The God Who Knows Yet Still Loves (part 1) - [Psalm 139]

Bethlehem Bible Church

1 view

August 18, 2013

Myths Christians Are Tempted To Believe (part 2)

00:00: What we're going to do this morning, is instead of getting right back into Romans 14, I've been captivated by who
00:06: God is and how He knows us. And so please open your Bibles to Psalm 139.
00:12: We're going to look at Psalm 139, the first several verses this morning, because these are those great passages, one of those great passages rather, that tell you about the immensity of God.
00:25: We are so gullible sometimes, we just get our eyes focused on ourselves, and we look inside of us, and think about ourselves, and believe our own press, and we become the focus.
00:37: We slip into gullibility. It reminds me of the story of the Eagle Rock Junior High freshman, who won first prize at the science fair in Idaho Falls, 1997.
00:49: He was talking about environmental issues, alarmist issues, fear spreading about the environment.
00:56: So he wanted to urge people to sign a petition, demanding strict control or elimination of this chemical.
01:03: There are some good reasons to get rid of this chemical, he said. Number one, it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting.
01:10: It is a major component in acid rain. It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state.
01:20: Accidental inhalation of this chemical can kill you. It decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes, and it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients.
01:32: Fifty people supported the ban of the chemical, dihydrogen monoxide.
01:42: Only one knew the chemical was H2O, water, and the title of his prize winning project was,
01:49: How Gullible Are We? You know what's so good about Psalm 139?
01:55: It reminds me of my grandmother -in -law, Evelyn's, maxim, and that is, when you gaze on the
02:03: Lord and glance at your problems, everything's right. But when you focus and gaze on all your problems, and just once in a while glance at the
02:14: Lord, then you've got trouble. And what Psalm 139 does, it just makes you realize who
02:21: God is. Again, you probably memorized it. Maybe you've memorized it in Hebrew as far as I know.
02:27: But Psalm 139 just makes you say, you know, God really is awesome. I know some people, they don't like to say something's awesome unless they're talking about God.
02:37: And maybe there's some truth to that. But this Psalm should make you just think, God, you're great.
02:43: Matter of fact, that's how it's set up. That when you see who God is, it's not just, well, okay,
02:49: I know now about God. I've got this theology down. But instead of knowing about God, this whole
02:56: Psalm is God knows about you. He knows you. And it's supposed to comfort you. The greatness of God found in Psalm 139.
03:05: A lot of people like to say that they're great. Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great, the
03:11: Great Houdini, the greatest show on earth, Muhammad Ali, I am the greatest.
03:18: King Louis XIV of France died after 72 years reigning, called himself the great.
03:25: He also is the one who said, I am the state. But I love the bishop who did his funeral, and there was a little candle on top of the casket, and he went over and snuffed out the candle and said, only one person is great.
03:39: And you're going to see that in Psalm 139. So let's take a look at our Bible, Psalm 139. It's super easy to outline this psalm or this song set to musical accompaniment.
03:52: We don't know the music, we just know the lyrics. And this is a song about God's greatness shown to David the king that teaches not just theology but applied theology.
04:03: In other words, if you say, this is the doctrine of omniscience, well, that would be true, but it's omniscience applied.
04:11: That's what I like about the psalm. It's not teaching strict truth about God, although I like that. This is in a poetic way.
04:18: And there's 24 verses and 4 sections if you want to outline it.
04:24: We're only going to get into the first section most likely this morning. By the way,
04:29: I prepared to teach you the whole thing this morning. And first service, I got through the first 6 verses, so I have to slow down and make sure you only get 6 verses because otherwise, how does that work?
04:40: The congregation, first sermon gets 9 verses, and then you get 6, and then what do we do next week?
04:48: First 6 verses are about God's omniscience. God knows you.
04:54: The second 6 verses are about God's omnipresence, and they're related. The only reason
05:00: God can know you so intimately is because He's everywhere. The next 6 verses talk about God's omnipotence, and how can
05:08: God protect you and know you? Well, He's got to be everywhere, and He's got to be all -powerful.
05:14: He has to be omnipotent. And then the last 6 verses are about God's holiness. Who cannot love and admire and respect and praise a
05:24: God who knows everything, is everywhere, and is all -powerful? And so God's holiness comes into play at the very end.
