1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 You may be seated. 2 00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:06,360 Amen. Thank you Paul and music team for a wonderful evening of music. 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:14,120 Do you remember those little course booklets we used to have called Singspiration and Youth Praise? 4 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:23,060 Wouldn't it be fun to get some of those sometime and just have a Sunday night of singing the old favorites that we used to sing? 5 00:00:24,120 --> 00:00:26,120 That'd be a lot of fun. 6 00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:32,360 Our arthritic hands are cutting, Paul. We would like that. 7 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:36,480 So I don't know if we can come up with enough of those to do that or not, 8 00:00:36,480 --> 00:00:42,560 but it'd be fun to sing some of the choruses like we sang earlier tonight, and I've forgotten over the years. 9 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:48,120 Well, we are going to turn our Bibles to Psalm 139, 10 00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:52,000 one of the greatest of the Psalms written by David. 11 00:00:52,000 --> 00:01:06,000 But it is a Psalm which may very well be an expression of the joy of his Son, our Lord, the Messiah. 12 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:12,200 And if you read the Psalm in that sense, it takes on a new life, a new bit of meaning, 13 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:22,200 to see it as a song of the joy of Messiah in his relationship to his Father. 14 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:31,200 In this Psalm, there is that emphasis of the personal relationship between God and his own. 15 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:35,200 And for that reason, this is a favorite Psalm of a lot of people. 16 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:39,200 Regarding this Psalm, Warren Wiersbe writes, 17 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:44,200 If you are faithful to the Lord, this Psalm will encourage you. 18 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:52,200 If you are trying to hide from the Lord, this Psalm will make you realize you are fighting a losing battle. 19 00:01:53,200 --> 00:02:04,200 He outlines the Psalm in a very interesting way, and I share it because he has such a simple way of breaking down the Word of God in a practical sense. 20 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:15,200 He says, God knows what you do, verses 1-6. God knows where you go, verses 7-12. 21 00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:27,200 God knows what you are, verses 13-16. God knows what you think, verses 17-18. 22 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:39,200 God knows what you love, verses 19-22. God knows what you desire, verses 23-24. 23 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:47,200 I enjoy reading Dr. Wiersbe's books, but I always wait until I have gotten my message done before I do. 24 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:52,200 Because he has a way of breaking it down in such a way I can't see it any differently afterward. 25 00:02:52,200 --> 00:03:01,200 So I have to get my outline and my message together first before I go to the deep well of his thoughts. 26 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:10,200 It seems to me that as Messiah reflects upon the relationship that he has with his Father, 27 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:17,200 and by application the relationship that we, God's children, have with our Heavenly Father, 28 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:23,200 that there are four attributes of God that arise from this psalm. 29 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:30,200 In verses 1-6 we see the omniscience of God. The omniscience of God. 30 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:35,200 That means the absolute, complete, total knowledge of God. 31 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:39,200 You know, God has made us so that we can know things. 32 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:45,200 The older I get, the more I forget things. I don't know if that is a blessing or not. 33 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:48,200 Sometimes it is, isn't it, to be able to forget. 34 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:52,200 But God has made us so that we have an intellect and can know. 35 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:57,200 But our intellect cannot even be compared with God's. 36 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:05,200 We discover things. We come to know things. We explore. We investigate. 37 00:04:06,200 --> 00:04:09,200 God knows everything. 38 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:16,200 He doesn't have to discover. He doesn't have to dig into it. 39 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:21,200 He doesn't have to turn the page over to see what's there. God knows everything. 40 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:27,200 And in contrast to our ability to forget, God never forgets anything. 41 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:32,200 You say, well, doesn't it say in the Bible that He forgets our sins? 42 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:39,200 It does say that, but you know, that's an expression that means that God chooses not to hold those things against us. 43 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:48,200 He doesn't hold us guilty for those things because God knows everything. He cannot forget anything. 44 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:58,200 It begins by saying, oh Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. 45 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:01,200 Thou dost know. 46 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:06,200 This word know means to discern deeply. 47 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:10,200 It means to be intimately acquainted with. 48 00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:18,200 It is the word in the Old Testament that is known, that is used for a man knowing a woman. 49 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:22,200 It's that kind of intimacy. 50 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:26,200 And He says, God, you know me in the most intimate way possible. 51 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:34,200 And then He begins to describe how intimately God knows Him. 52 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:37,200 He says, God knows my routine. 