September Miss Burgess returned to teach. What a witness that was, not just to me but to the whole school. She had such a strong Faith. Trusted in her Lord in her adversity. Her reaction taught me to press on when the going gets tough. It taught me about the importance of Jesus having pre-eminence.
Eight years later during my own trauma, Miss Burgess's resilience throughout her adversity helped me greatly.
He Knows my Days
After school I studied at Manchester University, majoring in Economics and Hockey. The hockey got more attention than my studies. My first job was in accountancy, working for Neville Russel Chartered Accountants. I settled in a church in Wakefield St.Andrews and played Hockey for Wakefield. I attended Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship in Nutsford Cheshire and then Bradford when I moved to Yorkshire.
I go a long way back with FGBMFI. As a teenager in 1970s I would attend Belfast Chapter meetings, in the Europa Hotel, with my father (he was Vice President and secretary). I met Demos Shakarian in 1978 at a convention at London’s Wembley Conference Centre.
I am a reflective person and have kept a diary since 1970. It was my normal practice at the end of a year to look back over the year that has been and look ahead to the new year. On 1st January 1979 I have no idea why I wrote this in my diary :
“I don’t know what the year ahead holds for me. There will be some surprises. I believe my hockey will be affected, maybe something to do with my legs.”
I wrote that 1/1/79 not knowing what was in store, but my Omnicient Lord God who is all knowing – was preparing me and strengthening me for the toughest ordeal of my life.
You could ask, why did God not prevent the accident that occurred in May 1979 and that is a good and valid question?
I have learnt to leave some of those tough questions hanging, unanswered, accepting that we do no know the bigger picture of our Omniscient God knowing the plans he has for us.
The Lord has been on my case and yours before we were aware, he doesn’t just know my name, he knows my days and my ways, my highs and my lows, my first and my last day, my jobs and my no-job years
I was a delegate at the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Blackpool Convention on Thursday 31/5/79. I was due to meet up with my parents. Family friend and leader of the Christian renewal Centre, Rostrevor, Rev Cecil Kerr one of the main speakers.
Sadly it never happened. On 30th May 1979 the car I was travelling in was in an accident on Honister Pass, the Lake District, Cumbria, UK. At the time saying, name of Jesus over an over in my mind kept me alive. Latyer I read in
Song of Solomon 1:3 “His name is ointment.” The first week in June I was flown by army helicopter to the Spinal Injuries Unit at Pinderfields Hospital Wakefield, to begin my rehabilitation - I was a paraplegic, paralysed from the waist down, the doctor in Whitehaven hospital told me I would never walk again.
He knows my days. As I lay on Honister Pass feeling life draining away, lungs collapsed, internal bleeding, broken back spinal cord severed – the Lord spoke words to me, words that I had learnt as a young boy at Sunday School.
“I am with you always “ – Matthew 28:20 It is a promise I held on to. He knows my days. He is the Alpha and Omega. He knows my life and my ending. As I lay, broken and barely able to breathe, I prayed that I would live. I spoke the name of ‘Jesus’ under my breath to the rhythm of my heartbeat. Every breath came out with a whisper ‘Jesus.’ There is an echo of Song of Solomon 1:3 - ‘his name is like ointment poured forth.’ I was an inpatient in Hospital for ten months!
He knows my Ways
Two of the things that kept me going during my 10 months in Hospital was
1. personal times of devotion and
2. Fellowship – visiting friends, family, letters, phone calls. Rev Cecil Kerr came to bedside. Bert Sture, Bradford President was at the Conference in Blackpool, he visited regularily, Alan Bain the curate from St Andrew’s Wakefield. My family were at my bedside constantly. A few months after rthe accident a medical doctor came to me and said: “you won’t remember me but I was in the car just behind yours. I came and tended you, making sure the helpers handled you correctly.”
The Lord was with me always, he even provided a doctor at the accident site!
As I recovered in Pinderfields Hospital – two chaplains, both called Roger visited me. They prayed, shared Holy Communion, conveyed messages of well-wishes from friends. That was my first-hand experience of Chaplaincy in the NHS.
In my Quiet Times, I read this little Bible (which I am holding up), it was in my pocket at the time of my accident. It survived the impact! It survived with me. In all the months of recovery that followed, I never felt that I had been abandoned by my Lord Jesus. Every day this little bible popped a verse out to give me courage and encourage me. Psalm 40 was especially precious, ‘I waited patiently for the Lord… he lifted me out of the slimy pit’ Psalm 40:1.
Hebrews 12:1-2 ‘let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.’
As I opened this tiny bible, I received a word for each day. This is the living word.
One such text was the verse I recited as I lay on the steep bank at Honister Pass;
“I am with you always.” Matthew 28:20
Friends, He speaks to us through this book, keep reading this good book daily. He will guide us, strengthen us, encourage us, nurture us through this living word.
As I progressed through rehab and gruelling sessions in the gym for months. I thought back to my maths teacher Mrs Burgess. I knew the Lord had held her though months of Intensive Care and hospitalisation and she came back, still teaching, still trusting and pressing on. There was no drama, no big heroic story just a lovely Christian walking humbly with her Lord (Micah 6:8).