05:32: I hope and pray this psalm this morning motivates you to praise God and makes you wonder about the greatness of God.
05:41: This trip to California, we normally don't go there, but we went to Yosemite. How many people have been to Yosemite?
05:47: Quite a few. And it's pretty amazing to just stand there and look at El Capitan or at Half Dome.
05:54: And I just always go there, and I just say, it was an evolution grand. I mean, bang, and it all just happened.
06:00: It's just amazing to me. People on audio can't see tongue -in -cheek there.
06:06: But you just look at it, and I said to the kids, why do you think it's so tall? Why do you think it's so wonderful?
06:12: Why do you think it looks like that? Massive! You take a picture of it, it just doesn't show it.
06:18: But why is it like that? And I said, many reasons, but one is so you can say, if that is great, how much greater is
06:25: God? How much greater is the Creator who makes the creation? And when you look at that, you just think, this is incredible.
06:34: And then you go get a coffee. They actually had Pete's coffee served over in the little kiosk area, and I thought, oh, this is kind of nice.
06:42: You wake up in the morning, and you've got your little blue coffee cup mug thing trying to make some tea with elderberries or something, and you go, well,
06:53: I could just walk over here and get a Pete's coffee. And you know, the thing is, the Pete's coffee people, they're just so used to this grandeur and splendor, they don't even look.
07:04: I can barely order my Pete's coffee because I'm looking at Half Dome, and I'm looking up there, and at night you can see the stars, and you can see the lights on Half Dome, where people are sleeping on the side of the cliff.
07:15: These people are so familiar with Half Dome and El Capitan, they don't even look at it twice.
07:22: And you know what? The same thing happens to us. We get to know who God is, and it's just like, okay, that's no big deal.
07:29: So Psalm 139 stokes the coals of the hearts of people so you can realize how great
07:36: God is. One guy said you should read this psalm every morning and every night. I think he's on to something.
07:42: Steve Lawson said this psalm talks about a God who's immense but also eminent.
07:50: In other words, he's large but he's close to his people.
07:56: Very personal. I'm not going to do it right now, but sometime this week, read through Psalm 139 and look at the personal pronouns.
08:05: Lord, you have searched me and known me, and you'll see this is a psalm about the doctrine of God's omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, but it's done in a very personal way.
08:20: So let's take a look at Psalm 139, verses probably 1 to 6 today. Here is this prayer in a song that talks about God knowing everything.
08:32: Omniscience means omni, all, science, knowledge. God knows everything.
08:37: If you take a look at the little opening, it says, To the choir master, a psalm of David.
08:45: Now the last psalm that was introduced that way was Psalm 109, and now this one, we come up to 139, announced the same way.
08:52: To the choir master, we're going to take this psalm about God and we're going to put a choir together to sing it.
09:00: So it's going to be a song about doctrine that's very personal and applied theology.
09:06: If you take a look at Psalm 138, it seems like it's connected to the last psalm.
09:13: Psalm 138, verse 6, For though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly.
09:20: That's going to be the tie -in for the theme of Psalm 139. He's immense, but He's also eminent.
09:28: He's great, but He regards the lowly. But the haughty He knows from afar.
09:34: This book is going to remind you that God is not only great, but He's close.
09:40: And when I think about that, I think about the incarnation of Christ Jesus, the God who existed in eternity past, the great
09:47: Yahweh. Yet He cloaks Himself, does the Son, with human flesh.
09:53: God with us. Now look how it starts off, verse 1. O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
10:02: Now here's the good news. It starts off the right way. The focus is on not
10:09: David, not me, myself, and I. This is how you approach life. You don't start with you in the center.
10:16: I mean, I have to tell you this, because I guess it's kind of true confession as you come back from vacation. I think on my bad days that the world is micro -centric.
10:28: The world revolves around me, doesn't it? Of course it does. The whole world revolves around me, myself, and I.
10:36: Of course, I know that's wrong thinking, and David now gets it right. Lord. So when you think about problems and life and issues, it starts off the right way.