53 00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:42,200 Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up. 54 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:50,200 The routine of the day. Those times when we are at rest, those times when we are about, God knows them all. 55 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:59,200 He says that God knows our thoughts, for thou dost understand my thought from afar. 56 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:05,200 That is, long before I have my thoughts, God, you know them. 57 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:07,200 That's the thought here. 58 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:12,200 And this word thought may also embrace the idea of intentions. 59 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:20,200 So God not only knows the thoughts that we have, but God knows the intentions of our thoughts and our hearts. 60 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:23,200 He knows our motives. 61 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:29,200 He says, thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down. 62 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,200 These are the acts of life. 63 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:39,200 And to scrutinize may mean to winnow or to sift through them, like you sift through the grain. 64 00:06:39,200 --> 00:06:44,200 To get out the kernels that are good and so that the rest can fall away. 65 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:49,200 He says, God, you do winnow my path and my lying down. You know it all. 66 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:56,200 You are intimately acquainted with all my ways, which may speak of the habits of life. 67 00:06:57,200 --> 00:07:04,200 Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, thou dost know it all. 68 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:07,200 And so God knows our words. 69 00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:15,200 He goes on to say, thou hast enclosed me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me. 70 00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:19,200 He says, God, you have encircled me. 71 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:24,200 You are on every side of me, and not only that, your hand is over me. 72 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:29,200 And so you see, he doesn't see the knowledge of God as some threatening thing. 73 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:34,200 He doesn't see God's intimate acquaintance with him as something to be afraid of. 74 00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:36,200 He sees it as protection. 75 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:41,200 He sees it as a blessing because the Lord encircles him with his knowledge. 76 00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:44,200 And the Lord covers him with his knowledge. 77 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:49,200 And then he says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. 78 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:54,200 It is too high. I cannot attain to it. 79 00:07:55,200 --> 00:07:58,200 This word wonderful means incomprehensible. 80 00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:04,200 This particular Hebrew word is used only two times in the Old Testament. 81 00:08:05,200 --> 00:08:12,200 The other occasion is in Judges 13 and verse 18, where the Lord says that his name is wonderful. 82 00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:17,200 Gideon asks, well, what is your name? He says, is it not wonderful? 83 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:25,200 And so he is saying, God, your knowledge of me is in accordance with your attributes, who you are, your name. 84 00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:32,200 It is wonderful. It is supernatural, this knowledge that you have of me. 85 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:37,200 Now, we will never gain the omniscience of God. 86 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:43,200 But as I said before, God does give us an intellect. We can discover things. We can know things. 87 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:51,200 But there are some things we could not know by self-discovery or by scientific investigation. 88 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:57,200 And those are especially the things that relate to God, spiritual things. 89 00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:01,200 Therefore, God has to reveal those things to us. 90 00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:08,200 There is a theology that is out there today that says that God is developing. 91 00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:14,200 I have talked to you before about it. It is the application of the theory of evolution, the theology. 92 00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:23,200 And it is doing to theology what it has done to every other science of life. It is destructive. 93 00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:29,200 But it says that God does not really know everything, that God is learning along with us. 94 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:36,200 God is developing, you see. Well, that certainly flies in the face of what the Word of God says. 95 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:39,200 God reveals himself as one who knows all. 96 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:48,200 And yet, God also has given to us a revelation so that we have understanding that we could not have by self-discovery. 97 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:52,200 Turn back to Ephesians chapter 1. Keep your finger here. 98 00:09:53,200 --> 00:10:00,200 I was thinking this afternoon of this text in Ephesians 1, where he lays out for us our blessings from God. 99 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:05,200 And in the middle of verse 8, he begins a new sentence. 100 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:11,200 I do not know how your translation may put the punctuation in here, but the NASV puts it this way. 101 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:21,200 In all wisdom and insight, he made known to us the mystery of his will. 102 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:29,200 Now, you probably know this word mystery is a very special word in the New Testament. 103 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:36,200 It is a word that Paul picked up out of the religious world of his day, the mystery religions. 