Our Thoughts About God's Thoughts
(No. 2609)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1899.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 1, 1883.
"How precious also aire Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the
sum of them!If I should count them, they are more in number than the
sand: when I awake, I am still with You." Psalm 139:17,18.
This Psalm dilates upon the Omniscience of God. In the most forcible
manner, it shows that God's eyes have always rested upon us and are
resting upon us now. We are here made to see that God knew all about us
before we were born, that He now reads our most secret thoughts and
that our unspoken words are all known to Him. And I want you to notice
that the Psalm is not at all in that mournful strain in which we
sometimes speak of the Omniscience of God. It is a very solemn thing
that God should be everywhere. "You God see me," is a note of the most
serious kind when sounded in the sinner's ear, but, to those who are
the people of God, there is nothing dreadful in the thought that God
sees us. There is nothing to cause us to despond or to make us feel
gloomy in the fact that God compasses our path and our lying down. In
fact, in proportion as we are fully reconciled to God, love Him and
rejoice in Him, it will become a cause ofjoy to reflect that our best
Friend is never away from us–that our Protector's hand is never
removed, that the great observant eyes of Divine Love are never closed!
Oh, dear Friends, could we ever go to any place where God is not to be
found, that would be the Hell of hells to His people! And if there
could be a period in which the Lord did not look upon us, we might say,
"Let that day be blotted out from the calendar." It is a joy, a bliss,
a foretaste of Heaven to know that–
"Wherever we seek Him, He is found" and even when we are not seeking
Him, yet still He is above, beneath and all around us! He is never far
from any of us. May we all have the Grace that will enable us to
rejoice in a present God! We may judge as to our position before God by
this test–is the thought of His constant observation of us a subject
ofjoy or of dread? If we dread it, surely we have the old spirit of
bondage still upon us! But if we rejoice in it, then we may know that
we have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba, Father."
I am going to try to speak, as God shall help me, first, upon God's
thoughts of us. "How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!" Then, secondly, I want to say a little
upon our thoughts about God's thoughts. His thoughts become precious to
us as we think about them. Then, thirdly, I wish to speak at somewhat
greater length concerning our thoughts upon God Himself. "When I awake,
I am still with You."
I. First, then, let us meditate for a little while upon GOD'S THOUGHTS
OF US.
That the infinite Jehovah thinks of us is absolutely certain. He thinks
about all the inhabitants of the whole world. There is a general
Providence which has a superintendence over all that happens in all
parts of the earth. I know that the notion of some men is that the
world is like a watch and that God has done with it as we do with our
watches–that is, wound it up, put it under His pillow and gone to
sleep. But it is not so, for in this great world-watch–to keep up the
figure–God is present with every wheel and every cog of every
wheel–there is no action in it apart from His present putting forth of
power to make it move. There is nothing that happens merely as the
result of, "law," as some people seem to dream, for a law is nothing
without a forceat the back of it! When we speak of certain things as
being governed by law, we simply mean that as far as we have discerned,
that is the general way in which this particular thing moves, or is
acted upon, or acts upon some other thing. But, then, where is the
force that enables it to act so, or that makes it to be so acted upon?
"That is gravitation," says one. Yes, that is your name for that force,
but it is really God who is everywhere at work! Though the law of
gravitation may be said to be abiding, yet the force of gravity is but
the force which proceeds from God. It is God still putting forth His
power and operating after His own manner upon material substances.
God, therefore, thinks upon the whole world–and I am glad that it is
so! I do not like the idea of being put out to nurse, as it were, and
left without my Heavenly Father's personal supervision. I like to be in
a world that is really God's garden, a part of His own homestead in
which He dwells and where I am always directly under the glance of His
eyes. Rivers unknown to song, far distant from civilization, are
nevertheless homely places to one who has learned to be at home with
God.
