Reasons for Seeking God

Reasons for Seeking God

(No. 3034)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Seek Him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of
death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls
for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the
earth: The Lord is His name." Amos 5:8.

IDOLATRY has been, in every age, the besetting sin of mankind. In some
form or another, the unregenerate are all given to it and even in God's
people there remains in their old nature, a tendency towards it.

In its grosser manifestation, idolatry is the desire of man to see God
with his eyes, to have outward representation of Him who cannot be
represented, who is too great, too spiritual to ever be described by
human language, much less to be set forth by images of wood and stone,
however elaborately carved and cunningly overlaid with gold! There is a
great God who fills all space and yet is greater than space–whose
existence is without beginning and without end, who is everywhere
present and universally self-existent! But man is so unspiritual that
he will not worship this Invisible One in spirit and in truth, but
craves after outward similitudes, symbols and signs. If Aaron makes a
calf, Israel forgets the Divine Jehovah's Glory and says of the image
of an ox that eats grass, "These are your gods, O Israel, which brought
you up out of the land of Egypt."

We are apt to imagine that it is a very strange freak of human
depravity when men are led to worship visible objects and signs, but it
is not at all unusual or singular! It is the general sin of all
mankind. I suppose no man has been entirely free from it and every
Believer has to contend against it in its subtler forms, for idolatry
takes insinuating shapes, less gross in appearance than the worship of
Dagon or Ashtaroth, but quite as sinful.

Take, for instance, the common religious idolatry of our own country
which consists, in part, of reverence to holy places, as if under the
Christian dispensation, which is not one of type, but of fact, holiness
could dwell in stone, lime, wood, slate, iron and brass when
architecturally arranged! English idolatry further reveals itself in
reverence to an order of men, not because of their superior character,
but because of certain mystic rites performed upon them, by virtue of
which they are supposed to become the representatives of Heaven and the
reservoirs of Divine Grace. How trustful are our English idolaters in
these men when they behold them appareled in vestments which the tailor
has cut into fashions remarkably helpful to devotion! Without these
priests and their sumptuous adorning and grotesque disfigurements, our
modern idolaters cannot publicly worship–but in these they have as
much as the Ephesians had in their great goddess Diana!

They can only worship their god by objects which appeal to the senses.
An outward altar, an outward priest, an outward ritual, outward
rites–all these are nothing but another form of the old idolatry of
Babel and of Bethel! Man still turns from the unseen God. The unseen
Priest who has passed within the veil, man still ignores. The
spiritualfeast upon the body and blood of Jesus Christ which is the joy
of the saints, they know not! But the outward emblems are adored by
some and held in great reverence by others. Bread and wine, which are
but created and common things, even when placed on the table to assist
us in Communion, are made into deities by the blind idolaters of this
age! Could Egypt or Assyria do worse? Bread used at the ordinance is
but bread and nothing other than ordinary bread. Its emblematic use
imparts to it no measure or degree of sanctity, much less of Divinity!
It is idolatry–flat, groveling idolatry–and nothing less, which on
all sides is spreading its mantle of darkness over this land under the
pretense of profoundly reverent piety!

Where Ritualism does not reign, how easy it is for men to be idolaters
of themselves! What is self-reliance, understood as too many understand
it, but idolatry of self? It is the opposite of dependence upon the
living God, the

great Source of power and wisdom. Reliance upon my own wisdom, upon my
own resolution, upon my own strength of mind–these are idolatries in a
subtle and attractive shape. What is much of our overweening affection
to our children and to our relatives? What is our unsubmissive repining
but idolatry? How is it that we rebel against God if our friends are
suddenly taken from us? O man, why is it that your God has so little of
your love and the creature so much? There is a lawful affection–up to
that point you should go. There is an unlawful affection when, by any
means, the creature comes before the Creator–to this you may not
descend! Unlawful love, love which idolizes its object, is to be
avoided with all our might!