104 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:43,200 But he washes it off, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies it, and uses it in the New Testament in a special way. 105 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:51,200 And it talks about those things that we could not know in our own, but which God has revealed to us in his own time. 106 00:10:52,200 --> 00:11:03,200 And he says that God has given us this special knowledge or insight into his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in Christ. 107 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:07,200 And here he gives us here the sum of it all. 108 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:21,200 He says, here's the mystery, that with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. 109 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:34,200 What he's telling us here is that a piece of knowledge that God has given to us is this, that the end of history, the end of time, will all come together in Jesus Christ. 110 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:46,200 He is the originator of time, he is the one who started history's motion forward, and he's at the end of it all to receive it when it's done. 111 00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:53,200 In the meantime, history has taken a lot of twists and turns, God has known them all. 112 00:11:53,200 --> 00:12:08,200 But he is so working by his power through history that in the end everything is going to flow to Jesus Christ and to his reign, his eternal kingdom, and nothing is going to be left out. 113 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:14,200 Everything belongs to Jesus Christ. Everything is summed up in him. 114 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:23,200 Well, let's go back to Psalm 139 and reflect again upon God's omniscience as we leave the first paragraph. 115 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:34,200 The fact that God knows everything, he knows the beginning from the ending, he has given to us insights into things that we could not have apart from his revelation. 116 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:43,200 Our faith is not the result of discovery, it is not the result of the changing of human thinking about God. 117 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:57,200 There are those who think that monotheism, the belief in one God, is the result of people who once had many gods and they finally came to the discoverer of the idea of one God. 118 00:12:57,200 --> 00:13:07,200 That isn't true at all. In the very beginning all men had the knowledge of one God, isn't that right? That's Romans chapter 1. 119 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:19,200 They suppressed that truth and the result was that they came to worship the creation rather than the creator, became fools. 120 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:30,200 Man developed the idea of many gods, that wasn't how we started out. That's the result of the devolution, not evolution, of human thought, the devolution of it. 121 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:36,200 God has revealed himself to us, we may know him. 122 00:13:37,200 --> 00:13:43,200 Well, let's go on to the next paragraph where he talks now about God's omnipresence. 123 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:52,200 Now here's a word that refers to the fact that God is not limited by space. He is present everywhere. 124 00:13:53,200 --> 00:14:02,200 Where can I go from thy spirit? Or where can I flee from thy presence? The word means his face. 125 00:14:02,200 --> 00:14:12,200 God doesn't have a face like you and I have a face, but it's talking about the awareness of God, the fact that he is there, he is present everywhere. 126 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:20,200 He says, If I ascend to heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there. 127 00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:32,200 If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there, thy hand will lead me and thy right hand will lay hold of me. 128 00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:39,200 Now he lays down at least three contrasts here to show us how God is present everywhere. 129 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:50,200 There's a contrast first of all in the afterlife. He talks about heaven and he talks about hell or better, Sheol. 130 00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:56,200 Heaven is the realm of God, the place where God dwells. Now God is everywhere present, that's what he's saying here, 131 00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:03,200 but there is a special sense in which God dwells in the heavens. And he says, Lord, you're there. 132 00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:11,200 If I go to the heavens, I can't escape you. That's your home, your habitation in a special sense. 133 00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:18,200 On the other hand, he says, if I go to Sheol, which is the realm of the dead, you're there. 134 00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:23,200 That's the first contrast. The second one has to do with dimension of heights. 135 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:37,200 He says, if I ascend to heaven, if I go up, on the other hand, if I go down, if I make my bed in Sheol, you're there. 136 00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:47,200 So here we have the ups and the downs, God's everywhere. To the Hebrew mind, Sheol, the realm of the dead was down, going down to Sheol. 137 00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:55,200 And that gives rise to the concept that the realm of the dead in the Old Testament may well have been down. 138 00:15:56,200 --> 00:16:00,200 It has nothing to do with the body, it has to do with the soul. 139 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:08,200 And there is the concept of Sheol that it was in two compartments, as most of you know, 140 00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:20,200 and that there was the place of the righteous dead, which was paradise, where the beggar went in the parable that Jesus told in Luke. 141 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:29,200 And then there was hell, Gehenna, the place of fire, the place of suffering, where the unrighteous dead went. 142 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:37,200 Both were embraced in the Hebrew concept of Sheol, and they looked upon that as going down to Sheol. 143 00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:43,200 So he's thinking here of dimensions, ascending to heaven, going down to Sheol. 144 00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:49,200 Then there's a third contrast, it is the contrast of distance and direction. 