Now, as God thinks and must think of the whole material universe which
He has created, much more does He think of men and most of all of us
who are His own chosen people, to whom He stands in a very peculiar
relationship as our Father, who has "begotten us again unto a lively
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." God must think
of us–the blood would not flow in our veins, nor would the breath make
our lungs to heave, nor would our various bodily processes go on
without the perpetual exercise of His power. God must think of us
especially in all the higher departments of our being, for they would
speedily come to nothing apart from His constant care. There would be
none of the spirit of prayer if He did not work it in us. There would
be no spirit of sonship if the Holy Spirit did not teach us continually
to cry, "Abba, Father." Faith and hope and love are plants that only
live in the sunlight of God. And if the great Father of Lights
withdrew, all these would die. "Without Me you can do nothing," is as
certainly true of us who are His people, as of those who are far from
Him by wicked worlds. We must be united to God, or else we shall perish
and, therefore, as we know that we shall never perish, we are quite
sure that our Heavenly Father thinks of us. Think of all the gracious
influences that meet in your person to perpetuate your life–I mean,
your spirituallife–your holiness, your comfort, your joy. Think of all
the purposes of God that center in you in order that, by them, you may
be made perfect and so be fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of
the saints in light. Think of these things, I say, and you will at once
see that for the grand design which God has concerning you, it is
absolutely essential that He should think of you–and He does think of
you!
Next, God's thoughts of us must be very numerous. According to our text
the sum of them is very great–how great, the Psalmist does not say.
The number of God's thoughts is so vast that even if you could count
the sand on the seashores, you could not count the thoughts of God
concerning you! Oh, how important this makes us poor creatures, when we
remember that God thinks of us! I would like you to sit still a minute
and think over this wonderful Truth of God. You know that people are
very proud if a king has merely looked at them. I have heard of a man
who used to boast, all his life, that King George IV– such a beauty as
he was!–once spoke to him. He only said, "Get out of the road," but it
was a king who said it, so the man felt greatly gratified thereby. But
you and I, Beloved, can rejoice that God, before whom kings are as
grasshoppers, actually thinks of us and thinks of us often. One or two
thoughts would not suffice for our many needs–if He only thought of us
now and then, what would we do in the meantime? But he thinks of us
constantly! He says that He has engraved our names upon the palms of
His hands, as if to show how continually we are before Him. David said,
"I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me." And our Savior said
to His disciples, "Your Father knows what things you have need of
before you ask Him," proving that He had thought about them and had
looked upon them with careful eyes and observed all their necessities.
Yes, God does in very deed and of a truth think upon His people–and
His thoughts concerning them are very numerous!
And they are also very tender God never thinks of His people in a harsh
way. He never has an unkind thought concerning even the most erring of
those who are His own children. He looks upon them as a father looks
upon his child, with intense affection, pitying them when they stray
from Him. And if, sometimes, He chides them for their wrongdoing, even
then He does but veil the purpose of His love that He may accomplish it
the better. He is always aiming at that which will promote our best
health, our truest wealth and our ultimate perfection. At times, clouds
come between our souls and our God, but His love is always shining. O
Beloved, if the Lord had not thought very tenderly of us, He would have
cut some of us down long ago as cumberers to the ground. "He has not
dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our
iniquities." How often He has screened us from trouble! How frequently
He has prepared us for a trial, so that, when it came, it did not crush
us! How often He has rescued us out of sore perils! How often He has
visited us in the night and given us songs amid our sorrow! "Your
gentleness has made me great," said David, and many another child of
God has said the same! There is nothing that can equal the tenderness
of God towards us, His poor, frail and erring children.
But while God's thoughts concerning us have been thus tender, they have
also been very wise. To make a glass that should reflect without any
color the object placed before it, was long the desire of those who
made certain kinds of optical instruments. They worked a long time to
no purpose, but, at last, someone discovered how to form an achromatic
lens and then, lo and behold, when this man had thought out his plan
perfectly in all its details, he was able to make a glass which was
exactly like the eyes of an insect which I have often seen. So, when
the man thought aright, he thought just as God thought and, after going
a long way round about, when he did come to the right conclusion, he
came just where God was. And, in like manner, if you and I were to try
to work out the problem of our lives, and if we were wise enough to
discover the best way in which we could get to Heaven, we would come
exactly to the route which God has marked out for us and we would do
with ourselves precisely what God does with us! Were we always wise, we
would never murmur. Were we to be endowed with infinite wisdom, we
would rejoice in the very things which now distress us–and the clouds
and darkness which we now seek to avoid, we would willingly pass
through if we did but see, as God sees, the end as well as the
beginning! His thoughts are wise for the whole of our lives. He does
not simply think how He shall make us happiest today, or how He should
give us the most enjoyment for a week–that is how fond and foolish
mothers think and plan for their boys. They make ducks of them–and
they grow up geese. They indulge them and spoil them, but it is never
so with God in His thoughts concerning the happiness of His children.
