2018-01-21 Pastor Jim Timms ‘The Greatness of God’ Psalm 139

“THE GREATNESS OF GOD”
PSALM 139

I. Introduction
Have you ever tried to hide from God? Sure you have! How has it worked out for you?
Did you succeed? Maybe, for a while at least, you thought your efforts were successful.
But later, one way or the other, you found out you could not hide from our God. If you will permit me the use of an old cliché – “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

Sooner or later you come face to face with a great truth and you learn a great lesson. Or if you haven’t learned it yet, you can be assured that you will. You will learn it in this life, or you will learn it when you pass from this life. My fervent prayer for every single of one you in this room is that you will learn it in this life – in the here and now.

The passage we will study this morning makes it crystal clear that there is no place to hide. Psalm 139 reveals four of God’s attributes that tell us why this is so.
1. God is omniscient. He is all knowledge. There are no exceptions.
2. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. There are no exceptions.
3. God is omnipotent. He is all power. There are no exceptions.
4. God is holy. He is absolute perfection. There are no exceptions.

All of God’s attributes are infinite. But you and I are His finite creations. And yet we sometimes think that we can hide or somehow escape from Him. How foolish we are!

Brock read from Psalm 96 to open the service. Before we go to our text I want to begin by reading from a similar passage Psalm 86 where King David acknowledges God’s greatness.
Psalm 86:10-12
10 For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God.
11 Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.
12 I will give thanks to You, O LORD my God, with all my heart, and will glo-rify your name forever.
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II. Text
Now with those thoughts firmly in mind, let us go on to today’s text.
*Psalm 139:1-24 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thoughts from afar.
3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted
with all my ways.
4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all.
5 You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
10 even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonder-ful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skill-fully wrought in the depths of the earth;
16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book they were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
17 How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.
19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.
20 For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts;
24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

If there is one thing Psalm 139 makes clear it is this: All of the time, effort, and energy you spend trying to run away from God is wasted. When you stop running you will quickly come to the realization that God has been chasing after you to comfort, to strengthen, and to bless you. How could we, God’s own children, not be comforted, strengthened, and blessed by Him. Just consider who and what He is!

To live in the light of His knowledge, His presence, His power, and His holiness gives us a purpose in this life and a glimpse into the life to come.
As we more clearly Him as He is, we also come to see ourselves as we are. And in seeing ourselves as we really are (the way God sees us), we also see our need for personal holiness.

Once King David saw God’s attributes of omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and holiness, he was convicted of his desperate need to be holy himself. May you and I be as convicted by God’s Word today as David was three thousand years ago.
*Psalm 139:1-6 (Omniscience = all knowledge)
1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thoughts from afar.
3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all.
5 You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

God’s greatness is seen in His omniscience! In v. 2 it says that God not only knows what you do, He knows what you think. There are at least three incidents in the Gospels where we see that Jesus knew the very thoughts of men. Here is one of those incidents.
Matthew 9:2-4
2 And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”
3 And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This fellow blasphemes.”
4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?” (“Do you think that got their attention?”)

In v. 4 we see that our great God knows all, even before you do whatever you do and even before you think whatever you think. Who knows you better than your children? Your spouse, that’s who. Who knows you better than your spouse? You do, that’s who. Who knows you better than you know yourself? I’ll let you answer that question yourself.

In v. 5 we’re told that God has us completely surrounded by His presence and that His hand is on us. That should be of great comfort to us, shouldn’t it? But it isn’t comforting when you’ve sinned and you’re trying to hide from God, is it? But why try to hide? Hiding from God didn’t work for Adam and Eve when they had sinned.
Genesis 3:7b-8
7b …they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

That is, they tried to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God. But He found them! It’s too bad they didn’t have the first six verses of Psalm 139.
These verses tell us plainly that we cannot hide from God. He knows our hearts. And do you remember what the Prophet Jeremiah said about the human heart?
Jeremiah 17:9
9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”

That’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it? We know full well who can understand it!

But before we move on from Adam and Eve, we really need to take a quick look at one of the greatest truths in all of Scripture. It’s found right here in Genesis 3.
Genesis 3:21
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

Adam and Eve did not die physically that day, but they did die spiritually. God made gar-ments for Adam and Eve by causing the very first death! Granted, God killed an animal, not a human, but while the blood of that innocent animal covered their sin, it did not remove it. It taught Adam and Eve that fellowship with God cannot be restored without the shedding of innocent blood. In the Book of Exodus Moses and the nation of Israel would see that truth illustrated at the first Passover when an innocent lamb was slain.