I got a number of invites to tell my story in churches, Full Gospel Businessmans Fellowship, Rotary, and Round Table and I was beginning to develop a James Bond version of my own story.
One day shortly before I was discharged from hospital I received a card in the post from a Christian work colleague, Sally. The verse inside spoke clearly to me:
Isa 30:15 ‘in quietness and trust is your strength’
I sensed that the Lord was saying to me go back to your studies – I am not calling you to be an after-dinner speaker, I am calling you to accountancy, to be a witness in your workplace.
Ten months after my accident I returned to work and to study for my final Chartered Accountants exams.
My firm Neville Russell sent me to the Isle of Wight for block release residential training. I camped up in the Old Park Hotel in October 1980 and then March 1981 (for eight weeks each time). That began my love for the IoW.
On my first Sunday I went in search of Christian fellowship. I met John Walker (who is here today) I met some of the Wells family, and the Stubbings boys. Friends, my time of study was also a time of special fellowship with newfound brothers in Christ on the Island. That’s how the family of God is, we start out strangers but we have the same Abba father! We are connected.
Seven years after my accident, I enjoyed a different kind of fellowship - I met Jenn in 1984 and we married in 1986. I introduced her to the Isle of Wight and the rest is history! Today we have three adult girls, all of them live nearby on the Island. We are blessed.
Much later the Lord spoke clearly to me about a career change. I have not got time to go into the story in details but to cut a long story short, a stranger who turned out to be a Christian came up to me and said;
”I am not sure if this will mean anything to you but I have to say the word ‘Ordination’ to you.”
Off I went for training in Christain ministry at Cranmer Hall, St John’s College University of Durham. After training at Durham Uni in I was ordained vicar in the Church of England. After serving my curacy at St Peter’s Stanley and Priest in Charge at St Andrew’s Wakefield, I was appointed Hospital Chaplain at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS TRust and in 2010 I moved to the Isle of Wight and was appointed senior chaplain at Mountbatten Hospice and St Marty’s Hospital.
Strange that I would end up as a Hospital Chaplain. After nine months in Pinderfield’s Spinal Injury Unit I never wanted to be near a hospital ever again! But that was the calling, the Lord has a sense of humour. Friends, the Lord can use everything that happens in our lives to help and bless others, if we will turn to him, invite him to be your Lord rather than follow some other Lord.
“Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”
2 Corinthians 2: 14 ,15
Because that 23-year-old was pinned under a car in a ravine at Honister Pass in the Lake District (UK) and because he clung to the Lord …. tended by chaplains Roger and Roger at Pinderfields Hospital Spinal Injuries Unit and because he believed the Lord was with him always (even when it didn’t seem so)… the Lord was able to use that testimony. And in time I became one of those chaplains who visited and comforted and brought prayers and a message of healing to people who were going through their own trauma.
I found as Hospital Chaplain that there was an assumed empathy; because of my disability, people presumed that I must know what it is like to be broken and vulnerable. When all the givens of life are taken away, health, job, future, home, car, independence. Without referring to my own story the Chaplain in a wheelchair would draw alongside the patient, same eye level, even brings his own chair with him and those who are frightened and vulnerable and alone find connectedness. It was such a privilege to be invited into people’s personal space, the bedside.
Some would ask big questions. Do you really think there is a heaven? Was Julie’s first question.
‘Do you believe in life after death?’ another question. ‘Him up there mustn’t be happy with me,’ someone would call out. ‘Send one up for me vicarage he’s not listening to me.’ Some would weep as we prayed to what they called a higher power but I was able to say, it’s better than that, that power is personal, his name is Jesus Philipians 2:9.
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name”
He knows you and you can know him in a personal way.
I will end with the story of Donald Ellingham.
Don did not suffer fools. Even as he lay in his robes and pyjamas he exuded class. He let me know he had been a successful businessman and now he was facing a life limiting illness - his prognosis was not good. I asked him how he was coping with that disclosure. “I think I’ll be all right on the other side – I haven’t done much wrong.” he says confidently.
I asked did he have a faith. ‘C of E of course,’ he replied.
I said, ‘Do you mind if I suggest to you that at the end of you days, it is not about what you have done, it is about what someone else has done for you.
What do you mean?
It is not about all the good things you have done in this life it is all bout what Jesus has done for you when he died on the cross and rose again on Easter Sunday.
I’m not that religions, I don’t know much about all that.
Would you like to, read something about it?
Aye, go on then, it won’t do any harm will it?
I gave Donald a little booklet ‘journey into life’ and asked him to read through it and if he has any questions, we can talk about them when I come round the ward again tomorrow.
The next day, Don greeted me with a broad smile. ‘I have prayed the prayer in the back of that book, I’m OK now.’
We talked some more and I learnt that Don had invited Christ into his heart during the dark hours of the night.
He was safe for all eternity.
Jesus says;
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelation 3:20
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet, flood every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair
Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment, I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand
Bob Dylan