He looks far ahead. He takes eternityinto the compass of His thoughts
and He judges what is best to do for us, not merely under the aspect of
an hour, or a week, or a month, or even of a whole life below, but He
puts eternity into the scale and orders all things well for everlasting
ages!
You and I could not think like that, could we? We soon get puzzled with
our little calculations and it is unwise for us to look too far ahead.
If we begin considering 50 cares at once, they will prove to be too
many for us. Our best way is to take them one by one and live by the
day, or, better still, moment by moment. Such a course as that would
not be wise for us if it were not that there is Another who, not living
by the day, Himself, but filling all eternity, judges for us according
to that blessed stanza of the Psalmist, "His mercy endures forever."
These, then, are the thoughts of God concerning us–certain, numerous,
tender and infinitely wise.
And God's thoughts, too, are very practical. He does not think of us
and let it end with thinking, but God's thoughts are really His acts,
for, with Him, to will is to do. He utters His thought and, lo, it is
accomplished! His fiat has achieved it. God might have thought much of
us and the thought would have had no comfort in it if it had not moved
His hand to succor and to help us. Think awhile of the practical
thoughts of God for us in the eternity when He chose us before the
daystar knew its place. Think of the Everlasting Covenant, ordered in
all things and sure, made before the sun had shed a single ray of light
upon the earth. Think especially of that part of the Covenant in which
the Father made His Son to be our Covenant Head and gave Him to stand
in our place as our Surety and Substitute. Oh, what a thought was
that–how wonderfully practical–that God should take His Beloved Son
from His bosom and give Him up to die that we might live! And, ever
since, all along our history, God has thought of us. He thought of us
when we were babes and we were nourished and cherished. He thought of
us when we were children and we learned to lisp His name. He thought of
us–
"When, in the slippery paths of youth, With heedless haste we ran."
He has thought of us since we have come to manhood. Yes, and in the
case of many of us, He has thought of our children and of our
children's children, too. And He is still thinking of us and He will
continue to do so when our last thoughts die out in insensibility.
Remember His ancient promise to His people–"Even to hoar hairs will I
carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry and will
deliver you." And we shall find it to be so! And each Believer may say,
with David, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." These,
then, are God's thoughts concerning us–constant, kind, wise, tender,
gracious, perfect, Divine–like He in whose infinite mind they are
found!
II. Now let us meditate for just a few minutes upon OUR THOUGHTS ABOUT
GOD'S THOUGHTS.
What do you say, my Heart, to this wondrous Truth of God–that the Lord
thinks upon you? I have been ready to say what would be a very fair
translation of the Hebrew–"how rare are Your thoughts!" You know that
the word, "rare," was used in a different sense in olden times from
what it is now. In Westminster Abbey there is s stone with these words
upon it, "O rare Ben Jonson!"–meaning strange, special, peculiar,
marked. So the thoughts of God are rare thoughts, the like of which
cannot be found anywhere else! The thoughts of angels, or the thoughts
of perfect spirits above must be something very wonderful, but, oh, the
thoughts of God! If I were told that some bright angel was sent to
think of me all day and all night long, that he was my Master's servant
to watch over me, I would feel pleasure in the thought, yet that would
be a poor, poor thing compared with the fact that God thinks upon us
and watches over us! The Lord told Moses that His angel would go before
the people through the wilderness, but you may have noticed how Moses
pleaded against such a decision–"If Your Presence go not with me,
carry us not up hence." We do not need angelic presence one hundredth
as much as we need the Divine Presence! Here, then, in God's thoughts
concerning us, is something rare and wonderful, indeed! And this is our
thought about it, that there is no other thought that can, for a
moment, be compared with it!