10:44: This is the personal covenant -keeping name of God, Yahweh. Not Elohim, the
10:50: Creator, not Adonai, the Sovereign, but Lord. David has his eyes and his focus on the
10:57: Lord, and that is right. That's a good example that we need to keep in mind.
11:03: You say, well, what's the big deal? It says here, you have searched me and known me. David was the writer, and David was a what?
11:13: He was a king. Proverbs 25, how about this? As the heavens for height and the earth for depth.
11:20: So the heart of the king is unsearchable. Kings' hearts can't be searched.
11:28: Actually, if you were a king back in those days, and somebody came along, you didn't have to tell them anything about you. You didn't have to recognize them.
11:34: You didn't have to shake their hand. You didn't have to let them talk to you. You didn't have to say anything to you, because you were the king.
11:40: And so if you don't have to talk, you can't know what's in the heart of a person, and so you can't know what's in the heart of a king, except God knows everything.
11:49: It says, what does the text say? You've searched me. That word means to examine carefully, to dig.
11:55: It's used in Job of mining. You're mining for things. You're trying to dig down.
12:00: I guess since I just was in California on Highway 49, I use the illustration. It's like you're panning for gold, and there's all this stuff on top, and you're running water over it, and finally you get down to the gold.
12:11: Here, getting down to us. This is the same word where in Judges it's used of men who spy out.
12:18: When I fly internationally and I come back to Logan, I don't know why it's always the same dog, but it's always this little beagle.
12:24: And the beagle always comes right up to me, and you start sweating, even though you realize I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm still nervous because the dog's going to find a tangerine or something in my bag.
12:35: I think once that happened, I'm sure one of the ladies from the grease strip planted it there, but that's another story.
12:41: And the beagle comes right up, and the beagle's sniffing it out, and they're just trying to search for things, contraband.
12:48: That's the exact word here. God knows everything about us.
12:54: He investigates. The literal Greek word is to dig. I hate it that one of the old commentators from the 70s says,
13:02: God really digs you. It's not the right phrase.
13:08: He searched me. Now, so far you might be saying, you know, this is going to get very uncomfortable.
13:14: This psalm makes me afraid because God knows all my business. Secondarily, that's true, but primarily this is a psalm of comfort.
13:23: God knows all about you, and yet he still cares for you. He knows everything about you, yet still loves you.
13:30: That's going to be the idea, so keep that in the back of your mind, that this thorough search of God is not going to stop him from loving
13:37: David and loving you if you're in Christ Jesus. Scoured every detail of David's life, and still he's
13:47: David's king. You know, the text says, you've known me.
13:54: I love it when Hannah said, God, you're a God of knowledges. Not just a God of knowledge, but knowledges.
14:01: God knows everything about you because he knows everything.
14:08: A .W. Tozer said, God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter, and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible, in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven and hell.
14:48: And if you were writing this psalm, he'd say, and he knows you. This is a good knowing because Psalm 1 -6 is reflective of it.
14:57: The Lord knows the way of the righteous. He knows all about it.
15:04: He is the one who has no recall. He just knows.
15:11: No random access memory. He just knows everything perfectly and everything perfectly simultaneously.
15:21: Did you ever think about this? God never learns. Oh, I'm not talking about the incarnation and Jesus being fully human.
15:27: I'm talking about God never learns. He never forgets.
15:34: If he learns something, that means he would be no longer God. And what's the extent of this knowledge of God knowing
15:42: David and knowing me? Let me give you five things that God knows about you, the extent of God's knowledge.
15:50: If you want an outline, I guess that's the outline we're going to just probably get through about verse 6 today. This is going to be very important because if God knows everything about you, why does he still love you?
16:00: And the answer is going to be grace. Why was it that when I met Kim that I was in a big rush to get married?
16:08: Well, probably at the top of the list was when I asked her to marry me May 6th, and we got married
16:15: June 6th. I've told this story before, and there's other factors with a vacation and other things, but the truth is still
16:22: I wanted her to marry me quickly because if she found out what I really was like, maybe she'd say no.
16:28: Strike that. She'd say no. But God knew everything about me.
16:37: And in eternity past, can you imagine? I'll use me as an illustration. You use you.