Then, again, perhaps a less excusable form of idolatry, though no
excuse is to be offered for any, is that in which men idolize their
estates and their confidence in their accumulations–living only to
acquire wealth and position– struggling in the race–not to win the
crown which is immortal–but that poor wreath with which men crown the
wealthy merchant, the diligent student, the eloquent barrister, the
valiant men of arms! This is idolatry, again, for it is setting up an
earthly object in the place of the Creator. To God is due all my love,
my trust, my fear. He made me and, therefore, I am bound to serve
Him–and whenever I lay down at the feet of any person or object,
dominion over my powers, apart from God, I am at once guilty of
idolatry!

I cannot stay to tell you all the various form which this idolatry
assumes, but may God give us Grace to strive against them. And you who
are still held captive by these idolatries, may He deliver! May He save
you from leaning upon an arm of flesh, from trusting in what may be
seen and handled, and bring you to rely upon the Invisible God to whom
alone belongs power and strength, and who has a right to our confidence
and our service!

The text is addressed to those who have been guilty, either in word, or
thought, or deed, of idolatry against God. It gives arguments to
persuade them to turn away from everything else and to seek the true
God. We shall read the text, first, in its natural sense and then,
diving into its meaning a little more deeply, we shall find spiritual
reasons in it for seeking Jehovah, and Jehovah alone.

I. First, then, IN THE NATURAL SENSE OF THE TEXT, we find a Truth of
God which is plain enough, but which we need to constantly be reminded
of, namely, that Jehovah is really God. If Jehovah were not really the
Creator of the world, if He did not in very deed make "the seven stars
and Orion," if He did not actually work in the operations of
Providence, changing the night into day, and day again into night, we
might be excused for not rendering Him service since homage might be
safely withheld from an imaginary deity.

But, as God is real and exists as truly as we do, as our existence is
dependent upon His Sovereign will and He is All-in-All, it is due to
Him that we should "seek His face." And simple as that utterance is, I
have need to push it home to you. I am afraid, dear Friends, that many
of you think of religion in its bearing towards God as being a very
proper, but at the same time, imaginative, matter. You do not
practically grasp the thought that God Is and that He is the Rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him. You do not lay hold upon the fact
that as surely as there are fellow creatures round about you, there is
a God close to you in whom you live, and move, and have your being. The
worldly man puts his foot down on the earth and he says, "This is the
main chance. I believe in this." He takes up certain fragments of that
earth, yellow and glittering, and he says, "Ah, I believe in this. Here
is something solid and I feel it." Just so, the created earth is real
to him and God, who created all things, is to him but a shadowy being!
He may not rudely deny His existence, but practically, he reduces his
thought of God to a mere fancy and says in his heart, "No God." My
attentive Hearer, I trust that you are not so unwise! You know that God
Is, that He Is even if we are not, that He fills all things and that He
dwells everywhere–and since He is the Creator, the First and Chief of
all things, I trust you are anxious to seek Him and to yield your
obedience to Him!

Note from the text that God is not only the true God, but He is the
glorious God. I cannot understand how the heathen, supposing their gods
had been gods, could worship such little, mean, base and contemptible
beings! Think of Jove, for instance, the great god of Rome and
Greece–what a disgusting animal he was! What a monster of sensuality,
selfishness and folly! I should feel it hard, as a creature, to worship
such a god as that, if he could be a god. But when I think of Him who
made "the seven stars and Orion," who stretched out the heavens like a
curtain and made the sky as a molten mirror–who is magnificent in the
acts of Creation, marvelous in the wonders of Grace and unsearchable in
all the attributes of His Nature, my soul feels it to be her honor and
delight to adore Him! It is an elevation to the soul to stoop to the
dust before such a God! The more we reverence Him and the less we
become in our own sight, the more

sublime are our emotions. Well did even a heathen say, "To serve God is
to reign." To serve such a God as ours is to be made kings and priests!
Oh, were not our hearts perverted and depraved, it would be our
greatest happiness, our highest rapture to sound forth the praises of a
God so glorious! And our hearts would be always enquiring of Him,
"Lord, what will You have me do? Your will is wiser and better than my
own will. I ask no greater liberty than to be bound with Your bands of
love! I ask no greater ease than to bear Your blessed yoke."

Since, then, the Lord is real and, moreover, so glorious as to be
infinitely worthy of worship, we should seek Him and live.