How delightful, too, it is to be thought upon by God! I have already
said that to some people, the Truth that God is looking upon them wears
an aspect of awe and dread. "Oh," says one, "is it not terrible to
think that God's eyes are always upon me?" It is not terrible to me–I
am right glad that it should be so, and I pray, with David, "'Search
me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if
there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.' You
will see much that will grieve You and much that You will have to
amend, but still, I would not wish to hide anything from You, my Lord.
Lies not all my hope, my very Heaven, that way? The glances of Your
eyes, are they not the very medicine that shall cure my soul-sickness,
or, at least, the means by which I shall get the medicine that will
heal me of the dire disease of sin?"
It is even so, and the true child of God wishes to always get more and
more closely under the inspection of his Heavenly Father–and the
thoughts of God towards him charm and delight him. Does God in very
deed think of me, from the moment when I wake in the morning, and all
through the day, till I lock up my heart at night and give Him the key?
Does He keep on thinking of me while I lie asleep, unable to think of
anything except poor wandering thoughts that come in my dreams? If so,
blessed be His name that He condescends to do anything of the kind!
"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!" How delightful is it
to be thus thought of by You! And how consoling it is, also!
We all like to be thought of and remembered. I went to call on one who
was sorely sick. The doctor had said that he must see no one, but when
his friends told him I was there, he exclaimed, "Oh, let him come up!"
"No," they replied, "he must not, for it might excite you, and do you
harm." "Give him my love, then," he said, "and tell him that it does me
good to know that he is downstairs." We like to be thought of, I am
sure that we do. Even the thoughts of a little child towards us have
comfort in them. There is many a mother who is made a widow and she
sits down to weep as if her heart must break. But when her little one
plucks her skirt, ignorant of the sorrow which it will one day have to
feel with the mother, and the mother hears the child's merry little
note, it is often the best form of consolation that God sends to her
bereaved spirit!
We all like to be kindly remembered, but, oh, what is it to be thought
of by God? "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will
take me up." And if men misrepresent us, and misinterpret us, and speak
evil of us, and put us out of their company, what does it matter, as
long as the Lord draws nearer to us than He did before? God's servants
in Scotland had brave times among the heather when they had to watch
for Claverhouse's dragoons and stood in jeopardy of their lives. The
Lord was especially present among the lone crags and they heard His
voice in the Psalm and then from above in the thunder! So near was the
Lord to them in the dark days of persecution that afterwards, when
peaceable times came and they could go to the kirk in quiet, there were
some who looked with regret on those other days when they met at the
peril of their lives and God was their Leader! So, God's thoughts are
precious to us by way of consolation.
They also have other effects upon us, for the thoughts of God often
move the souls of Christians, strengthening them in faith, awakening
them to love and stirring them to zeal. There is many a man who has
done, under a sense of God's Presence, what he would never have dreamed
of doing if he had not realized that the Lord was there. As the
Highland chieftain, when he fell and was dying, said to the men of his
clan, "I shall watch you, my children, as you rush to the fight," and
so made them brave–when we think of God's watching us and of His eyes
being upon us, we also become valiant and do exploits in His sight! And
each one of us sings–
"I can do all things, or can bear
All sufferings, if my Lord is there!
Sweet pleasures mingle with the pains,
While His left hand my head sustains." His Presence is all that our
heart requires. Indeed, Beloved, when we really drink in the thoughts
of God towards us, our spirit is filled with all that it needs and is
borne onward as with a mighty rush–a full tide of Grace–up to the
Throne of Heaven!
III. Now I come to the last part of my discourse, OUR THOUGHTS UPON GOD
HIMSELF. David says, here, "When I awake, I am still with You."
I want you to notice, first, that he seems to imply that our thoughts
bring us near to God. Thinking of Him, we realize that we are in His
immediate Presence. I cannot describe the feeling of a spirit
consciously present with God, but, though I cannot describe it, I am
sure that many of you know what it is, and I am equally sure that I,
also, know what it is. There have been times with us when we did not
actually walk by sight but, still, we had a very joyful experience of
God's Presence with us. We not only believed in God's existence, but
our spirits seemed enveloped in and encompassed with His Spirit and
appeared to be, as it were, set on fire, as when the bush in the desert
was all aglow with the indwelling God. It is not always so with us, but
we have had times of extremely conscious nearness to God. After prayer,
as we rose from our knees and looked at the clock, we perceived that a
full half-hour had gone, whereas we thought that it was only a minute
or two that we had been at our devotions. In our chamber, alone, as we
have read the Word, the sacred page has seemed to glow with unusual
brilliance. We do not remember noticing such glory in those words,
before, but God has spoken to us through the Word and that has made the
difference.