16:43: In eternity past to glorify the Son and to praise the Father, God knew every sin that I would ever commit, every skeleton in my closet, everything
16:53: I should have done but didn't, and everything that I did do that I shouldn't have done, and God said for the sake of my name and for the love that I have for this creature who's not even born yet,
17:03: I am going to save him. I'm going to have my son die for him.
17:08: He knew all about it. And so David gives the extent of this knowledge so that you would just go, you know what, this is incredible.
17:21: Number one, God knows what you do. What's the extent of God's knowledge? He knows what you do.
17:27: And again, there's an undercurrent of, you know, this is scary he knows, but the main point is he knows all about you and still loves you.
17:36: So don't lose the comfort side. You know when I sit down and when
17:42: I rise up. Psalm 139 verse 2. God knows all your actions.
17:48: And here it's emphatic in the Hebrew. You know. You, yes, you. You alone know when
17:54: I sit down and when I rise up. When I sit down, I'm talking about my passive life, things that I do, rest and leisure.
18:01: And when I stand up or rise up, as the NES says, NESV, it's the active stuff.
18:08: Working, driving, working out. This is called a merism.
18:14: When you combine two thoughts and it refers to the entirety. M -E -R -I -S -M.
18:21: So when I lie down and when I rise up and everything in between, that's the figure of speech, a merism.
18:27: I know we've had lots of merisms while I was gone on vacation. People getting merisms. But this is a different kind.
18:35: M -E -R -I -S -M. A combination of two thoughts referring to its entirety. So no action is overlooked.
18:42: God knows everything you do. That's the point. One of the reasons why
18:49: I like to go to football games. I'm not a sports nut like I used to be. Once every five years
18:55: I go to a college football game or a pro game. If it's on Monday night, then I can go. Why are all these games on Sunday?
19:03: That's another point. Like a bicycle ride that's 100 miles through the five boroughs of New York.
19:10: Wouldn't that be a fun ride? How great would that be? They shut down the roads and it's on Sunday. Anyway, back to the point.
19:17: One of the reasons why I like to go to these big games is because I can tangibly think to myself, there are 60 ,000 people here and God knows everything about every one of them.
19:27: Now if I told you billions of people, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around that, but I think 60 ,000 people.
19:32: He knows everything about them. He knows wherever they go. He knows them. Pretty amazing.
19:42: We are transparent and not opaque before God. Even the liberal
19:47: Beecher said, you know what? We live in transparent beehives before God. Everything you do,
19:57: He knows. He also, number two, knows what you think.
20:03: God knows what you do, but He also knows what you think. Verse 2b, you,
20:10: God, discern or understand. This is not a surface knowledge word.
20:17: You understand, NIV says you perceive, but it's stronger than that. My thought from afar.
20:25: Now many people say, that means God's really far away and He still knows. I think it's better to look at this and say, when thoughts are still far off our mind and away from us, thoughts far from us,
20:38: God still knows those. He sees my plans and my designs and what
20:45: I'm thinking about. Deuteronomy 31, for I know their intent. Reasonings.
20:52: Remember, it was said in Luke 15, some of them said, Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.
21:01: And others to test Him were demanding of Jesus a sign from heaven. But Jesus knew their thoughts.
21:09: That's the picture here. He understands our thoughts while they're far off from us.
21:16: They're near to God. Jeremiah 23, am I a God who is near and not a God far off?
21:24: God knows what you do. God knows what you think. God knows where you go. Verse 3. This is interesting.
21:30: Again, it's a poem. It's a song. You sing this. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
21:40: You search out my path. Literally, you scrutinize our winnow. So, He uses the little metaphor here, the little wordplay here.
21:49: It's like you grab a bunch of wheat that has chaff on the outside, throw it up in the air, the wind blows away the chaff, and you're left with the good stuff.
21:59: God does the same thing with us. That's the idea. You scrutinize our winnow, my path.
22:06: He's not just far away. He's close. He understands, discriminates. This word is used of spying and scouting out every corner to ambush.
22:20: And are intimately acquainted, the NAS says, with all my ways, all my behaviors, all my ways.
22:30: No wonder Job says in Job 31, does he not see my ways and number all my steps?
