Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: God knows you better than you know yourself. Do you find his intimate knowledge of you comforting or frightening? We’ll think this through together on Truth For Life Weekend as we consider King David’s response to our all-knowing God. Alistair Begg is teaching from Psalm 139 today, but he begins in Psalm 135, addressing the eternal, all-knowing nature of God.

Alistair Begg: Psalm 135, let's just look at verse 13. Your name, O Lord, endures forever. Your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, all the rest, Ruth, all the way through, Peter, James, John, Eric Liddell, Jim Elliot, Helen Roseveare, all the way through. For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants.

And then look at what he says in verse 15. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but don't speak, they have eyes but don't see, they have ears but they don't hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them.

So the contrast is vast. And what he is pointing out as he goes through and writes in this way is the absurdity, and it is an absurdity, for men and women to seek ultimate answers from substitute gods. But that’s what we do. You see, when we turn away from God as he has made himself known, we don't trust in nothing, we trust in all kinds of things.

Because we are made in order to worship, to worship the true and living God. And when the people turn back and when they turn aside, where do they end up? The ironsmith makes his piece. The carpenter makes his piece. He shapes it into a figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house.

He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak, and he lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar, the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel. He takes a part of it and warms himself. He kindles a fire, he bakes bread. So far, so good.

But wait a minute. Also he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire, over the half he eats meat, he roasts it and is satisfied. He warms himself and says, "Aha, I'm warm. Great fire." And the rest he makes it into a god, his idol. And he falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, "Deliver me, for you are my god."

Now look back at Psalm 139. O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. Now here is the fascinating and vitally important thing. And I'd read this psalm ever since I was wee, but I'm not sure that I really focused on this till I began to look at it this past week. The knowledge of God is as I have said, comprehensive. It spans the globe.

But the point that he’s making here is not the comprehensiveness of the knowledge of God, but the fact that David says, "You know me. You know me." It’s one thing to say you know everybody in the world, he’s got the whole world in his hands, true. But David says, "You have searched me and you know me."

We're going to be able to say these things to our teenagers, we'll go on through the psalm and see how vital it is that they understand that they're not the product of chance, that they're divinely put together and that God knows them and that he knows us. Now let’s just look at how he outlines this.

Some of you will remember Warren Wiersbe. What a wonderful man he was. I met him in the early days of my life here and enjoyed him very much and he always had a funny story, but he was masterful at outlining passages of the Bible. And when I found out what he did with this section, I said, "That's for me. That's for me."

And now it’s going to be for you, because this is how he worked his way through it. The headings, some of them are his and some are a corruption. But there, look at this in verses one and two. First of all, you know what I do. You know what I do. You know when I sit down and when I rise up.

So the psalmist says, "You know my actions and you know my movements. You know whether I brushed my teeth or whether I didn't." You know everything. You know what I do. Two B, you discern my thoughts from afar. Not only do you know what I do, but you know what I think. You know what I think.

All that goes on in my mind is known to you, almighty God. In other words, David is acknowledging the fact that it is impossible for him to deceive God because God knows even our secret thoughts. God knows the motives of my heart as well of the actions, as well as the actions of my life.

You know what I do whether I'm moving around, whether I'm sitting up or lying down. But you know my thoughts. You know them from afar. Distance is no issue to God. Then in verse three, you know what I do, you know what I think, you know where I go. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

We sang it, didn't we? All my ways are known to you. Do you actually believe that? All my resting spots, all the laybys, all the spare time in the airport. You search out my path and you're acquainted with all my ways. You following this? You know what I do, you know what I think, you know where I go.

Verse four, you know what I say. Even before a word is on my tongue, there’s a behold. Remember we said a few weeks ago, we don't often say, "Behold, there is McDonald's." It’s so when you come to a behold like this, he’s saying it’s an exclamation mark almost. He says, "You know, even before a word is on my tongue, behold."

Think about this, he says. You know it. You know it altogether. Behold, you know everything, you know it altogether. In other words, what he’s saying is, you know me better than I know myself. It’s quite staggering, isn't it? It’s wonderful, unless you're scared by it. It’s a threat to the unbeliever, for sure, that God knows all this.