145 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:53,200 He talks about the wings of the dawn. 146 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:58,200 Now we're going to transport ourselves to Israel for a moment. 147 00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:03,200 And whether we're in Israel or Minnesota, for that matter, the dawn is which direction? 148 00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:05,200 Right, it's in the east. 149 00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:15,200 I remember when I was a kid being on vacation, I was 11 years old, and we had driven rather late into the night and stopped at a motel. 150 00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:20,200 Now this was 1956. Do you ever remember what motels were like in 1956? 151 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:28,200 If you ever see the I Love Lucy, where they're traveling to California, it was a whole lot like that. 152 00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:39,200 And I got up in the morning out of this little cabin, and I went outside, and do you know, I'm telling you, the sun came up in the west. 153 00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:42,200 The sun came up in the west that morning. 154 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:48,200 I remember running back into the cabin and telling my mother, the sun is coming up in the west. 155 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:53,200 Well, I'd gotten so turned around in the night, you see, but it was the east. It was the east. 156 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:58,200 And he talks about these fingers of the sun ray, the wings of the dawn. 157 00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:05,200 It's a very beautiful picture, isn't it? I love to see the dawn, those rays of light shooting into the air. 158 00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:10,200 So he talks about the east, and then he says, I dwell in the remotest part of the sea. 159 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:13,200 Now, if you're in Israel, what's the sea all about? 160 00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:17,200 Sure, the Mediterranean, and that's to the west. 161 00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:26,200 And so he's measuring the distance, which you really can't measure, east and west, and he says, I can go as far as I can to the east, to the dawn. 162 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:32,200 I can't escape you. I can go to the west, into the sea. I can't escape you. 163 00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:39,200 And so he's talking here about, and describing for us, the omnipresence of God. 164 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:46,200 And then he talks about the circumstances of life, and there's another contrast between light and darkness. 165 00:18:47,200 --> 00:19:00,200 He says, if I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to thee, 166 00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:06,200 and the night is as bright as the day, darkness and light are alike to thee. 167 00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:19,200 He's using the words here of darkness and light, but it's probably a metaphor talking about the circumstances of life, the light circumstances, the dark circumstances. 168 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:31,200 And he's saying that in both of these, God is present, and that there is no difference between light and dark to the Lord, that they are the same to him. 169 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:39,200 And so God is present everywhere. And then beginning in verse 13, we have another attribute. 170 00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:48,200 Here we have the attribute of omnipotence, which is God's power, that God is all-powerful. 171 00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:59,200 He says, for thou didst form my inward parts. Now he's going to illustrate God's omnipotence here in a very specific way. 172 00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:08,200 He says, thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. 173 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:17,200 Inward parts is that word that we remarked on a few weeks ago, kidneys. 174 00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:26,200 Thou didst form my kidneys. To the Hebrew mind, the kidneys were the source of affection, the source of conscience. 175 00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:33,200 That's where the real person, the immaterial part of a person was. And so that's what he's talking about. 176 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:44,200 He's saying, Lord, you formed the invisible part of me, the spiritual part of me, my soul. Not only that. 177 00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:50,200 You wove me in my mother's womb. And so here he's talking about his body, his physical body. 178 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:59,200 So by God's power, God had created him and put him together, bringing the soul and the body together within the womb. 179 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:09,200 And we have a picture here in the weaving together of the chromosomes, don't we? In the wonderful miracle of human conception. 180 00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:17,200 He says, I will give thanks to thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 181 00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:22,200 The word fear here means I am awesomely made. 182 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:29,200 I am made in such a way that my soul is caused to reverence my Creator. 183 00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:38,200 He says, wonderful are thy works, and my soul knows it very well. 184 00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:48,200 Different word here for wonderful than earlier. It's a very similar meaning. It's the idea of singular. Extraordinary are your works. 185 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:56,200 It's a word that is used 70 times in the Old Testament. The very first time is found in Genesis 18, 14. 186 00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,200 Just go back there and look at that for a minute with me, will you? 187 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:11,200 Whenever a word is used for the first time, it's always kind of interesting to see how it's used. This is Genesis 18, verse 14. 