22:40: God knows what you do. God knows what you think. God knows where you go. And now look at this one.
22:46: Verse 4. God knows what you will say. He knows what you will say. He knows what you say, too.
22:52: Verse 4. Psalm 139, verse 4. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold,
23:01: O Lord, Yahweh, you know it all together. Now, there's been some debate on this, so I double -checked my resources.
23:11: And according to DailyMail .co .uk, science tech article, it's still true that women speak 13 ,000 more words a day than men.
23:23: On average, 20 ,000 for ladies, 7 ,000 for the men.
23:29: Women talk three times as much. I'm not saying the word chatterbox.
23:35: I'm not saying any kind of other words. I would never do that. Come home from vacation and make any kind of comments.
23:45: If you speak 10 ,000 words a day, that's 3 ,650 ,000 words per year.
23:52: And there are over 300 million people in America. And just start doing the math across the world.
23:59: God knows everything that they've said, of course, but He knows what they're going to say. Whatever language, the future is easy for God.
24:13: James Boyce said, Omniscience involves not only God's knowledge of us, but also His knowledge of nature, the past, present, and future.
24:20: It involves everything that we can possibly imagine and much more besides. It is a knowledge that God has always had and will always have.
24:29: There's no need for Him to learn. It is not necessary to say that God has never learned and cannot learn, for He already knows and has always known everything.
24:38: Whatever you say or are about to say, God knows every word. I like what
24:46: Matthew Henry said, Thoughts are words to God. Your thoughts are words to God because He knows them.
24:55: Now, let's just stop for a second again and make sure we understand. This psalm is written in a way to encourage people.
25:03: Yes, if you go, You know what, I shouldn't sin because of that. I understand. That's a good secondary application.
25:08: But the primary application is, God knows everything about you and still cares for you. How can that be?
25:16: How can there be so much love from God and grace from God? And how can the atonement of Jesus Christ be so great that God can love sinners like us?
25:27: We're not talking about God loving His Son, God loving the
25:34: Spirit, the Spirit loving the Father. We're talking about God, the Creator, loving creatures, who are sinful, fallen and finite and who would kill and did kill
25:47: Jesus Christ if they could. How does that work? David is writing a psalm about how
25:55: God knows all about him but still cares for him. God knows what you do, what you think, where you go, what you'll say.
26:04: And now, number five, God knows what you need. This is a sense of protection here.
26:10: This is really good, verse five. This is why slow, methodical plotting through Scripture is good instead of just speed reading all the time.
26:20: Listen to verse five. You hem me in, personal pronouns again, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
26:35: In other words, I know all about you and I'm not going to forget you. When there's enemies, when there's issues, when there are trials, the sovereign care of God Almighty.
26:48: Now, the text says, you lay your hand on me. When I was growing up, that meant something different in our family.
26:58: You don't want to get the laying on of hands in our house when you were growing up.
27:05: Matter of fact, I told the first service, I have a brother and a sister, I'm the oldest.
27:11: So when we had a car, it's probably my dad's 67 red Chevy Impala, two -door,
27:18: I don't know why he had a two -door with three kids, but dad sits in the driver's seat, mom in the passenger seat, and then we would all scramble.
27:28: We had a thing in our family, if you say, I call something, that means you get it first. I call it.
27:35: So we would all call the seat behind dad because it's hard to lay hands on your kids.
27:45: So then he had this other kind of strategy, and so he couldn't really hit us.
27:51: I kind of just hurt my arm doing that. Did that qualify for workers' compensation? So he had this thing where he would just grab our hair and pull real hard.
28:05: And then we'd get like to the Ozarks, Lake of the Ozarks, and we're going, I guess I don't need a haircut today.
28:16: This is a different kind of laying on hands. This is not Pentecostal either. This is the idea that if Moses sees
28:29: God with a full view of his glory, Moses isn't going to live.
28:35: And so God says to Moses, while my glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by.
28:49: This is the idea that's seen in John 10. And Jesus said, and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
29:03: Protection, sovereign care. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my
29:13: Father's hand. Protection, sovereign care.