In other words, I may be a master of disguise before you. You can conceal where you go during the week, so can I. You and I can cover up our pasts if we choose. You and I can exaggerate what we do, how clever we are, what we have achieved.

You and I can cover our heart’s secret longings from those who sleep in our own beds, but we cannot before the searching gaze of almighty God. And that is the point that he’s making. You know what I do. You know what I think. You know what I say. You know me better than I know myself. You know where I go. You have searched me and known me.

This is quite wonderful. A god before whom we could conceal all these things would have to be one of these made-up gods. I mean, it’s like Augustine says, a god who doesn't know the future is not God. I mean, a god that didn't know this, he wouldn't be much of a god.

So that’s why, you see, we want to make a god in our own image. We want a manageable god. You know, a god who kind of looks after things generally, so that the floods don't finally overwhelm us, that the equilibrium of our existence is managed and so on, so that we can get by. But surely not a god like this? Yes, he says.

And sixthly, you know what I need, verse five. What do I need? I need your presence every passing hour. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand on me. Now, we do not know in what context David wrote this psalm. I've thought about it a lot, and perhaps you will later on today as you think of all your way back through First and Second Samuel.

And all the points and places along the journey where we followed his life that he might have sat down and written this particular psalm. If there is any indication of a context or occasion, perhaps it is to be found in the verses to which we'll come in the end of this study. O that you would slay the wicked, O God, the men of blood depart from me.

If then the occasion is that he is confronted again by those who oppose God, who oppose David as God’s covenant king. You remember we said that David’s response to things like this, not to anticipate the final study, but David’s response was the response of he who was the covenant king. He was the Lord’s anointed.

And David, who writes this psalm, sings this psalm, and he recognizes, verse five, that he needs the sheltering protection of the hand of God. You hem me in behind and before. It’s like being hedged around. It’s protected. I don't think that we ought to read it, although some of the commentators do, in terms of restriction.

So the picture of one is being hemmed in by way of restriction. I don't think so, but rather by way of protection. I don't want to go to the same old analogies I always use about grandchildren and putting pillows around them to stop them from collapsing and so on. But the picture of being hemmed in, of the hand of God, of being watched over, is wonderful.

You think about it, I just mentioned Elliot, he was in my mind this week. Somebody sent me a picture from a notice board of a church in the North of Ireland, and it had Jim Elliot’s picture from Wheaton College and it had the dates of his life. He died at 29 as a martyr, as you will know.

And the great statement from his diary, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." And if you know the story that his wife, Elisabeth Elliot, wrote of him, you'll remember that before they encountered the forces that finally took their lives, they stood on the beach and they sang, "We rest on thee, our shield and our defender. We go not forth alone against the foe, strong in thy strength and safe in thy keeping tender. It’s in your name we go."

You hem us in behind and before. You say, but how does that work? They lost their heads. As for God, his way is perfect. We'll see later on in the psalm that all the days that he ordained for us were written in his book before one of them came to be. And again, you have that lovely picture of the hand of God, don't you?

The psalmist mentions it frequently. The prophets mention it always. I am the Lord, I will take you by the hand, I will keep you. If you've started to read in Ezra these past few days of the year, then you know that that was a recurring word concerning all of the kindness of Artaxerxes towards the people of God.

And Ezra says on more than one occasion, and he was aware that the hand of God rested upon me. You think about hands, think about God’s hand. God doesn't have a hand. You think about it when a child takes a father’s hand, the tiny hand inside a big hand. You lay your hand upon me.

You protect me. You're watching over me. We sing of it, don't we? "Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting so to take as from a father’s hand." Jesus sang the 139th psalm. As a boy, he sang this. Jesus not only sang it, but in many ways he fulfilled it. He lived it.

We can't import Jesus back into the psalm, but the psalm will always send us ultimately forward to Jesus. And maybe your mind goes where my mind went when I stopped for a while thinking about the hand of God, and then I said, "Well, isn't that what Jesus said from the cross? Father, into your hand I commend my spirit."