In the OT King David tells us that the blood of sacrificial animals covered sin…
Psalm 32:1
1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!

But in the NT the Apostle John tells us that the blood of Jesus, God’s own sacrificial Lamb, removes sin…
John 1:29
29 The next day he (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

And Hebrews 9:22 says, “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” This is precisely why Jesus shed His blood on the cross for you and for me. Why would anyone want to hide or escape from Him? I am so glad that I cannot hide or escape from His know-ledge of me. As David says in v. 6, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.”

And just as I cannot escape His knowledge of me, neither can I hide or escape His presence.
*Psalm 139:7-12 (Omnipresence = everywhere present)
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
10 even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.

God’s greatness is seen in His omnipresence! This second part of Psalm 139 opens with more rhetorical questions. What they both come down to is, “Where can I go to get away from You?” The answer is nowhere! Have you ever thought about that? Where would you go? In v. 8 David states the obvious – he can’t hide from God in heaven. But then he says something that is not so obvious – David says that he can’t hide from God in Sheol either.

“Sheol” is a Hebrew word that literally means “the abode of the dead” – all of the dead – whether they are saved or lost, righteous or unrighteous, believer or unbeliever. In the OT economy all of the dead went to Sheol. The NT Greek word is Hades. Confusion often arises when some translations of the Bible render both “Sheol” and “Hades” as “Hell.” But Sheol/Hades is not the final Hell. That is the “Lake of Fire” described for us in the Book of Revelation. To add to the confusion the OT sometimes uses the word “Sheol” to refer to the grave. After all, the grave is also “the abode of the dead,” isn’t it? So how can we know if a certain verse or passage is referring to Hades or the grave? It is only the context in which the word is found that helps us to sort it out and rightly divide the Word of Truth. (2 Tim. 2:15)

David’s point in Psalm 139:8 is that just as God is in heaven, so too is He in Sheol/Hades itself. David cannot escape from God’s omnipresence and he knows it. In vv. 9-10 he uses symbolism that means the east and the west. No matter how far east he goes, (the wings of the dawn) or how far west he goes, (the depths of the sea) he cannot hide from God.

Four hundred years after King David wrote this psalm the Prophet Jeremiah confirmed what David had said…
Jeremiah 23:23-24
23 “Am I a God who is near,” declares the LORD, and not a God far off?
24 “Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?” declares the LORD. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.

Why is so much more crime committed in the darkness of night than in the light of day? We know why. The criminal hopes the darkness will hide his deeds and his identity. But vv. 11-12 shatter that hope. In Job 34:22 God says this… “There is no darkness or deep shadow where the workers of iniquity (sin) may hide themselves.”

That truth should terrify the sinner, but to you and me, God’s obedient children, it should
be a source of great comfort and blessing. After all, we are His obedient children, are we not? Listen, we need to be reminded that our great God sees all things because He is every-where present, and as David has said, “Darkness and light are alike to You.”
And that brings us to the third of God’s attributes that Psalm 139 celebrates.
*Psalm 139:13-18 (Omnipotence = all power)
13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonder-ful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skill-fully wrought in the depths of the earth;
16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book they were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
17 How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

God’s greatness is seen in His omnipotence! This third portion of the psalm deals with God’s power. But King David isn’t talking about God’s power as it is expressed in the cre-ation of the universe. Here are just a few examples of that power…
Genesis 1:3, 9, 24, 28a
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind…” and it was so.
28a Then God said, “Let us make man in Our own image, according to Our like-ness…” (And that too was so!)

But here in Psalm 139 it isn’t the creation of the world and everything in it that overwhelms David. It is the creation of him. It is his creation in his mother’s womb to which he now turns his attention. In v. 13 he says it clearly – God created him. The imagery is beautiful. God “wove him in his mother’s womb…” In v. 14 he says he knows full well who did it and David gives God thanks for the very act of creating him and giving him life.

By the way, the word “fearfully” in v. 14 is the Hebrew word that means awe, respect, and reverence. In Proverbs 1:7 it says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” David acknowledges God’s power and stands in awe of it. Whether speaking of the crea-tion of the universe or your creation in your mother’s womb, it is the very same power.