188 00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:23,200 Here we have the Lord coming to Abraham and talking with him. 189 00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:32,200 Without going into the whole context of the story, you remember that the Lord made a statement regarding the birth of a child. 190 00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:45,200 Sarah laughed to herself, saying, verse 12, After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? 191 00:22:45,200 --> 00:22:55,200 And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Indeed, shall I bear a child when I am so old? 192 00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:03,200 And then he says, verse 14, Is anything too difficult for the Lord? The word difficult there is this word. 193 00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:09,200 Is anything too singular, too extraordinary for the Lord? 194 00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:15,200 The Lord said, At the appointed time I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son. 195 00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:21,200 So we have an illustration of the singular, wonderful works of God. 196 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:30,200 Then he says in verse 15, going back now to Psalm 139, My frame was not hidden from thee. 197 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:37,200 The word frame means bone, probably a reference to his skeleton as it was formed. 198 00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:46,200 My frame was not hidden from thee. When I was fashioned, when I was refined in secret, 199 00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:55,200 wouldn't that be a way to describe what happens as the fertilized egg begins to develop and it's refined? 200 00:23:56,200 --> 00:24:02,200 As each critical part begins to form, to be developed? 201 00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:11,200 And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, which is a poetic phrase referring to the womb of the mother. 202 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:19,200 He says, Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance, a reference to the embryo. 203 00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:29,200 And in thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. 204 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:37,200 And so he talks about the omnipotence of God as we see it in the miracle of birth and of human life. 205 00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:46,200 Now you think of this particularly in relation to Messiah, and to the unusual, unique birth of Jesus Christ, 206 00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:54,200 the virgin birth of our Lord, and how that God, in a way that we cannot understand, 207 00:24:54,200 --> 00:25:01,200 united himself to humanity, became a real man. 208 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:06,200 It wasn't that human nature kind of shrouded, became a shroud for his deity. 209 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:18,200 It is that deity and humanity united and then dwelt in the body, in the womb of Mary. 210 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:32,200 So you can see how this text, while it refers to all of us, is a very wonderful expression of what happened in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. 211 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:43,200 How precious also are thy thoughts to me, that is, your thoughts, the thoughts I have of you, God. 212 00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:50,200 How vast is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. 213 00:25:51,200 --> 00:26:04,200 When I awake, I am still with thee. Do you remember that old hymn, still, still with thee, when morning something awakens? 214 00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:12,200 One of the great hymns. I'm sure that's not in our hymnal. It's not. You didn't even look. 215 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:19,200 You know, you know these things, don't you, Paul? Okay. I'm sure it's not in there, too. 216 00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,200 It's one of the great hymns. If you have an old hymnal, look it up. 217 00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:30,200 When I awake, I am still with thee. And when he talks about I count them, he means to score them, 218 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:36,200 to tally them up, to enumerate them, to list them in detail. Like we sang earlier about counting our blessings, 219 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:44,200 he says, God, if I should count all of the thoughts of you, they would outnumber the sand. 220 00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:52,200 Well, that brings us to verse 19, where we have the last of the attributes of God the Messiah rejoices in 221 00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:59,200 in his personal relationship with his Father. We might call this the Omni-righteousness of God. 222 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:07,200 I don't think I've ever seen that term in a theology book, but I have heard that term in a theology class, 223 00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:15,200 and so I'm going to use it tonight. It is the fact that God is righteous, totally, the Omni-righteousness of God. 224 00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:22,200 O that thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God. Now there's a turn. Do you see it here? 225 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:35,200 So far it's been a very wonderful, pleasant psalm, and now there is the injection of a prayer for judgment upon the wicked. 226 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:46,200 And so this psalm has what is called a tone of an imprecatory psalm, one that prays for God to deal with the wicked. 227 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:54,200 And may we not think of our Lord in these words? Listen to them. 228 00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:01,200 O that thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God, depart from me, therefore bloodthirsty men, 229 00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:11,200 that's what it literally says, those who have no respect for life, for they speak against thee wickedly. 230 00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:18,200 That is, there's no respect. And thine enemies, take thy name in vain. 231 00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:30,200 Do not I hate those who hate thee, O Lord, and do not I loathe those who rise up against thee? 232 00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:36,200 I hate them with the utmost hatred. They have become my enemies. 