As we continue this series from the 139th Psalm, please
follow along in your Bibles as I read the entire psalm for context: (Psalm 139)
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I
sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately
acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold,
O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before,
and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for
me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
Where can I
go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to
heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of
me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light
around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the
night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you.
For
You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I
will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not
hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in
the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me,
as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to
me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they when
would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.
O that You
would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of
bloodshed. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your
enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate those who
hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies. Search me, O
God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there
be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm
139:1-24)
Last week, we saw that God not only searches and probes us, but that He
also searches FOR us. So, while some ask themselves, “Who am I?” and, “Do I
matter?” the Christian – the one who seeks Christ in ongoing confession and
repentance – the Christian is confident that he or she is beloved by God, and that
he or she MATTERS to God.
Although we also looked at these verses last time: “[Lord]You have enclosed me
behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge
is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it” I want to take a few minutes to revisit them because of their
significance.
It is the Almighty
God who encloses us. He encircles us. He presses Himself around us on every
side. Listen to His promise to you and to me as He spoke through Isaiah (Isaiah
54:17) “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every
tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage
of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me,” declares
the Lord.”
No wonder
David couldn’t fathom the ever-present PRESENCE of the Lord. Who is able to fathom
it? To comprehend it? And when we take the time to HUMBLY consider that this
Almighty God who – by merely speaking it – brought the universe into existence
from nothing, when we consider this ineffable Being, His passion and compassion
and mercy and grace toward you and me, we who deserve nothing else but His
wrath – who can understand a God like that?
Let me
repeat that for emphasis: When we ponder the inexpressible wonder of this
ineffable Being, His passion, compassion, mercy, patience and grace toward you
and me – we who deserve nothing else but His wrath – who can understand a God
like that?
One of
Job’s so-called ‘friends’ got it right when he said: (Job 11:7-9) “Can you
discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? They
are high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can
you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.”
Listen now
to His words through Isaiah: (Isaiah 55:8-9) “For My thoughts are
not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares
the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
In the 5th
century, St Patrick wrote a poem that captures the essence of this text in
Psalm 139. Part of the poem reads this way: Christ with me, Christ before
me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ
on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise.”
As the
psalmist tells us: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him
and rescues them (Psalm 34:7).
It isn’t
possible to overemphasize this point about our God, whom Christians – and only
Christians – have the right to call God our beloved Father (see John 1:11-13);
It isn’t possible to overstate the point.
You might
remember the story of Elisha and his servant when they were in Dothan. The
Syrian king was at war with Israel, and Elisha – the disciple of Elijah – was
at the top of his list of enemies. When the king learned Elisha was staying in
Dothan, he sent his army to surround the city. We pick up the story in 2 Kings
6:15 --
“Now when
the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army
with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him,
“Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those
who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and
said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And
the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the
mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”
God’s
mighty and holy angels surround you and me. Right now, as you sit in your pews.
They surround you as you walk through your day. As you sleep through the night.
God’s supernatural angels never leave your side, their swords unsheathed, their
eyes watchful, their ears attentive, each sent by our Father and Creator of all
things visible and invisible, sent to protect us.
Now, let’s
return to our psalm as David continues: Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or
where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I
make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the
dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand
will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely
the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be
night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright
as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)
David asked a rhetorical question: Where can I go from Your
Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” In other words, where
can anyone hide from – or flee from – God’s presence?
David knew the answer even as he asked the question. There is no place
on earth, under the earth, or, for that matter, anywhere in the universe where
we can hide from or flee from God. He is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere
at the same time.
But though he knew the answer to the question he’d just asked, there
have always been, and will continue to be, many who try to hide from or run
from God. I know people like that. And you probably do too. But why would
anyone try to hide from, or run, from God?
I can think of at least two reasons. First: Many people think God is
always standing at the edge of His throne just waiting for us to mess up so He
can throw down a lightning bolt and teach us a lesson. That’s not so far-fetched
as some might think. I’ve hears many people joke about Baptist guilt, or Jewish
guilt, or Catholic guilt – or whatever is your preferred label. But joking
aside, as fourteenth century poet and writer, Gregory Chaucer noted: “Many a
truth is said in jest.”
And while it is true that in most God-honoring, Bible-believing churches
today, God is correctly described for us as a loving, merciful, patient, and
compassionate God and Father. But such preaching has not always been the case.
In earlier centuries, God was viewed as an unmerciful, angry, and wrathful
Being. Ignored were the multiple assurances throughout Scripture of the
Father’s love; John 3:16 comes immediately to mind. And what more evidence of
God’s love, mercy, and grace can there be beyond Calavry’s cross?