Sometimes, as we have been sitting in the sanctuary, a solemn awe has
manifestly been on every heart. And when we went away, we said to one
another, "Surely God was in that place, and we knew it." You know how
Paul says about his rapturous experience, "Whether in the body, I
cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows."
Such things have happened to many of God's people and I believe that
the more we live in Him, and walk with Him, the more often will this be
our experience till it may even come to be perpetual, and our soul
shall be as certain of the Presence of God as we are of the presence of
our body. We shall get to have as keen a sense and recognition of the
Presence of God with us as we have of the atmosphere which surrounds
us. David's declaration, "When I awake, I am still with You," implies
that holy thoughts of the precious thoughts of God place us near to
God!
And, next, it implies that these thoughts help to keep us near to God.
' 'When I awake, I am still with You," said David, as if he meant, "I
have a long time been in Your company. I have been now by the week, the
month, the year, abiding in the light of Your Countenance, enjoying
Your sweet society. Your Grace has kept me near You."
Still further, such thoughts help to restore God's Presence to us if,
for a while, we have lost it. "When I awake"– that means, "I have been
asleep and so have lost the consciousness of God's Presence." Have you
ever known what it is, at night, to be quite sorry to go to sleep
because you have been so full of holy joy that you were afraid you
might lose it while you were unconscious? Have you never lain awake
thinking and meditating upon your God, enjoying His Presence so much
that you have said, "This is better than sleep. I wish that my eyes
might be kept wide awake that they might forget their need of rest,
that I might continue this hallowed communion"? But with our poor frail
frames we must sleep, so, is it not sweet that when you awake, you
should be where you left off, that, as your soul was holding fellowship
with God as you fell asleep, when you opened your eyes, again, He was
still there? You were ready to take up the happy employment where you
left off, for you had not broken the thread–and you went on still
communing with your God!
This text evidently refers in part to natural slumber. When our
thoughts are much with God, then it will happen that our sleep will
make no break in our communion with Him. Were you ever pained by a
dream? I will hold no man responsible for his dreams, but, if there
were no sin in us, we would have no sin even in our dreams. If we were
perfectly pure– as some think that they are–we would be perfectly
pure even in our dreams. Take off the bridles from the horses, remove
the bits from their mouths and let them go where they will, yet, if
they are thoroughly trained, they will not rush wildly about and they
will still obey your call. If a house is perfectly clean, it will be
just as clean if you take all the locks off and leave the doors open.
If a man is perfectly pure, he would be pure in any case and in any
condition. Therefore, even a dream may sometimes set us watching to
know how such mischief could get into our thoughts. It could not have
come there if sin had not been dwelling in us. But, oh, it is blessed
to get so near to God that when you fall asleep, you seem to hear, even
in your dreams, the music of His voice! And when you wake in the
morning, you will wish to recall those blessed thoughts that came to
you even when your whole being seemed steeped in sleep! The text says,
"When I awake, I am still with You." And I think that it also means,
"When I wake up from any temporary lethargy into which I may have
fallen, I am still with You." We all, sometimes, get into that
state–sleeping, though our heart is awake. We wish to be more brisk,
more lively–but we cannot stir ourselves up. We sing–
"Dear Lord! And shall we always lie
At this poor dying rate?"
We have fallen into a kind of stupor. What a blessing it is to be
awakened out of it, possibly by a severe affliction, perhaps by an
earnest discourse! Then the awakened one says, "Now I have come back to
You, my God. There was a something within me that could not forget You,
even for a while, though it lay still and dormant."
And, best of all, what a grand thing it will be, one of these days, to
go upstairs for the last time and stretch ourselves on the bed and say,
"Adieu! Adieu!" to all we love below–and then put our head back on the
pillow while those who are watching say, "He sleeps in Jesus!" "I shall
be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness." "'When I awake, I am
still with You.' I trusted You when I fell asleep and in the morning I
awoke to find You still my Friend."