Again, Jehovah the true God, is most powerful for He "makes the seven
stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and
makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea,
and pours them out upon the face of the earth: Jehovah is His name."
Think reverently of Him, for He is not like the gods of the heathen, of
whom the Psalmist said in satire, "Their idols are silver and gold, the
work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have
they, but they see not: they have ears, but they hear not; noses have
they, but they smell not: they have hands, but they handle not: feet
have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat."
Contempt and ridicule are poured upon these wooden gods by the Prophet
Isaiah when he tells of the workman who takes one end of a log and
makes a god of it–and with the other part kindles a fire and warms his
hands and cooks his food. Such a god as this it is indeed a degradation
for the human mind to worship! But the true God, who has displayed His
power in the glittering firmament and in the foaming sea, who is
revealed with wonder to the eyes of the astronomer in the innumerable
worlds revolving in boundless space–such a God we must reverence. In
the hour of storm and tempest, when the Lord is abroad, riding in His
chariot of thunder-cloud upon wings of the wind, casting forth His
hailstones and coals of fire, making the earth shake at the sound of
His voice and breaking the cedars of Lebanon with the flash of His
spear, we feel we must adore Him! And as we bow before Him, reason
endorses the worship which Grace suggests. Is not His power a cogent
argument for seeking Him? Will not you who have hitherto lived without
Him, now adore Him? A real God, so glorious and so powerful, should
surely command your reverent adoration!

Further, He is a God who works great marvels, achieving wonders every
moment which would astonish us if we were not so used to beholding
them! They tell the story–'tis but a legend of the days of Solomon the
Wise, that the king astonished all beholders by taking a seed and
producing from it in a few moments, a full-grown plant. They cried,
"How wonderful! How astonishing!" But the wise man said, "This is only
what the Lord does every day. This is what He is performing everywhere
in His own time, and you see it, and yet you never say, 'How
wonderful!'" When we have watched those who practice sleight-of-hand
perform their feats, we have marveled greatly, but what are a few poor
elicit tricks when compared with the ordinary, but yet matchless
processes of Nature? Our fields and hedgerows teem with marvels never
equaled by all the wisdom and skill of man! Walk into the grass field
and you tread on miracles. Listen to the birds as they sing in the
trees and you hear marvelous speech. If one little mechanical bird,
with a few clockwork movements, were warbling out something like music
in an exhibition, everybody would gather round it and some would even
pay to hear it sing–and yet thousands of birds sing infinitely more
sweetly than anything man can make–and men had rather kill them than
admire them! Men fail to see the miracle which God is working in each
living thing.

Turn your eyes above you to the starry firmament and watch the Pleiades
and Arcturus with his sons, for though we know but little of them, they
have won from many an observer an awestruck acknowledgment of the
greatness of God, insomuch that it has been said that–

"An undevout astronomer is mad." The order, the regularity, the
manifest calculation and design which appear in every one of the
constellations, in every single planet, in every fixed star and in
every part of the great multitude of worlds which God has created are
such decisive evidences that if men do not see something of God in
them, they must be weak in their minds or wicked in their hearts!
Surely, what is seen of God in this way has tended to make us worship
Him. Many of you may know but little of astronomy, but still, you see
every day that God is working everywhere around us and that Heaven and
earth, and land and sea are teeming with the products of His marvelous
skill. The revolutions of day and night and the formation and fall of
rain are indisputable proofs of the Presence of eternal power and
Godhead! Let us, therefore, seek the Lord.

How is it that a man can go up and down in God's world and yet forget
the God who made the whole? I do not suppose that a man could have
walked through the Exhibition at Paris without thinking of the emperor
whose influence gathered all those treasures together and who attracted
the kings and princes of the earth to visit it. And yet men will go
through this world, compared with which the Paris "Exposition" was a
box of children's toys, and will not recognize God therein! Oh, strange
blindness! Mad infatuation that with God everywhere present and such a
God–the God whom to know is life eternal, whom to delight in is
present happiness and future bliss–man is willingly ignorant, blind to
His own best interests, senseless to the sweetest and the most
ennobling emotions and an enemy to his best Friend!