29:23: Hemmed in and surrounded by God. This summer I'm reading a lot about the
29:29: West, and Kit Carson, and Fremont, and all these guys fighting the Navajo, and fighting the
29:35: Pueblo, and they try to protect themselves, both against each other, by being hemmed in.
29:46: But here it's the Lord who does the hemming in. See, so we start going through a psalm like this, and have you noticed what's not happening?
29:56: I'll tell you what's not happening with me right now. I'm not thinking about all the vain things in my life, and all the trivial things in my life.
30:06: Of course we live in this world, we have to pay bills, we have to go to the doctor, we have to do all those kind of things. But study of the psalm, especially like this one, it starts elevating your mind again.
30:15: What's really important? How do we see the world? We need to see the world through the screen door of,
30:21: Oh Lord! And thinking about who He is. That's why my mother on her deathbed, had a little thing that I still think is super smart.
30:30: When you're in a pickle, or when you're in a bind, or you're on your deathbed, you say, you know what,
30:36: I'm going to start thinking about the Lord. And for my mother it was alphabetically. So she'd start with A, and she'd start saying,
30:42: Almighty, All -knowing, All -powerful. And when she ran out of A's, she'd go to B's. She ran out of B's, she went to C's.
30:49: And by the time she got to X, she was already thinking properly, so she didn't even need to think of one.
30:54: Think of the cross when you get to X. How's that? I never even made it to X, because now I'm thinking about the issues properly.
31:01: And when people are tracking David down, accusing David, after David, trying to kill David, the proper approach is, now
31:08: I have to see things properly, through the Lord. That's why the psalm starts out,
31:14: Oh Lord! And when you know God like this, and have been known by God like this, what's the response?
31:24: Well, we know that theology drives methodology, which drives, I preach in a church in Hercules, California.
31:34: And they were talking. I was told by the pastor now, when Mike, I listened to one of your sermons before, and when you did
31:39: Romans 12, you kind of lectured, kind of a New England, Boston lecture. So I want you to preach, son.
31:48: I thought, I teach preaching classes, at a seminary level.
31:55: Okay. So, I thought, I better be preaching. And so,
32:00: I don't know if preaching means, you can get the congregation to respond. I don't know. But even if you don't respond out loud, the response to,
32:09: God knows you and everything, is this, verse 6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
32:20: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it.
32:28: You want to know how wonderful God's knowledge is? Think about your own stinted knowledge for a second.
32:34: And think about everything that you've learned, and you've forgotten. And just think about finite knowledge. And then you think, man, that God knows everything and still loves me.
32:42: That's wonderful. He knows everything about Himself, but He knows everything about me too.
32:50: God's knowledge is as eternal as He is. When was the last time you were astonished by God?
32:56: The word there, wonderful, is emphatic in the Hebrew. It means extraordinary, surpassing.
33:03: God never learns anything. We should be astonished by that. God still knows us and loves us, even though He knew every one of our sins.
33:12: We should be amazed by that. What's the text say?
33:17: It's too high. I cannot attain it. I took the dog to California, and I love to take her to the beach.
33:27: And Luke was even putting her on the surfboard a few times, and so it's fun to see our dog surf. And so I also had a ball, and so I'd throw the ball into the surf, and I would time it perfectly so that the waves would come.
33:41: And I would try to make it so she'd be at the perfect spot to kind of get lifted up and then do a little dog, not paddle, but a little dog kind of body boarding.
33:52: And so I thought that would be perfect. And if it didn't work, it would just crash over her and knock her silly. She'd sleep well in the night.
33:57: So I thought, I just kept doing it, and what does she do? She brings me the ball, puts it at my feet, and I throw it in. Repeat. Just over and over and over, throwing that thing in there.
34:06: And she started getting smart. Now, I know cats don't have souls, and dogs do, but still, she started getting smart.
34:19: Some of the sets are bigger than other sets coming in. They're not all uniform. So she would lift up on her haunches right down by the shoreline with a beach break right there, and she'd look over to see if a big wave was coming because if it was, she wasn't going to swim out to get the ball until it already came over.
34:37: And it's like David here. This knowledge is so high, I don't care how high I get up or try to look over or get on my tiptoes.
34:45: I can't wrap my mind around a God like this. It's too high.