So, certainly one reason some people try to hide from God is because
they incorrectly believe Him to be arrogantly cruel and uncaring – not too
unlike some of the mythological gods of the Amorites, the Canaanites, or the
Greek and Roman gods.
But there is another reason some try to hide from or flee from God, and
that has to do with their own sin. They think if they can hide from God they
won’t have to adjust their lifestyles. So they hide behind such things as ‘intellectualism’
trying to ‘reason’ themselves into agnosticism, or atheism. And they flock to provably
false ideas of evolution, or new-age psychological babble. Some even behind religious
rituals, thinking if they cover themselves with such things then they won’t
have to live according to God’s commandments.
Let me make this clear before I move to the next point in my message – God is
love. He is merciful. He is a compassionate Father. He gave His Son to
bear the full weight of His wrath against OUR sins.
But make no mistake. God commands
us to be clothed by faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and to live holy
lives. And we should all pay heed to what St Paul wrote to those in Rome: (Romans
2:4) “Do you
think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not
knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”
Now, look with me again to what the psalmist wrote: “If I say,
“Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.”
Let me pause a moment
and talk about darkness – not a literal darkness as when the sun goes down, but
an emotional darkness, when life has taken a tragic turn and we feel as if we
should clothe ourselves in sackcloth and sit on a pile of ashes.
But Jesus gave us an immutable promise to never leave us. Indeed,
Scripture tells us He embraces us in our darkness. He
hugs us close to His chest – so to speak – even when the overwhelming darkness in
our soul makes us insensitive to His touch and we’re too tired to even think
about God’s matchless love for us.
Yes, such knowledge might be too high for our finite minds to comprehend
such love – but we ought not walk by sight or by feelings. We ought to walk by
faith.
Well, let’s continue with this psalm at verse 13. I like the way the
New Living Translation renders the text:
“You made all the
delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is
marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter
seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I
was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid
out before a single day had passed.” (verses
13-16)
Oh, I hope you heard that with your heart as well as
with your ears. Our loving God knit us together in our mother’s womb. And God
knew every moment of our life even before we were conceived.
Speaking of conceived, let me give you a quick lesson in embryology
that illustrates my point about God’s intimate love and the SPECIFIC attention
He gives to each of us.
Depending on the research article you read, did you know that when your
father had intercourse with your mother, he ejaculated between 100 million and
500 million sperm? But for the sake of easy numbers, let’s go with the lower
amount – 100 million sperm in each ejaculate. And each one has its own
unique DNA structure. Your mother, on the other hand, ovulated each
month usually only one ova. Each ova had its own unique DNA structure.
DNA is responsible for each one of the countless biological processes
in our bodies that were determined – at conception – what will
be our gender, our general physical characteristics, our natural intelligence
and talents, our health, our abilities and disabilities. All of it was
determined at our conception.
We also know from the science of embryology, all 100 million of your
father’s sperm were trying to fertilize your mother’s ova, but only ONE of them
was successful. Let me repeat that: Only one sperm – with its individualized
and unique DNA structure, different from every other one of the 100
million sperm – only one got there – the one sperm, joined to your mother’s unique
ova – they together became YOU.
Have you heard the expression, “You’re one in a million”? Well, let me
tell you what the science says: You are really one in one hundred
million – that is, you are one in a hundred million possibilities.
And God was not only there when it all happened, the psalmist – who
knew even less than nothing about the science of embryology – the psalmist,
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells us God DIRECTED it all as it
happened. God chose the one sperm and the one ova to join
together to become YOU.
And remember: God never makes mistakes. And God never makes
junk. That means YOU are not a mistake. You are not junk. God’s hand was
purposely and deliberately at work in your creation and formation in your
mother’s womb. Does that truth help us understand what a grievous affront it is
to our Creator when we willfully destroy that life through elective abortion?
Oh, God help us. God
forgive us. God change us.
Our God surrounds us,
encompasses us, holds us to Himself. There is no place on earth, under the
earth, or in the universe itself where anyone can hide from Him or run from
Him. And it is THIS omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent eternal Being who
loves you . . . loves you like the Rock of Ages. He loves you so much – even
though we cannot ever hope to fathom His love – He loves you so much that He
gave His only Son to be your sacrificial atonement to wash away completely even
the shadowing stains of your sins and mine.
I’ll then leave us all with
this question which we must answer: How then ought we to live, knowing even as
much as we know about such love?
Next week we’ll move further into this precious Psalm.
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