The surface of the text supplies us with motives for seeking GOD. Oh,
that the Holy Spirit might supply us with Grace that we might feel the
motivesand be obedient to them!

II. We will now regard the text with a more spiritual eye.

We speak to those who are sensible of their departure from the living
God and are anxious to be reconciled to Him by the forgiveness of their
sins for Jesus' sake. But our text also has a word for the stubborn and
unawakened. In many parts of Scripture the Lord has been pleased to
invite the penitent to come to Him, but in this passage, in order that
the invitation my miss none, it is made exceedingly wide in its
character. Our text will appear to be very wonderful if we notice the
context in which it stands–"You who turn judgment to worm word, and
leave off righteousness in the earth, seek Him." There is no mention of
those who thirst for Him, who are humbled and confess their faults!
This exhortation is given to those who have no good points about them,
but many of the most pernicious traits of character! Those who turn
judgment into wormwood and leave off righteousness in the earth–even
theyare bid to seek God! Marvelous mercy! Who after this shall dare
despair? If my hearer has, up to this day, lived a stranger to God, the
text does not exclude him from seeking God, but, as with an angel's
voice, it whispers, "Seek Him." If sin has perverted your judgments,
yet seek the great Creator and Preserver! Seek Him, for you shall find
Him! You are not bid to seek His face in vain–the command to seek Him
implies the certainty of His being found of you!

The reasons given for seeking the Lord are, spiritually, these. The
Lord "makes the seven stars." That is to say, the Pleiades. And He also
"makes Orion." Now, the Pleiades were regarded as being the
constellation of the spring, harbinger of the coming summer. We read of
"the sweet influences of Pleiades." They are most conspicuous at the
vernal period of the year. On the other hand, the Oriental herdsman,
such as Amos was, when he saw Orion flaming aloft, knew the wintry sign
right well. Both the Pleiades and Orion are ordained of the Lord–He
makes our joys and our troubles. See, then, the reason why we should
seek God, because if Orion should just now be in the ascendant and we
should be visited with a winter of despondency, chilled by howling
winds of fear and sharp frosts of dismay–if we seek God, He can
withdraw Orion and place us under the gentle sway of the Pleiades of
promise, so that a springtime of hope and comfort shall cheer our
souls, to be succeeded by a summer of rare delights and fruitful joys!
Do you hear this, poor troubled one? [See Sermon No. 818, Volume
14–THE PLEIADES AND ORION.] Whatever your sorrow may be, the God who
made Heaven and earth can suddenly change it into the brighter joy! By
the dispensations of His Providence, He can do it! Your circumstances,
which are now so desperate, can be changed by a touch of His hand
within an hour. To whom can you better apply for succor? And if your
heart is sick and sad with a sense of sin, and you are pining with
remorse, His Grace can find a balm and cordial for your wounded
conscience which shall give you peace at once! Before the clock ticks
again, God can grant you perfect salvation, blot out your sins like a
cloud and like a thick cloud your iniquities. Seek you the pardoning
God! Seek Him, I say, for to whom else could you go? Where else could
you look for strength but to the Strong? Where else for mercy but to
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

The Lord, moreover, turns grief into joy. In the text it is added, "He
turns the shadow of death into the morning." The long dark night of
sorrow, blacker than darkness, itself, because it presages everlasting
wrath. The night created by the grim shadow of death–cold, chill,
terrible–may have fallen upon your soul, but the living God can at
once turn this darkness into the brightness of the morning! When the
sun arises with healing beneath his wings, the whole earth is made to
smile, and even thus can the Lord at once make your whole nature glad
with the light of His Countenance. Though you are ready to lie down in
despair. Though you suppose that Hell yawns for you and will soon
receive your guilty soul–He can turn this shadow of death into the
morning of peace and joy! To whom, then, should you go but to this God?
He has already given His dear Son to be the way of life for us sinners.
Have you ever heard of another who gave His son to die for His enemies?
Gad not about after other helpers, but come at once to your Heavenly
Father's arms, and say with the prodigal, "I will arise and go to my
Father." If you are willing to come to God, the way is open, for Jesus

died. You must not come arrayed in the supposed fitness of your own
good works or good feelings, but you must come resting on the finished
work of the appointed Savior. If you look to Him, you shall be
lightened. If you come with His name upon your lips, you shall ask what
you will and it shall be done unto you. Should not this be a reason for
coming– that He can turn your night into day, your winter into summer?