34:51: And to continue the dog thing for just a little bit, I was so waiting for my dog, again, because she has a soul and because she's self -actualized and everything else and taking all kinds of psychological tests and Maslow and upper learning and everything.
35:05: I wanted her just to drop the ball and to just sit there and look at the ocean and go, there's a seal over here on its back kind of knocking the little oyster open and eating the abalone.
35:17: And there's the sun. There's these pelicans, about five, it seemed like 500 of them, probably more like 50 or 100, dive bombing straight down in the ocean to grab stuff.
35:26: The sun. You could see the moon up over the side. I just wanted her to go, drop the ball and say, oh
35:34: Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and all. I think maybe she did that, but it sounded like a bark to me.
35:44: Now think about it. It's only because of the mercy and grace of the
35:52: Lord Jesus Christ that we even get to appreciate such of God because before we were saved, we were like a dog, not appreciating anything.
36:03: Oh, you might say, yeah, God made everything or you throw a bone out, but you don't get to see God for who He really is because we were blind.
36:11: We were as blind as a cyclops with one eye poked out. I mean, we could not see. We could not hear.
36:16: We could not do anything. And then what's it say in Ephesians 2, verse 4? But God who is what?
36:23: Rich in mercy. And He gives us eyes to see. And so a dog can't appreciate a sunset and an unbeliever can't appreciate who
36:32: God is until God turns on the switch, which is the regenerating power of the
36:38: Holy Spirit that He sovereignly does. That if it was based on your performance, He would have never done.
36:44: But based on His grace and mercy to show His kindness and the riches of His grace,
36:50: He does. And then David says, that's too wonderful for me. Wonderful.
36:58: God knows me and still loves me. Praise. This is wonderful knowledge away from me literally in the
37:06: Hebrew. God, You're awesome. So high I can't attain it.
37:13: Wesley said, bring me a worm that can comprehend a man and then I'll show you a man who can comprehend the triune
37:19: God. But amazingly, because we have the Holy Spirit to illumine
37:24: Scriptures, we can know at least dimly now. And so for David it was, there's trouble, but he knows me so I can take comfort when a person asked
37:39: Alexander the Great how he could sleep soundly by being surrounded by personal danger, he replied that Parmenio, his faithful guard, was watching.
37:50: That's the idea. So when I look at this, I say, God, You're incredible. I also say, I get comfort from You.
37:56: I also, let me give you a couple of other things. Here's a big one. Do you really think for one split second you can lose your salvation?
38:04: Because if you do, I need to talk to you about the freedom of the will or lack thereof, the sovereignty of God, distinguishing grace, what
38:11: God the Father does, who saves, but I also want to tell you something else. If God knew about all your sins that you committed and still had
38:19: His Son die for you, how can you lose your salvation? Because God already knew you'd commit those sins.
38:26: God knows the worst about you. He still saved you, died for you. Arthur Pink said,
38:33: The whole of my life stood open to His view from the beginning. He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding, yet nevertheless
38:43: He fixed His heart upon me. Oh, how the realization of this should bow me and wonder and worship before Him.
38:53: And as one lady said to Spurgeon, Good thing God picked me in eternity past, because if He was knowing what
39:00: I did in time, He certainly would have never picked me. But even that doesn't work theologically, because He knew everything we would do and He still chose to love us.
39:13: He knows everything. Matter of fact, I will give you some more practical advice.
39:20: This kind of passage should be good for those people who are here, especially with some kind of engineering mind and background.
39:28: And they've got to figure out everything about God. How could God write Romans? And how could
39:33: Paul write Romans? How could Jesus be God and man simultaneously? How can it be sovereignty of God and salvation?
39:40: He determines who goes to heaven, but we're supposed to preach to everybody and everybody's responsible. How do these things happen?
39:47: How do we force mental closure? Friends, God knows all about it and He hasn't revealed everything to us and we're supposed to trust that He knows.
39:57: We don't know. This is a psalm not about us, but it's a psalm about God who knows us.
40:04: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high. I can't attain it. If you struggle with sovereignty and responsibility, you ought to memorize that verse.
40:13: That knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high. I can't attain it. God knows all thoughts, all mysteries, all everything.
