First six verses of Psalm 139,
we saw David speaks of how God knows them that are his. He has knowledge of every sinner. He has knowledge of everything
and everybody. He's omniscient, but he knows his own, his elect,
in love and fellowship. I don't think we realize what
an amazing thing it is to have fellowship with God. John said
in 1 John 1 3 that which we have seen and heard declare we unto
you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship
is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. John says we are telling you
what we've seen and heard so that you can be in on this. We have fellowship with God.
And we want you in on it too. We don't know why God loves one
sinner and not another, but we know that he does. He plainly
declared that he does. He said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah
1 5, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. For thou camest forth out of
the womb, I sanctified thee. And we know that he said to another
group of sinners in Matthew chapter 7, I never knew you. Jeremiah knew you before there
was a you. But he said to those who stood
before him, bragging about their works, I never knew you. Before Jacob
or Esau were ever born or had done any good or evil, either
one of them, God said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I
hated. And as I said, we don't know
why. What we do know about that, though,
is important. We know that it's not because
of anything in them. And that's important to understand.
It's deliberately mentioned there in Romans 9.13 where I just quoted
that neither one of them had done any good or evil. They are
distinguished by God and not by anything that they had done. Neither one had done anything
when God chose between them. He distinguished between them.
And it says in Romans 3.24 being justified freely by God's grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We are justified freely because
Christ died for us, redeemed us from our sins, and that word
freely means without a cause, for naught. That is, in the sinner, there's
no cause for it. There's nothing to attract God
to us. There's nothing to recommend
us to God. There's nothing whereby we might merit his attention,
much less his favor. So for reasons entirely within
himself, God loved, chose, and predestinated some sinners to
salvation before the foundation of the world. And that is expressed
this way in the scriptures. As in our text, God knows them
that are his. That choosing, that love, that
affection, that distinguishing of them from everybody else is
expressed that way. He knows us. Here in our text
we see it. There in Jeremiah 1 where we
quoted, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew you. I knew
you and that knowledge of him caused God to sanctify him, to
make him holy, to set him apart and to use him for his glory.
So that's a special knowledge. That's not just an awareness
of facts about Jeremiah. In Matthew 7 he gives as a reason
for the rejection of those who claim their own works as their
acceptance before God. He gives as the reason for their
rejection. It's interesting there. You know,
they said, Lord, what about our wonderful works that we've done
for you? Won't that cause us to gain,
you know, access to you? And the Lord doesn't say depart
from me. He did say you work iniquity.
But the first thing he said was not depart from me. You haven't
done enough. He didn't say, depart from me. You didn't do the right things.
He said, depart from me. I never knew you. You are workers. It wasn't what they did. It was
what they are. You are workers of iniquity.
It's what they were. And he said, I never knew you. And so it's about that knowledge,
it's about that special knowledge. In 2 Timothy 2.19, Paul said
to Timothy, the foundation of God standeth sure having this
seal. The Lord knoweth them that are
his. Now that has no meaning whatsoever
if he knows everybody in that same sense. He knows them that
are his. He distinguishes among men and
women. John 10, 14, I'm the good shepherd
and I know my sheep and am known of mine. So we see in these first
six verses, God knows me, David said. He knows me. He knows me
in all that I do. He knows me in all the thoughts
of my heart. He doesn't just know me by way
of examination or observance, but he's all around me. He surrounds
me. He's with me. He accompanies
me. He lays his hand upon me, David
said. That's a special knowledge right
there. He identifies with me. He's touched with the feeling
of my infirmity. He lays his hand upon me to heal
me. By taking my infirmity, he lays
his hand upon me as mediator who lays his hand upon both me
and God, the Father. He lays his hand upon me to claim
me. I know my sheep. They're my sheep. He lays his hand upon me to protect
me and to comfort me. He lays his hand upon me to sustain
me and keep me. And David said this, if you think
you're getting this, if you think you're starting to understand
this, you don't. You don't. If you think you get it, you
don't get it. And if you can't get it, then you might be getting
it. You might be getting it. David said, this is too high. If the man after God's own heart
can't attain to it, and you are, then something's
wrong. People like to think, you know, that they have some grasp, some understanding of
the things of God to the degree that they can boast about it.
I know more than you. Those who know God don't talk
about how much they know. Those who know God say like Paul
did, oh that I may know him. That's what they say. That I
may know him. Can't attain into it. Why David?
Because it's too intellectual? Nope. It's pretty simple, really. Then why? Because it's too wonderful.