If the miracle of your own body doesn’t convict you of God’s power, the miracles of light and the universe itself should. Just look at the world around you and then marvel and be awed by the God who did that! And He didn’t bring the world into existence by manufac-turing it in His workshop. Light, the entire creation, and everything else was literally spo-ken into existence. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
What sort of fool could possibly deny that God exists and that His power is beyond human comprehension? (Psalm 14:1) The Apostle Paul describes that fool and what he is facing.
*Romans 1:18-22
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world (the universe) His invisible attributes, His eternal power (omnipotence) and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools…

What Paul describes in vv. 20-22 is deliberate and willful unbelief in God. It’s back in v. 18 where God tells us of the consequences for such unbelief. The unbeliever will face “…the wrath of God”. (back to Psalm 139)

In vv. 13-15 it is obvious that what goes on in the womb is the miracle of the creation of human life. David knows that God “…formed his inward parts” and “…wove him.” He knows that he was “…skillfully wrought.” Those last two English words are translated from a Hebrew verb that means “to embroider.” What does that say about abortion? (For that matter, what does a sonogram say about the so-called “products of conception”?)
An FYI – Jeremiah and Paul were both known by God before they were born.
Jeremiah 1:5a (God speaking)
5a “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”

Galatians 1:15 (Paul speaking)
15 God…set me apart even from my mother’s womb…

What does it say about how far America has drifted from biblical principles when far too many Americans fight for the abortion of babies, and fight against capital punishment for murderers? Think about it. How can we, as a nation, escape the wrath of God when we continue to murder the innocent while at the same time we insist on protecting the guilty?

Look once more at v. 16. Amazing! Isn’t it? God knows the very day that you and I will pass into His glorious presence. More than that, He knew it before we were born. And, as made clear in the Doctrine of Election, He knew us and chose us to be His children even before time began, before the creation of the universe. Here, as we look at God’s omnipo-tence, we get another glimpse into His omniscience and His omnipresence.
Rich Mullins wasn’t overstating the case when he wrote…
“Our God is an awesome God.
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love.
Our God is an awesome God.”

But there’s one more attribute of God we must acknowledge.
*Psalm 139:19-24 (Holiness = absolute perfection)
19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.
20 For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with the utmost (perfect) hatred; they have become my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts;
24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God’s greatness is seen in His Holiness! If all we know about God is that He is love, we do not know very much about Him. Holiness includes love, but it also includes wrath and hat-red of sin. The first time we read Psalm 139:19-22 we’re shocked by what David says. Let me para-phrase. “Lord, I want you to kill evil people. Kill all of them who hate You and use Your name as a curse word. Get them away from me. You hate them, and I hate them too.”

So is David “out of line” here? No, he is not. Listen to the Prophet Isaiah…
Isaiah 11:4 (speaking of the Second Coming)
4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for
the afflicted of the earth; and He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.”

We know that God hates those who commit sin. The Bible says so at least three different times. Here is just one of those times.
Psalm 5:5b-6
5 …You hate all who do iniquity.
6 You destroy those who speak falsehood; the LORD abhors (hates) the man of bloodshed and deceit.”

Listen, God tells us that we are to be holy as He is holy. If we are to be holy, does it not stand to reason that we must love the things God loves and hate the things God hates? Let me say that again. “If you and I are to be holy, does it not stand to reason that you and I must love the things that our Holy God loves and hate the things that our Holy God hates?”
As is often the case when we come to a difficult truth to hear, absorb, and process, we turn to one of God’s great men of the past for an explanation and comfort.

Let me quote the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon. Regarding Psalm 139:19-22 he said this…
“To love all men with benevolence is our duty; but to love any wicked man with com-placency would be a crime. To hate a man for his own sake, or for any evil done to us, would be wrong; but to hate a man because he is the foe of all goodness and the ene-my of all righteousness, is nothing more or less than an obligation. The more we love God the more indignant shall we grow with those who refuse Him their affection.”

Look at vv. 23-24 one more time. May I suggest that David’s words be a prayer to our great God from our own sinful hearts. It takes courage to ask God to look into your heart and expose what He finds there. “Search me… try me… expose my sin so that I may confess it. Oh God, make me holy as you are holy.”

John Calvin said…
“It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself until he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating Him to scrutinize himself.”
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III. Conclusion
The fact of the matter is this. You can neither hide from nor escape from our great God. He has all knowledge – our God is omniscient. He is everywhere – our God is omnipresent. He has all the power that ever was or ever will be – our God is omnipotent. And He is per-fect – our God is absolutely holy. Don’t run from God’s holiness. Run toward it!

What else can I say? Nothing! Let the Scripture say it. Turn to Romans 11 and we’ll close.
*Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the LORD, or who has become His counse-lor?
35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

“And all of God’s people said, ‘Amen’.”

~ Pray ~

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Pastor Jim Timms
Lighthouse Bible Church – Lake Geneva, Wisconsin – 262-949-1007 – www.lighthouselakegeneva.com