Well, just a few closing thoughts, but let me give you a paraphrase of the six verses. See if this helps to register it. David says, "I'm an open book to you. Even from a distance you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back. I'm never out of your sight.

You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you're there. Then up ahead and you're there too. Your reassuring presence as I come and go." Now look at verse six. What is his response to all of this? His response is wonder. It’s wonder.

He says, "This is actually beyond my ability to fathom. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. I've never completed this course. I can't complete this course." It’s very clear, isn't it, that David, as representative of the psalms and the psalmist, thinks very differently about God than we are prone to do.

I said to myself as I was reading it this week, you know, in many ways, I've become a practical atheist. You know my thoughts? You know the words before I even get them on my lips? That’s somewhat daunting. In fact, Jim Packer, in a wonderful little statement in his book Knowing God, he says, "Living becomes an awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the sight and company of an all-knowing, ever-present God."

And he’s got that dead on. It becomes an awesome business. Awesome. So there’s two ways to look at this, you see. You can look at it and say, "Oh, this is a terrifying reality." Or you can say, "This is an unbelievable privilege."

Almighty God, you got what, 8 billion people to look after, and you know my every thought? You care about me that much? You watch over my coming and going, you're interested in all my ways? You know my fears, you know my failures, you know my starts, my stops, my missteps, my disasters, and yet you love me.

I said to Sue, through the last few days, I said, she said, "Are you ready for Sunday?" I said, "Well, I know how to start, but I don't know how to finish." She said, "Well, I think it’s pretty important that you get to a finish." So here’s the best I can do with a finish.

I was thinking about it just this morning when I woke up. You say, "Wow, you're running close to the deadline, aren't you?" Well, there’s nothing like the thrill of that scare, I tell you. I woke up thinking about Nathanael. Not my son-in-law, but that’s his name, one of them. Not that one.

No, the Nathanael of John one. Philip has found Nathanael, and he says to him, "Nathanael, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathanael says to him, it’s not very complimentary, he says, "Well, hey, wait a minute, can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Philip said to him, "Come and see." So he says, "Okay, I'm going to go see Jesus." Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit." Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

How could he do that? Because he’s the Messiah. Because he’s God. Because he’s the shepherd of the sheep. Which brought me to my concluding observation. I hope it’s helpful to you. "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He who is a hired hand," remember David was a shepherd, "he who is a hired hand, not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep and flees. The wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he’s a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

Now listen. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me. I know my own, and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep." And then further down, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand." Fantastic, isn't it? He knows. We sing it sometimes in that song, "You know all the things I've ever done, and yet your blood has canceled every one." Oh God. Oh God. This is wonderful, Father. It’s high, it’s beyond our ability to comprehend. Thank you for giving us an inkling of it. Help us to live in the light of it.

Bob Lepine: You're listening to Truth For Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. Do you share King David’s awe of God? Can you honestly say along with him, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me"? If your passion for God seems to have waned, we want to recommend to you a book that will help you jumpstart it. It’s called A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation. Many of the Reformers emphasized that faith comes to us by grace alone, but that doesn't mean we're not responsible for nurturing a growing faith in our lives.

And that’s what this book lays out. It explains the specific practices that God calls us to so we can enjoy lifelong spiritual maturity and zeal. While God works continually in our lives, we're expected to do our part so the Spirit can conform us to the likeness of Jesus. This is a practical book that outlines what scripture instructs us to do and why. It explores essential disciplines like prayer and meditation, but also explains the importance of self-evaluation or worship or Christian fellowship. A Heart Aflame for God will challenge you to nurture a faith marked by deep affection for God and to fuel genuine devotion through the consistent study of God’s Word.

To find out more about the book A Heart Aflame for God, visit our website, truthforlife.org. And while you're on the website, check out Alistair’s audiobook titled Brave by Faith. This is a short book that teaches you how to live faithfully and courageously in a world that increasingly opposes God and his Word. Right now you can download the Brave by Faith audiobook along with the companion study guide for free. This offer is good for a limited time, so download yours today at truthforlife.org/brave.

I'm Bob Lepine. Can we hide from God? Many have certainly tried. Next weekend, we'll consider why we try hiding from God and why God continues to seek us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.