233 00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:43,200 Now, some of us may have a hard time thinking of the Lord Jesus talking like this, 234 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:50,200 but let us remember that as perfect as His love is, so is His hatred perfect. 235 00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:57,200 It's not the sinful kind of hatred that we can be characterized with. 236 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:04,200 It is a perfect hatred that is not based upon some personal thing, 237 00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:10,200 but is based upon the sinfulness of those that are characterized as wicked. 238 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:19,200 And so He says in the most holy sense, do not I hate those who hate thee, O Lord. 239 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:32,200 The word hate is a very strong word, and as much as anything it may underscore the loyalty of the one who is speaking to God. 240 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:44,200 In other words, His love for God is so strong that His feelings for those who hate God can only be described as hatred. 241 00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:52,200 You see the same kind of a contrast in the words used in Malachi where God says, 242 00:29:52,200 --> 00:30:04,200 Jacob, I have love. Esau, I have hated. Did God have a hatred for Esau? No. 243 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:18,200 Not in the sense that we sometimes use that word, but it's an expression of the fact that God had chosen Jacob in love. 244 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:25,200 And on the other hand, God had not chosen Esau. 245 00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:37,200 So there's the contrast. It's the pulling apart of the two. 246 00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:44,200 And what the psalmist is saying here, what I believe our Lord is saying, 247 00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:56,200 He pulls apart the wicked in God and says, God, I love you so much with such a deep abiding loyalty that when I look at the wicked, it is His hatred. 248 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:05,200 Is there a sense in which we ought to hate the wicked? Well, not in the sense of personal malice. 249 00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:12,200 Unfortunately, sometimes we fall into that trap of hating those who are wicked. 250 00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:17,200 And we ought not to hate them. We can hate their sin, but we ought not to hate them. 251 00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:24,200 They too are creatures of God who God loves in Jesus Christ. 252 00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:33,200 But you know, the more you draw close to God, the deeper your loyalty to God, 253 00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:40,200 sometimes the stronger your feelings are in a sense toward those who hate God. 254 00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:48,200 And while you don't have personal malice toward them, there is a sense in which there is directed toward them a hatred. 255 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:57,200 Only in the sense that they are the enemies of God, not because they're my enemies, but because I love God so much and they're His enemies. 256 00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:05,200 Well, think about that. I can see that doesn't settle well with all of you. But it's worth talking about, I think. 257 00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:10,200 He says, I hate them with an utmost hatred. Remember, this is David talking now. 258 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:17,200 It's David who said this, even though I think he's speaking for Messiah, his son. 259 00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:22,200 They've become my enemies because of the enemies of God. 260 00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:30,200 Having said all of this about his intimate relationship with God, he now concludes by a prayer. 261 00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:35,200 He has already said, you have searched me and known me. 262 00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:41,200 But notice he comes full circle and he says, search me and know me. 263 00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:48,200 He invites God to yet again search him and to know his heart. 264 00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:55,200 Can we know our own hearts? What does Jeremiah say about that? 265 00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:04,200 The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, he says. Who can know it? But God can. 266 00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:16,200 And David, Messiah, you, me, we can come to God who knows us, who made us, who knew us before we were born. 267 00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:22,200 And without fear we can ask Him, Lord search me and know me. 268 00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:29,200 Try me. The word try here means to investigate the quality of my spirit. 269 00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:35,200 And know my anxious thoughts. Now he says anxious thoughts. 270 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,200 So there may have been in David's mind some concern about his enemies. 271 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:46,200 Now we don't think of the Lord Jesus as being worried about them and yet he was human, wasn't he? 272 00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:52,200 And he as man felt the pressure of his enemies, especially as they closed in on him. 273 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,200 And then at the garden they arrested him. 274 00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,200 Try me and know my anxious thoughts. 275 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:05,200 I wonder if this may have been one of the Psalms Jesus used in the Garden of Gethsemane. 276 00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:13,200 And prayed as he was about to become the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, 277 00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:16,200 and prayed as he was about to become the sacrifice for our sins. 278 00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:22,200 Oh God search me. Oh God know me. Oh God try me. 279 00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:32,200 And see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. 