40:24: You know, this is also interesting practically about prayer. How do you pray? Dear Lord, I just want to give you an update on what happened today.
40:33: This happened and that happened. You can talk to the Lord that way, I guess, but if you're talking that way to the
40:38: Lord to inform Him of your day, He already knows of your day. He hears your petitions, of course, but you're not trying to inform
40:48: God. You're supposed to say, I need to deepen my trust in You and my dependence upon You, my confidence in You.
40:58: Before there's a word on my tongue, Lord, You know it. That goes for prayer as well. And, of course, it would be wrong if I didn't say, this passage, this doctrine should keep you from sinning.
41:13: God knows all these things and we shouldn't do it. I read this week that when people worship
41:21: Greek images back in the Bible day, there were certain Greek images they really loved.
41:27: Now, maybe you could pick a Greek image on aesthetics. It was pretty. It was made out of marble.
41:34: Maybe it was the God that would give you money or fame or power. How do you pick a
41:39: God? I remember I was in India once and I met a young guy and I was trying to preach the Gospel to him and I said, well, which gods do you worship?
41:45: And without giving you the Indian names of all the gods, he said, I worship the God of money, power, and sex. I thought, well, 25 years old, that seems about right for a pagan to worship those gods.
41:55: And I talked to him about the God who made the sun and the stars and then we worked from there. So how do you pick a
42:01: God if you're a Greek? Some picked the gods who were by the spiders because if the spiders make webs on the eyes of the
42:11: God, then the Greeks thought, well, maybe they can't see what I do. The more the gods know, the less comfortable
42:24: I feel. James Montgomery Boyce said, to acknowledge that there is a
42:31: God who knows everything about everything is also to acknowledge a God who knows us.
42:37: And because we don't want some things about us to be known, we hide it, not only from others, but also from ourselves as much as possible.
42:47: A God who thoroughly knows us is unsettling. The good news is here at Bethlehem Bible Church, we worship the risen
42:56: Savior because one thing's for certain about all of us, from the elders on down, that we are sinful, finite, fallen creatures.
43:07: It's true. But we have one thing in common as well, as we are known by this
43:14: God who knows everything. I don't really like gullibility.
43:25: I don't like to be duped. I don't like con games played on me. This psalm helps me from my self -gullibility, thinking that somehow
43:37: I'm the center of the universe. I'd like to read Psalm 139, verses 1 through 24 in closing.
43:44: I will try to highlight some of the personal pronouns. And I want you to see this link.
43:49: Here's the link. It's about God knowing us. And He can know us, the next six verses, because He's present everywhere.
43:59: He can protect us and comfort us because He's omnipotent. And then He's so holy that if you don't worship a
44:05: God like this, how could you not worship a God like this? David said, then I hate those kind of people.
44:12: Psalm 139. O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when
44:18: I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
44:28: Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay
44:37: Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high.
44:43: I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall
44:48: I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You're there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You're there.
44:55: If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, from the east to the west, even there
45:02: Your hand shall lead me and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me is to be night.
45:11: Even the darkness is not dark to You and the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with You.
45:18: How powerful is God? He could have done something about creation of the world, supernatural regeneration creation, but He goes for physical creation, the power of God in a womb.
45:29: For You formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
45:37: Wonderful are Your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when
45:44: I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance.
45:51: In Your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
45:59: How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God. How vast the sum of them. If I could count them, they're more than the sand.
46:07: I awaken. I'm still with You. O, that You would slay the wicked, O God.
46:13: O, men of blood, depart from me. They speak against You with malicious intent. Your enemies take Your name in vain.
46:19: Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
46:25: I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. But there's another enemy dwelling within, isn't there?
46:32: Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me.
46:39: And lead me in the way everlasting. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are so thankful that You're the
46:49: God of gods, the Lord of lords, King of kings, and that You know everything.
46:55: Thank You for that. Thank You that we can entrust our souls and our physical bodies, our trials, our health issues, financial issues, our sins, all to You.
47:08: We're thankful that we can stand before You, not as condemned, because we're justified, all based on the perfect work of Your Son.
47:18: Thank You that we have a risen Savior this morning, and I pray that You would empower us by Your Spirit this week to think about the world through the lens of O Lord.