Please turn in your copy of God's Word to Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Last week we looked at Psalm 23, what Charles Spurgeon called the Pearl of the Psalms. And this week we're in Psalm 139, what Spurgeon called the Sapphire of the Psalms. So, as we come to the reading and the preaching of this Sapphire of a Psalm, let me pray for us. Father, as we hear your word read and proclaimed now, may it be to us a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And so lead us in the way everlasting, we pray. We ask this in the name of your Son, our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever praised. Amen. Psalm 139. To the choir master, a Psalm of David. O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when 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. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together. You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there 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 be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. 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. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you. O that you would slay the wicked, O God. O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever. Psalm 139 is like a good page turner or a good movie thriller. You know, the kind of book or movie I'm talking about? The kind where you think you know what's going on and then you get to the end and you realize you need to go back and reread the book or rewatch the movie all over again to properly understand it. Because the end explains the beginning and everything in between. Well, that's a bit like Psalm 139. The end explains the beginning and everything in between. But when we read this Psalm without the end in mind, when we read only up to verse 18 as we normally do, feeling that lovely fuzzy feeling of God's comforting grace, When we ignore verses 19 to 24, we don't really understand what this psalm is all about or how it applies to us. Because by the end of this psalm, David wants vindication in a world where he is surrounded by wicked people. And then he prays for himself that God would search him and know him and see if there is any wickedness in him and lead him in the way everlasting. Only when we read this psalm in the light of the end do we fully understand how it applies to us. Well, I don't want to begin with the end this morning. I want to begin with the beginning, and that is the main section of verses one to 18. It contains three wonderful truths that should comfort us this morning and for which we should praise God. Number one, God knows us completely. God knows us completely, verses one to six. The section begins with a intimate statement directed to God, verse one. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. David calls God his covenant by his covenant name, the Lord, which means I am who I am, as we saw last week. The comforting truth is that the God who is I am, who needs no one, has taken the time to deeply and carefully know us. O Lord, the great I am, you have searched me and known me. And what he knows about us is then unpacked in verses 2 to 5. He knows our actions in the home, verse 2. You know when I sit down and when I rise. He knows our thoughts in the mind, verse 2. You discern my thoughts from afar. He knows our movements in the street, verse 3. You search out my path and my lying down. He knows the words on our tongues, verse 4. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together." Notice how David uses pairs of words to describe the comprehensive nature of what God knows. Two opposites to convey the whole. Verse 2, he knows our sitting and our rising, and so everything in between. Verse 3, he knows our walking and our lying down, and so also everything in between. Notice the verbs that he uses of how God knows us. Verse one, he searches us. It's a deep, penetrating knowledge. Verse two, he discerns us. Verse three, he is acquainted with us. He knows us intimately. This is a comprehensive knowledge. God knows us completely. But it's also an already knowledge, a prior knowledge. God knows everything about us all at once before it even comes to be. Like our words, verse four, even before a word is on my tongue, you know it altogether. God's knowledge of us is an already knowledge. In other words, God doesn't grow in his knowledge of us as he searches us and knows us. He's not like some artificial intelligence that is growing in its learning as it's doing its task. Boys and girls, you know the way at school or at home you learn your letters and phonetics and numbers and spelling and additions and subtractions. Well, do you know that God has never learned any of those things? God has never learned a single thing in his whole entire life. He has always known everything. God's comprehensive knowledge of us is an already knowledge of us. It's also an inescapable knowledge, verse five. You hem me in behind and before and you lay your hand upon me. God's knowledge of us is an already inescapable, comprehensive knowledge. No wonder David concludes in verse six, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. This is the first comforting truth of Psalm 139. God knows us completely. There is not a single thing in your life that God does not know about you. And he knows it before it even happens. God knows us completely. Second, God surrounds us entirely. He surrounds us entirely, verses 7 to 12. David begins this section like he did the last one. He makes a general statement up front, verse 7, and then he unpacks it in the following verses, verses 8 to 12. His statement comes in the form of two questions, verse 7. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? Two rhetorical questions that receive one simple answer. Nowhere. Nowhere. The reason why we cannot escape God's presence is simple. He is everywhere. God is everywhere, verse 8. If we go up to the heavens where he dwells, God is there. If we go down to Sheol, to the grave where the dead lie, God is there. Heaven and Sheol are polar opposites outside the spheres of this earth. But then in verse 9, David uses polar opposites inside the sphere of the earth from east to west. If I take the wings of the morning, a metaphor for the rising of the sun, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. The picture is one of traveling at the speed of light on a sun ray and arriving on the far side of the sea in an instant. Just like the sun's rays when they take their flight first thing in the morning, they arrive on the far side of the sea in an instant. And what happens when you travel on a sun ray at the speed of light from east to west? You find that God got there ahead of you. Verse 10, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. God got there ahead of you because he was already there. Boys and girls, some months ago, my son, Zachary, asked me a question at the dinner table one evening. He said, Dad, can God fly? Does God fly? And while I was scrambling, thinking, how do I answer this, two of his catechism questions came to me. And so I said, Zach, well, what is God? He said, God is a spirit and does not have a body like us. I said, yes. And where is God? He said, God is everywhere. And I said, so Zach, if God is a spirit who is everywhere, does he need to fly anywhere? And he said, no. Got it, dad. That's his new phrase, got it. Do you get it? God does not need to fly anywhere because he's everywhere. Boys and girls, I'm sure you got it, like Zach got it. Well, here's a question for you. What about in the darkness? Is God present in the dark? We know that he is light and dwells in the light. So is he present in the dark or could you escape God in the dark? Well, David gives us the answer in verses 11 to 12. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. David pictures us wrapped in a duvet of darkness, covering us from any light, but he says it's pointless. because the dark is as light to God. As C.H. Spurgeon put it memorably, darkness and light in this agree, great God, they are both alike to thee. So there we have it. Whether we go up into the heavens and outer space in one of Elon Musk's SpaceX machines, whether we die and go down into the grave, whether we catch a sun ray rocket traveling from east to west, whether we wrap ourselves in a duvet of darkness, God is there. God is here. God is everywhere. And what's he doing there, here, and everywhere? Verse 10, he's there to guide and to guard. Even there, your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. What a comforting truth. God surrounds us entirely. God knows us completely. God surrounds us entirely. And number three, God made us wonderfully. God made us wonderfully, verses 13 to 18. This third truth, comforting truth, is the foundation for the first two comforting truths. Notice the word for at the beginning of verse 13. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. God knows us completely, he surrounds us entirely because he made us wonderfully. But the link is even more immediate. We've just learned in verses 11 to 12 that there is nowhere that God is not present, where God cannot see us, even in the dark. And now David gives us definitive proof by taking us to one of the darkest places on planet Earth. Do you know one of the darkest places on planet Earth? A mother's womb. A mother's womb. There is no light in a mother's womb. When a surgeon has to do a special operation on a baby in the womb, one of the first instruments he needs is a torch. Not so with the divine surgeon. Not so with God. God came with needle and thread, and he knitted us together in the pitch darkness of our mother's womb. Only it wasn't pitch darkness to him, was it? Darkness and light in this agree, great God, they are both alike to thee. Well, no wonder David bursts into praise at this point, verse 14. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. Fearfully made because it was God who made us, not some random evolutionary process. Wonderfully made because he made us in the pitch darkness of our mother's womb. But the wonder for David concerns more than just our conception. It concerns more than just the first trimester. It includes our whole life. God formed our DNA, and he also formed our days. Every one of them, from womb to tomb, from cradle to coffin. He mapped them all out, even today. Before you were a zygote in your mother's womb, long before that, God planned that on the 13th of October, 2024, you would be here today at 10th Presbyterian Church. It's not a mistake that you came to church today. It's not a coincidence. It was written in his book that you would be here. God has planned every day of your life, and He planned every day of your life before even one of them came to be. Now, when you think about that, it's mind-blowing, isn't it? It's mind-boggling. Think how much writing He had to do for each of your days, for all of you. That's why David bursts into praise again in verse 17 and 18. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I could count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you. Verse 18 ends with a little twist. I awake and I am still with you. We'd expect David to say, given what he said earlier, I awake and you are still with me because you're everywhere. Isn't that what he's been saying so far? You are with me wherever I go, there you are. But now he changes it and says, when I awake, I am with you. There's been a change from God being with us to us being with God. The movement of this psalm is from God coming to be with us to us awakening and going to be with God. It's as if we fall asleep on the last day ordained for us in our life and wake up to the first day of life in the presence of God. I awake and still I am with you. I think we have here the first hint of the transportation of the soul to God in death or the resurrection of life in the paradise of God. So from the beginning of our unformed substance in our mother's womb to the transportation of our souls to God and death or the resurrection of our bodies on the last day, God knows us completely. He surrounds us entirely because he made us wonderfully. Three comforting truths which sparkle like a sapphire. Spurgeon was right, the brightness of this psalm is like a sapphire. But then comes verses 19 to 22. O that you would slay the wicked, O God. O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? Do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Now, let's be honest. This Sam was sparkling like a sapphire until verse 19. Come on, David. Why all the talk of bloodthirsty men? People who speak maliciously against God, take His name in vain, enemies of God. You've gone from speaking about wonderful things, David, to speaking about wicked things. I mean, save it for another Sam. Don't take the sparkle off the sapphire. And besides, who do you think you are? Are you some holier-than-thou believer? Don't you know that you're a sinner like the next person in Israel? Well, in other Psalms, we see that David does know that only by God's grace is he opposed to sinners. But we also see in this Sam that he knows that in a world full of sinners, he can just as easily be found among one of the wicked, and that sin may be found inside him. Hence why he closes with that personal prayer. And the emphasis in the Hebrew is on the personal. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. You notice how David picks up the vocabulary from earlier in the psalm. Search me links back to verse 1. You have searched me. Know my heart links back to verse 1. You have known me. Know my thoughts, links back to verse two. You discern my thoughts from afar. See if there is any grievous way in me, verse three. It links back to verse three. You are acquainted with all my ways. The crossover in vocabulary makes us ask ourselves if we do not need to go back and reread the psalm from the beginning and see if we actually understood it properly the first time. Remember I said at the beginning that Psalm 139 is like a good page turner, a good movie thriller. You have to read or watch it to the end in order to understand the beginning and everything in between. Well, David's desire for God to search his own heart, to examine him and see if there's any grievous way in him, that begins to put a different spin on those three comforting truths. Because if we ask God to search our own hearts, examine our own thoughts, then the truth that God knows us completely, surrounds us entirely, because he made us wonderfully, that begins to convict more than comfort. In fact, when you reread verses one to 18 and light of verses 19 to 24, you realize that the psalm is not just comforting, it's also convicting. There are a number of terms or phrases that could be taken to comfort or to convict. In verse two and four, God knowing our every thought and word, does that comfort you or convict you? Verse three, God knowing exactly where we go when others don't know where we go. Does that comfort you or convict you? Verse five, God hemming us in behind and before sounds a bit claustrophobic. The mention of God's hand feels like he's invading our personal space, like he's chasing us. Verse six, the word wonderful can be translated difficult. When we consider that God knows our every thought, every word, every move, every deed, is that knowledge too wonderful for you or too difficult for you? Verse seven, the mention of fleeing from the presence of God sounds like Adam and Eve in the garden, doesn't it? Verse 10, God's right hand is more a symbol of power and authority than gentleness and guidance. Verse 11, surely the darkness shall cover me. The word cover is the same verb in Genesis 3.15 for the serpent bruising the heel of the offspring of the woman. The darkness here seems to do damage, and since God is present in the darkness, because darkness is his light to him, is God the one covering us, bruising us? Verse 13, God formed our inward parts, which means it includes our conscience, which gets pricked when we sin. So do you see how some of the terms and phrases, they could be read either way. They could comfort or they could convict. They seem to comfort on a first read, but when you get to the end and then reread it again, it feels more like they convict. So let me ask you, in light of the end of this Psalm, does Psalm 139 comfort you or does it convict you? When you realize God knows your every thought, your every word, your every move, your every deed, how does that make you feel? Comforted or convicted? Innocent or guilty? Given that we are sinners, we ought to feel convicted. We ought to feel guilty. And when we do feel this, when our sin begins to convict us, then we've only got one of two options. We can either run from God, which is a pretty pointless exercise, given what we've just seen. But it's amazing in life how many of us try to run from God. We could stop and surrender to God. When God invades our privacy and we feel convicted and guilty, the right response is to stop and surrender. Because He has not convicted us to condemn us. He has convicted us to save us and comfort us. That's the good news in all of this. God does not convict us to condemn us. He convicts us to then comfort us with His grace and forgiveness. In his famous poem, The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson pictures God chasing a sinner through life like a hound chasing a hare. The poem is written from the perspective of the hare. It begins like this. I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind. And in the midst of tears, I hid from him and under running laughter. And then the 182 line poem ends with the hound finally cornering the hare. halts by me that footfall, is my gloom after all, shade of his hand outstretched caressingly? Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am he whom thou seekest. Thou drovest love from thee who drovest me. In other words, when the hound finally catches the hare, the shade of the hound's outstretched arm is not oppressive, but caressive. It's not harsh, but gentle, because the hound of heaven is the God of grace. And that, friends, is the wonderful good news of this Psalm. It's the wonderful good news of the whole Bible. God does not convict us to condemn us. He convicts us to comfort us. God does not hound us to pound us. He doesn't chase us to charge us. He doesn't hem us in to condemn us to hell. No, God hounds us and hems us. He pursues us and chases us so that we might stop running and start surrendering, so that we might find the comfort we've been looking for all our lives, but looking for it in all the wrong places. When God invades our privacy, there's only one right response. It's not to run. It's to repent. Oh Lord, you know my heart. Have mercy upon me. Oh Lord, you know every thought from afar. Please forgive me. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. The conviction ought to lead to confession. And the confession ought to lead us to Christ. Because if we need to confess our sins as a result of this psalm, then we need a savior to forgive us our sins as a result of this psalm. If this psalm convicts us this morning of our sin, and it should, then it shows us our need of Christ. The only person who could sing and pray and live Psalm 139 and feel no conviction at all. You ever thought about that? Jesus would have sung, prayed, and lived Psalm 139 and never felt any conviction. because God searched his heart and found no sinful desire. God knew his thoughts from afar, and not a single one of them was tainted by sin. God knew every word he would speak before he spoke it, and not one of them was misspoken. Jesus could truly say to God, Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me with not a tinge of guilt. And he could go on saying and praying throughout his life, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. And not once was he found wanting. He was only ever found worthy. which is why every part of this psalm between the beginning and the end meant only comfort for Jesus, not conviction. He was comforted by the fact that God knew him completely because he had nothing to hide. He was comforted by the fact that God surrounded him entirely because he had nothing to confess when he got where he went and what he did what he did. And he was comforted by the fact that God created him wonderfully in his mother's womb. God, the Holy Spirit, knit him together in Mary's womb. And God the Father formed every day of his life, writing them down in his book before any of them came to be. The hard days of his wilderness temptations and the trial and the crucifixion, and the good days of his resurrection and ascension into heaven. Jesus could truly say with David, how precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I could count them, they are more than the sand. And yes, Jesus could say, I awake from death and I am still with you. And Jesus could pray the prayers of judgment on God's enemies and not be found to be a hypocrite in praying it. Unlike David, his father, the man who wrote this psalm, who himself prayed verses 23 and 24, he was found in the end to be a hypocrite. David went astray in his heart for another man's wife. In his lustful thoughts for her, in his words requesting her to come to his palace, in his lying words to cover it up, and in his deed to murder her husband. David, a man after God's own heart, had his heart searched and his thoughts tried, and he was found wanting. Jesus, son of David, a man after God's own heart, had his heart searched, had his thoughts tried, and he was found worthy. In his whole life, he embodied the spirit and the sentiment of this psalm, singing it, praying it, living it, and enjoying the comforts of it. And because he did that perfectly for us, if we are united to him by faith, the conviction of our sin turns to comfort. That's the cycle of the Christian life. Christian, conviction, confession, Christ, comfort. And then finally, consecration, for having found our comfort in Christ, the forgiveness of sins, so that these truths now mean something to us, that God knows us completely. He surrounds us entirely. He made us wonderfully. These things comfort us, but we end with consecration. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. That's the cycle of the Christian life. Conviction, confession, Christ, comfort, consecration. If Spurgeon said that Psalm 139 was a sapphire, then perhaps we can think of these five aspects of the Christian life as five facets of the sapphire with Christ sparkling in the middle. because how this sapphire of a psalm makes us feel all depends on whether or not we see Christ at the center of it. May God give us the eyes to see and the hearts to respond. Let us pray. Father, we pray with Bianco da Siena of old. Come down, O love divine. Seek out this soul of mine and visit it with your own ardor glowing. O comforter, draw near. Within my heart appear and kindle it, your holy flame bestowing. For Jesus' sake. Amen.