But the text bears another aspect, namely, that God can also turn your
present joy into grief and, therefore, you should seek Him. He makes
the seven stars give way to Orion. "'He makes day dark with night." At
this moment it may be that you are at ease–but how long will you be
so? Though you have no God, you are content with what you possess in
this world, satisfied with your daily earnings, or charmed with your
yearly income. You are with your wife, your children, your estate. But
remember how soon your joys may be taken from you! Have you not heard
how often God's Providence has stripped the house, stripped the family,
stripped the man's very soul of every comfort? Remember you not the
story of Job who, in one day descended from riches to poverty? Know you
not that although the wicked spread themselves abroad like a green bay
tree, they shall suddenly wither? And though they are exceedingly proud
and strong, they shall come to their appointed end like the ox fattened
for the slaughter?

All our joys on earth are dependent on the Sovereign will of Heaven.
Some of you know this by bitter experience, for you have seen the
delight of your eyes taken away in a stroke and the comfort of your
heart carried to the grave. Now, to whom should you fly for succor, but
to Him upon whom all your present comfort depends and who can so soon
take it all away? How prudent to be at peace with Him! How wise, above
all wisdom, to be reconciled to the mighty God! But, alas for those who
have often been warned but who will not heed the warning! They have
hardened their necks and will be suddenly destroyed. Their day will
blacken into everlasting night! The proud sinner will die as others
do–his eyes will pale and his brow grow cold, for he must face
inexorable Death. And then, when he comes into the land to which the
wicked are banished, he will enter into the outer darkness, darkness
which shall be felt, in the land of confusion, where there is no
beginning of hope, or end of misery–who would then desire to stand in
his soul's place? Escape, then, before the darkness gathers! Seek Him,
O man, who makes the day dark with night!–

"You sinners, seek His Grace, Whose wrath we cannot bear. Fly to the
shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there."

The last clause of the text suggests a fourth reason for seeking the
Lord, namely, God may make that which is a blessing to some a curse to
others. Did you observe it? Seek Him "that calls for the waters of the
sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth." This may allude to
the deluge, when the waters of the ocean covered the very tops of the
mountains. But it may be equally well explained by reference to the
clouds which yield refreshing rain. The sun draws up the waters of the
sea, leaving the salt behind and when these exaltations have floated
their appointed time in the air, they descend upon the thirsty earth to
make glad the soil. Now, since the clause bears two readings, it were
well to note how the actions of God oftentimes bear two renderings.
There is, for instance, the gift of His dear Son, an unexampled act of
love–and yet to some of you it will prove "a savor of death unto
death." To the unbeliever, it will prove a terrible thing that Jesus
ever came into the world! He is a precious Cornerstone to those who
build upon Him, but those who stumble upon Him shall be broken–and if
this Stone shall fall upon any man, it shall grind him to powder! That
which is Heaven's greatest joy is Hell's greatest horror. When Christ
shall come, the sight of Him shall draw forth the acclamations of His
people, but it will also cause the utmost anguish to His enemies. They
shall weep and wail because of Him. They shall call upon the rocks and
mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of Him who
sits upon the Throne of God and from the wrath of the Lamb! Since you
who so constantly hear the Gospel must have it made to you either a
savor of death unto death or of life unto life, I pray that the Eternal
Spirit may show you the wisdom of seeking God by Jesus Christ–and of
seeking Him now!

It will be a dreadful thing, at the Last Great Day, to find the gentle
Lamb become a Lion to you, to tear you in pieces when there shall be
none to deliver! Why should that which is the meat of humble souls,
become your poison? Why should the blood of that Savior in Whom so many
have washed their robes, and made them white, be your condemnation?
Remember that the blood of Jesus will be either upon you to cleanse you
or upon you to condemn you! That dreadful cry of the Jews in the
streets of Jerusalem, "His blood be on us, and on our children"–what a
curse it

brought upon their race in the massacres within the city walls and in
the bitter exile and suffering which they have so long endured! Take
care that the same curse does not bring upon you an eternal exile from
God! Seek His face, I beseech you! You may not long have the
opportunity to seek it. The day of His mercy may close as closes this
day with the setting sun. You may not survive to enjoy another day of
Gospel invitation! May God the blessed Spirit, who alone can do it,
make you seekers–and then make you finders–and His shall be the
praise!