280 00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:39,200 There's a contrast here in verse 24. The hurtful way is the way of the world. 281 00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:43,200 It's the way that produces sorrow. 282 00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:48,200 The root word here in hurtful means to carve out. 283 00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:55,200 It is a word associated with idolatry and rebellion against God. 284 00:34:56,200 --> 00:35:02,200 Idolatry that produces heartache and sorrow and pain and disappointment. 285 00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:04,200 It's the way of the world. 286 00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:15,200 So he says see if there be any idolatrous way, any way of sorrow because of sin that is in me. 287 00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,200 And then he says lead me in the everlasting way. 288 00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,200 Now in the Lord Jesus there was no hurtful way. 289 00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:29,200 Oh he was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, but it wasn't his sin that caused the sorrow. It was ours. 290 00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:35,200 There was not a hurtful idolatrous way in the Lord Jesus. He passed the test. 291 00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,200 But we can pray this and need to. 292 00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,200 And then he says lead me. Lead me in the everlasting way. 293 00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,200 This is the way of the Lord. The way of the Lord. 294 00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,200 Lead me in the everlasting way. 295 00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,200 This word everlasting is one of the names of God. 296 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:59,200 Back again in Genesis chapter 21 verse 33. 297 00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:04,200 God gives his name to Abraham. It is the name El-Olam. 298 00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,200 The everlasting God. That is the God of eternity. 299 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,200 And so he prays lead me in the way of eternity. 300 00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,200 Lead me in the way of the eternal one. 301 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:20,200 Let's turn over again to another book to Proverbs this time. 302 00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:26,200 To chapter 4. Where we have a thought that is somewhat similar as we close. 303 00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:38,200 Here the writer is advising his sons to stay away from evil people. 304 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:41,200 The way of evil men. 305 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,200 But he says in verse 18, the path of the righteous. 306 00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:48,200 That's the everlasting way. 307 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:53,200 The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn. 308 00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:59,200 That shines brighter and brighter until the full day. 309 00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,200 The way of the wicked. 310 00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,200 That's the hurtful way. 311 00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:08,200 Is like darkness. 312 00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,200 They do not know over what they stumble. 313 00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:14,200 Isn't that the truth? 314 00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,200 Which way are you on? 315 00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:19,200 Are you on the everlasting way? 316 00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,200 The way that begins with a shaft of light. 317 00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:30,200 And then it grows brighter and brighter and brighter as you go along. 318 00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,200 That's the everlasting way of God. 319 00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,200 I hope that's the way you're walking on tonight. 320 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,200 If you're walking on the way of the wicked. 321 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:43,200 And stumbling in the dark over things you can't even understand. 322 00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:45,200 Know this. 323 00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:48,200 That you can change directions. 324 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,200 And you can enter the way. 325 00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,200 Through the narrow gate that Jesus talked about. 326 00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:58,200 That is the way that leads to life. 327 00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:00,200 The everlasting way. 328 00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:02,200 Well this is a great psalm. 329 00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:09,200 Psalm 139 is indeed one of my favorites as well as the favorite of a number of you I'm sure. 330 00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:15,200 I wonder if we shouldn't sing one of the three hymns in our hymnal. 331 00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:17,200 And I know you already know that. 332 00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:25,200 But there are three hymns in our hymnal that are based upon Psalm 139 entitled Search Me, O God. 333 00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,200 And I think we ought to use the Neoran melody. 334 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,200 And of course you know what that is Paul. 335 00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:36,200 He's fun to tease. 336 00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,200 What is the page? I've forgotten the page. 337 00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,200 343 is that it? 338 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,200 438. Okay. 438. 339 00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:49,200 You'll recognize the page. 340 00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:59,200 You'll recognize the page.