Do you see that in the text? Not because it's too intellectual.
It's too wonderful. In the next seven verses, verses
7 through 13, in verses 1 through 6, he said, God knows me. In
verses 7 through 13, he says, God's with me. God's with me. He speaks of the presence of
the Lord. Thousands of years, think about this, thousands of
years before the Lord Jesus ever said to his disciples, I will
never leave you nor forsake you. Thousands of years before he
said that, David rejoiced in and marveled at the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ would never leave him or forsake him. And think about that, just the
reality of that. The Lord Jesus Christ has never
been away from us. He's never left us. He's never
not been with us. And we're talking about the infinite
God. And so we need to understand
that, you know, when I'm with y'all and we have a fellowship
of some type, I may end up not even talking to some of you.
I love being with you. And I'm going to talk to somebody.
But I'm limited. He's not. He's with every one
of us as though we were the only one in the world. And he's never not with us. Have
you ever known anybody that you just wanted to be with? You just
constantly wanted to be around them. You followed them around
and never wanted them to be out of sight. A child is like this. That's describing a child with
his mother, holding on to her leg, grabbing on to her dress
and following her everywhere. As a baby, as a toddler. And
then at some point they grow up a little bit and they develop
a sense of independence to some degree. That's not so much true
anymore. And as adults, those that we
love, we want to be around them, but there's a limit to that.
If I followed you around everywhere, it'd be kind of creepy, wouldn't
it? But what a thought that God has
never been anywhere else but with me. Even when we run away from Him,
He follows us. He holds us up. He keeps us.
He embraces us. He surrounds us. David said he was there When
I was in my mother's womb, He covered me. Verse 13 says, in
my mother's womb. And if you have a marginal reference
in your Bible, it may tell you what that literally means. That
He covered me in my mother's womb literally means He knit
me together in my mother's womb. Think of the terms here used
in this passage, verses seven through 13, used to describe
his presence with us and his knowledge of us. We're still
talking about his knowledge of us in the sense that when you
know somebody, you know, when we say, if I said, I know so-and-so,
you know, and you say, oh, I do too, how do you know him? How
well do you know him? I might say, well, we went to
school together, you know, so we got to know each other pretty
good. Or maybe, you know, we were next door neighbors. That's
how I know him. How well does God know me? He
knit me together in my mother's womb. And he possesses my reins, David
said. He possesses my reins. We think of reins, we think of
a horse, you know, you control a horse with its reins. And I
don't know if this has any reference to that, but that's really not
a bad picture in a sense because my reins are my affections, my
thoughts, my desires, my motivations, my inclinations, the place where
all that comes from in me, my very innermost being, what motivates
me, what causes me to do what I do and say what I say and feel
the way I feel and think what I think. That's my reigns and
he possesses them all. He possesses them. That word
means to buy or acquire as in redemption. The word is translated
redemption a couple of times in the Old Testament. Or to redeem. So think about this. That which
causes me to do what I do, to say what I say, to feel what
I feel, to think what I think, God owns that. Whatever that
is, He owns it. He has acquired it. We belong to Him, not just as
physical property, but in our very reigns. The Lord said in the parable
of the vineyard in Matthew 20, Shall not I do with mine own
what I will? That's a rhetorical question
to which the answer is yes. We are his own. We belong to
him. What will you do tomorrow? What
will you do this evening? What's important to you? What
will motivate you to do what you do? What will you desire?
What will you seek after? Remember that in all of that,
you belong to him. He owns that. Paul asks this in 1 Corinthians
6.19. What? What? Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have
of God, and you are not your own? You are not your own. Inside and out, lock, stock,
and barrel, you are acquired. You are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, in your heart, in your mind, in
your reins, which are God's. If we could
just remember that in all that we think and do and
feel, all of our attitude and all of our experience and all
of our relationship, we are God's, G-O-D apostrophe S, God's. Do you love the Lord? Do you
want to honor the Lord in what you do? He owns your innermost affections,
your innermost being. I'm thankful for that because where would we be if He did not? David said if I ascend up into
heaven he's there. Now what does that mean? Is he, is this some hypothetical
thing if I could ascend up? Everybody knows that if you,
if you went to heaven that he would be there. I believe he's
talking about here when in a sense in spiritual terms when we ascend
to the very heavens. What is heaven anyway? Well,
Paul said, I have a desire to depart and be with Christ. That's
what heaven was to Paul. And so in this body, even in
this flesh, in this world, when we're with him in the sense that
we ascend, might that happen tonight? Could this refer to
the worship of Christ? Is there any sense in which you
more ascend to heaven spiritually? than in the worship of our Lord
Jesus Christ. When we hear the gospel, when
we're able to see and experience Christ, even in this flesh, even
through a glass darkly, it's precious and wonderful. We don't
literally ascend in any sense really, but in our hearts we
do sometimes. We ascend. You know why? Because He's there. because he is there. Let me ask
you this tonight, have you ever made your bed in hell? If heaven is to be with him,
then what's hell? When you are farthest from the
Lord, whether because of your actual sin, because you've stumbled
and to some degree fallen. He'll never let us fall away
utterly. But what is hell but a departure from the Lord Jesus
Christ when he consigned those ones to hell in Matthew 7 where
we read. How did he say that? Depart from
me. That's judgment. That's punishment.