Then, when my body wastes from its long sleep in the tomb, every rising
bone of it shall acknowledge the Lord! My eyes shall see Him in that
day–the God that loved me and died for me! Oh, how blessed it is to
keep the whole heart so fixed upon God that come sleep, come life, come
death, come what may, we shall be just like the needle in the compass
which always turns to the pole! You may turn it around, if you like,
but it always goes back and will not point anywhere but in that one
direction. May it also be true of you and me that we can rest nowhere
but in our God! I close my discourse, as I have often done before, with
that sweet verse–
"All that remains for me
Is but to love and sing,
And wait until the angels come
To bear me to the King."
I wish that all of you knew this blessed experience of which I have
been speaking. Some of you do not. You are afraid of God. You are
afraid of His seeing you. You are afraid to go to Him. See, then, here
is Jesus Christ who took upon Him our nature though He is God! Go to
Him, trust Him, believe in Him–then He will make you to be a child of
God and you will not be afraid of your Father. God bless you, for
Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM139.
May the all-seeing God, of whom this Psalm speaks, look down upon us
and bless us richly while we read it! Verse 1. O LORD You have searched
me, and known me.' 'Known me perfectly, far better than I know myself.
You have made an inquisition and investigated every secret thing
concerning me. 'You have searched me, and known me.'"
2. You know my sitting down and my rising up, You understand my
thoughts afar off' 'Before I think it, while as yet it is not actually
my thought, while it is still unformed and far away, You understand it.
You not only know what it is, but You understand it–the motive from
which it springs, the state of mind out of which it arises, and
whereunto it tends–'You understand my thought afar off"
3. You compass my path. "You are all round me–behind, before, above,
beneath"–
"Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God." 3.
And my lying down. "When wearied by my journey I lie down to rest, You
still bless my lying down."
3. And are acquainted with all my ways.' 'I cannot tell you anything
which You do not know; nor can I hide anything from You. Whatever I
have done, or am doing, or shall do, 'You are acquainted with all my
ways.'"
4. For there is not a wordin my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, You know it
altogether–
"He knows the words I mean to speak,
Ere from my opening lips they break."
God sees the word that is lying quietly on the tongue as well as the
word which has been uttered by the tongue. "You know it altogether."
God's knowledge is not partial or imperfect. He never misjudges any,
for He is acquainted with every part of every man.
5. You have beset me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.
"You have come so near me that You touch me. You not only know my
thoughts and my words, but You come into contact with me. You know me
as I know a thing when I feel it with my hand–'You have laid Your hand
upon me.'"
6. 7. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot
attain unto it Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Not that David
desired to go away from God, but he wished to show the impossibility of
escaping from the eyes of God. "Where shall I go from Your Spirit?"
7. Or Where shall I flee from Your Presence?' 'You are everywhere and
Your far-seeing eyes will behold me in every place. Vain is it,
therefore, for me to think that I can ever flee from Your Presence." Is
it not a very striking thought that every sin is committed in the
Presence of God? He must be a very bold rebel who would insult his
monarch to his face! Men are generally on their best behavior when they
stand upon the palace floor–yet the whole earth is but the habitation
of the great King eternal, immortal, invisible–and every time we sin,
we sin in His very Presence, and with His eyes resting upon us.
8-10. If I ascend up into Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in
Hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand
lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me Well did Dr. Watts write–
"If mounted on a morning ray
I fly beyond the western sea,
Your swifter hand would first arrive,
And there arrest your fugitive." There is no hope of escaping from God
by any speed to which we may attain, for if we could fly with the speed
of light, yet would Jehovah be before us–His hand would lead as, and
His right hand would hold us.
11. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall
be light about me. It shall be light to the eyes of God, for He depends
not upon the light in order that He may see. Light is a most welcome
aid to our poor eyes, but God sees just as well in the dark! "Even the
night shall be light about me."