Thus much to the unconverted. The people of God can think over the text
in relation to themselves. It is rich in priceless instruction to them,
but time forbids me to direct their meditations. Farewell.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Psalm 139.

In this Psalm David praises God by specially dwelling upon the one
attribute of Omniscience. If we really wish to praise God, we must
think of Him as He is–and it is the best praise that we can render to
God to describe Him as He is. And any one of His many attributes is so
full of His Glory that if we give due honor to it, we shall have much
to say upon it.

Verse 1. O LORD, You have searched me, and known me. It is true that
God knows everything, but that is not what David says here. He makes a
personal application of the universal Truth of God–"O Lord, You have
searched me, and known me." He does not talk about God's knowledge of
other men, but he speaks to God concerning himself–"O Lord, You have
searched me, and known me." "You have searched me as if You were
looking for contraband goods. You have ransacked me, You have gone down
into my very heart and have spread out every secret part of my
being–'You have searched me, and known me.'"–

"Lord, You have searched and seen me through. Your eyes command with
piercing view My rising and my resting hours, My heart and flesh, with
all their powers."

2. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my
thoughts afar off "What I do, and what I do not do–my sitting down for
rest, and my rising up for action–You know me altogether, my most
trivial deeds and my most important movements. My thoughts are so well
known to You that even before I think them, You know what they will be.
You need not come near to me in order to know me, so strong are Your
eyes that if You only look at me from a vast distance, as a man looks
at a star in the midnight air, 'You understand my thoughts afar off.'
What I think and why I think it, whether it is sorrowful or hopeful,
You understand my thoughts. Sometimes I cannot understand it myself,
but You always understand it."

3. You comprehend my path andmylyingdown, andareacquainted with allmy
ways. "You have put a ring around me both in my staying and my going. I
go to sleep, but You do not sleep. I cannot think of You while I
slumber, but You think of me and You 'are acquainted with all my
ways.'"–

"Great God, Your penetrating eyes

Pervade my inmost powers.

With awe profound my wondering soul

Falls prostrate and adores.

To be encompassed around with God,

The Holy and the Just.

Armed with Omnipotence to save,

Or crush me into dust!

Oh, how tremendous is the thought!

Deep may it be impressed!

And may the Spirit firmly engrave,

This Truth within my breast!"

4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, You know it
altogether "You not only know what it is, but You know all about
it–even the word which I have not yet spoken, the word that is on my
tongue, as well as the

word that is not on my tongue–those seeds of speech that have as yet
not grown into words, You know them altogether."

5. You have beset me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon
me."Like men lying in ambush, 'You have beset me behind and before.'
All that I have ever done and all that I shall ever do, You know it
all. I am like one under arrest, upon whom the officer lays his hand so
that he may have no opportunity of escaping. I am in Your grip. You
have taken such a firm hold upon me that I cannot get away from You. In
another sense, I am like a child enfolded in His mother's arms, for You
have 'laid Your hand upon me.'"

6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot
attain unto it "I cannot climb up to Your glorious Throne–the very
lowest step of it is far higher than my feet can reach! 'I cannot
attain unto it.'"

7. Where shall I go from Your spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your
Presence?'"I do not want to do so, but it would be quite impossible for
me to flee from Your Presence even if I wished to do so. Neither by
steady marching, nor by rapid flight can I get away from You."

8. If I ascend up into Heaven, You are there. The Hebrew is, "You
there," as if there was nothing else there but God.

8. If I make my bed in Hell, behold You are there. This seemed even
more amazing to the Psalmist than that God was in Heaven, so He put in
a, "behold"–"Behold, You."

9. IfI take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea. "If I fly on the wings of light, which travels with
inconceivable rapidity."

10. Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold
me."I cannot go there except by Your leading and I shall not be there
except by Your uplifting. There is no way by which I can keep away from
God even if I try to do so. If, instead of living in the light, I seek
to hide myself in the darkness, what then?"

11. IfIsay, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be
light about me. "The very night shall change its nature and turn from
darkness into light!"

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. See, my dear
Brothers and Sisters, how we dwell continually under the inspection of
God? You have seen bees in a glass hive and watched all their
movements, or you have put an insect under a powerful microscope and
examined every part of it. Even so does the Omniscient God watch and
examine you! Nothing is done by you that He does not observe. The poet
speaks of the fierce light that beats about the throne of man, but you
dwell in that far fiercer light which beats about the Throne of God!

13. For You have possessed my reins. "Those secret organs of my body
which I cannot see, and whose working I can only imperfectly
comprehend."

13. You have covered me in my mother's womb. "Even before I came on the
stage of action, You were exercising wondrous care over me."

14. I will praise You. That is a good resolution for each one of us, as
well as the Psalmist, to make! As God sees me, let me praise Him–it
will be pleasing to Him to hear me praising Him. "I will praise You."

14. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Nobody can rightly study
the anatomy of the human body and see the beautiful arrangement of the
various veins, nerves, sinews, muscles and bones without saying with
the Psalmist, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

14. Marvelous are Your works; and that my soul knows right well To
study God's marvelous works, you need not go abroad, for they can be
plainly seen in your own body. This earthly house of your tabernacle,
in which you dwell so long as you are in this world, is a masterpiece
of Divine wisdom and skill!

15. My substance was not hid from You, when I was made in secret, and
curiously worked in the lowest parts of the earth. God made us in His
secret workshop by a marvelous method of Divine Power.

16. Your eyes did see my substance, yet being not perfect; and in Your
book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them. God's wonderful foreknowledge
enabled Him to know us even before we knew ourselves, or anyone else
knew us! And in the very making of us, the creation of our body and
mind and spirit, God was beforehand with us.

17. How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is
the sum of them!"I love to remember that You, my God, are thinking of
me. I am not distressed or alarmed by that recollection. I do not say,
' How terrible are Your thoughts unto me, O God!' But, 'How
precious'–how consoling, how full of promises of blessing to me–'are
Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!'"

18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when
I awake, I am still with You. "You lull me to sleep and You awake me in
the morning. And when I open my eyes, You are still there." Happy
Believer, who is always with God! Why should not You and I, dear
Friends, always be consciously in the Presence of God? We are never
right unless we are in that condition–and if we ever begin to forget
God, we are in a wrong state of heart. If we can live from day to day
without realizing that God is near us, we are falling into a sad and
dangerous condition!

19. Surely You will slay the wicked, O God. It cannot be that God has
seen all their wicked acts and read their evil thoughts, and yet will
spare them! When men offend in the very presence of the judge, it is
easy work for him to try them.

19. Depart from me, therefore, you bloody men. "You men of blood. You
men stained with the blood of your fellows. Get away from me, for I do
not want to be harboring criminals. God sees my company as well as
myself, so depart from me!

20. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your
name in vain. David could not bear even the thought that men should
insult such a God–a lack of reverence to the All-Seeing One was
altogether unbearable to him, so he bade those who were guilty of such
wickedness to take themselves away from him.

21. 22. 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, nor willingly to mix with them! How can Christians
associate with the lewd and irreverent without becoming partakers of
their evil deeds? Let us take note of what David says and realize that
we cannot be the friends of God if we are the friends of God's enemies.
Now the Psalmist comes back to his key-note. He began the Psalm with
the declaration, "O Lord, You have searched me." Now he prays.

23. Search me, O God, and know my heart "You have searched me, O God,
but I pray You to do it again, and to keep on doing it–never take Your
great searchlight away from me."

23. Try me, and know my thoughts. "I cannot hide them from You, and
would not if I could."

24. And see if there is any wicked way in me. "Lord, l ook for the
dross, to consume it! Look for the spots, to wash them away."

24. And lead me in the way everlasting. "Amen." Our hearts say,
"Amen–so let it be."