12. Yes, the darkness hides not from You; but the night shines as the
day: the darkness and the light are both alike to You. This is a very
commonplace Truth of God and yet how seldom do men realize it! They
still fancy that when the night comes on and they are not perceived by
mortal eyes, they may do what they will. But there is no curtain in the
night that can hide a deed of guilt from the eyes of the Omniscient
Jehovah! "The darkness and the light are both alike to
You."–
"Almighty God, Your piercing eyes Strike through the shades of night
And our most secret actions lie All open to Your sight."
13. For You have possessed my reins. "The innermost parts of my
being–You have possessed them as Your own. You know as much about them
as a man knows of the rooms in his own house. 'You have possessed my
reins.'"
13, 14. You have coveredme in my mother's womb. I willpraise You. That
is a very sweet thing for the Psalmist to say. Just when he felt
stricken with awe by reason of this august attribute of the Omniscience
of Jehovah, he looks up to his God and says, "I will praise You."
14. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Anyone who understands
anatomy will tell you that man is strangely formed. So fearfully are we
made that our life stands in constant jeopardy–it looks as if every
breath might be our last and every pulse might speedily end our life.
You cannot examine a blood vessel–especially some of the very small
one through a microscope without being utterly astonished. Any medical
man will tell you that there are many times in an hour–perhaps even in
a minute–in which a very simple thing would put our life in imminent
peril of destruction! Truly we are "fearfully and wonderfully made."–
"Our life contains a thousand springs,
And dies if one is gone!
Strange, that a harp of thousand strings
Should stay in tune so long!"
Every man is a world of wonders. He need not go abroad for miracles,
for he is, himself, a marvelous and miraculous combination!
14. Marvelous are Your works; and that my soul knows right well How
there can be a compound of spirit and matter–how the earth on which we
tread should enter into our composition and yet we should be akin to
angels. How there can be something about us that links us with the
dust, yet much about us that joins us to God, Himself–these are
extraordinary things which we do not understand Where is the point in
which the spirit touches materialism? How is it that the will can move
the hand or the finger? How does spirit act on matter? Those are
questions much more easily asked than answered.
15. My substance was not hid from You, when I was made in secret, and
curiously made. Embroidered, as it were, with a needle. So
extraordinary is the body of man that it may be compared to the
needlework of God–"curiously made."
15, 16. In the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes did see my
substance, yet being imperfect And in Your book all my members mere
written. Just as an architect sketches his plan for a building and
specifies so much of this and that, so the Psalmist represents God as
writing down in a book all the members of our body.
16. Which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
them. God mapped out what He intended that we should be even when as
yet we were not in existence! And from our earliest days He cared for
us. If we look back upon our infancy–that considerable period of life
in which we were utterly helpless and could do nothing whatever for
ourselves–it ought to check our unbelief, because, if God took charge
of us, then, and found means for our protection and our growing up when
we were but little babes, if we should live to a second infancy, we may
fairly trust that God will take care of us again! And if we should
ever, through sickness, be reduced to such a helpless state that we can
do nothing for ourselves, yet He that cared for us before we saw the
Light of God, and when we saw it with feeble trembling eyes, will take
care of us still!
17-19. How precious, also, are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great
is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number
than the sand: when I awake, I am still with You. Surely You will slay
the wicked, O God. It must be so! God cannot let sinners continue to
live and provoke Him to His face. He must, one day, take down the sword
of Justice, unsheathe it, and slay the foes of righteousness! "Surely
You will slay the wicked, O God."
19. Depart from me, therefore, you bloody men.''Get away, lest, when He
comes to kill you, I should have to see you die."
20-22. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your
name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate You? And am not I
grieved with those that rise up against You? I hate them with perfect
hatred: I count them my enemies. We are to love our own enemies, but we
are not to love God's enemies! We are to forgive our personal enemies,
but we cannot forgive God's enemies! That man loves not the Truth of
God who does not hate a lie and he loves not the right who has no anger
against wrong. We are living in an age in which we are practically told
that truth and error are the same, that the devil's lie and the Divine
Revelation may lie down together! If we will not endorse this lie, men
call us bigoted or dogmatic. Bless the Lord, we mean to be a great deal
more dogmatic than we have been, and to stick even closer to the Truth
of God than we have up to now done, if that is possible!
23, 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts: and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in Your
way everlasting. That is a blessed prayer! May God hear it in the case
of each one of us, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.