Depart from me. That's it. That's the end. It's
over. Everything's over. Everything good. Have you ever done that? Have
you ever been far from Him? Have you ever made your bed?
And when I say, have you ever departed from Him? Yeah. Often, have we not? But David
said, even when I do, he doesn't depart from me. Even when I bed
down in hell itself, to whatever extent and in whatever spiritual
sense we do that in this world, he's there. And I like the way he said that
there. Most of the words aren't there or in italics, which means
they're not in the original. What he's literally saying there
is this. Even if I make my bed in hell, behold you. You. And what is hell also now? When
we're far from Him in our hearts, or in our experience in some
sense, that could be a making of our bed in hell. But also,
what is hell but the full experiencing of your sin? When we get cold
and our hearts grow dark and cold and like the Lord said in
one of the churches in Revelation, you've left your first love. That's a departure from Him.
But also sometimes, when maybe that's not true, but then perhaps
Satan or perhaps our own treacherous hearts dredge up our sins before
our eyes. And we begin to doubt, because
that's exactly what you're going to do when you look at you. You're
going to doubt. We are not the object of faith.
You're not going to find anything to hang on to, looking into your
own heart. And if you do, you're farther
from God than you even realize. But a believer never can. We
can never find any comfort when we consider ourselves, and we
often do that, As I said, Satan, what's one of the things that
he's called in the scriptures? The accuser of the brethren.
The accuser of the brethren. He accuses me of being a wretch. Guilty. He accuses me of not
being worth saving. Guilty. He accuses me of being so sinful
and vile that God ought to put me in hell. Guilty. But in another sense now, in
the most blessed sense, everything that he accuses me of is false.
He's a liar. Because the truth is, I'm not
beyond saving. I may not be worth saving in
myself, but I was worth it to the Lord Jesus. Not because I'm intrinsically
worth anything. You know what makes a worthless
thing worth everything? Love. Love. And so everything Satan accuses
me of is false. He's a false accuser. You're
so wretched and vile that God ought to put you in hell. Well,
that's true in me, but I'm not in me. I'm in Christ. And in
Him I'm without spot, without blemish, or any such thing before
God. Who shall lay anything? Who shall
accuse me? It's Christ that died for me. So even when I make my bed in hell, as David said, behold Him. And when we think, as David says
here, surely the darkness will swallow us up. And God can't, surely He can't
even look upon me here. He can't be with me where I am
right now. He's not with me now. The darkness has swallowed me
up. But then David realizes, you know, to God the darkness
and the light are both alike to him in this sense. Whether
I'm experiencing darkness or light, He's always light. And He always sees me in the
light, in the light of His grace, in the light of His holiness,
in the light of His countenance. He sees me in the light. From
my standpoint, I'm in darkness and He can't see me. He can't
have anything to do with me. You see, this is not just talking
about hiding in physical darkness from God. Nobody's that foolish.
Well, Adam was in the beginning, wasn't he? But this is more than physical
darkness here. We are that foolish. Adam hid
behind a tree from God. But David's talking about spiritual
darkness. When God considers us, it's all
the same to him. You see, I say, well, I've done
some good things and I've done some bad things. It's all the
same to Him. It's all the same to Him. And when God sees me in Christ,
He doesn't see what I do. He doesn't see my darkness. And
so the night is light. about me when He beholds me in
Christ. In verse 10, now, notice in verse
10, we're kind of working backwards through this second passage as
you probably noticed. But in verse 10, notice that
God doesn't just show up. Him being with me is not just
about Him being beside me or in me or around me. He's not
just showing up. That in itself is great, that
God would even show up where I am. I'm grateful for that. He said if y'all gather in my
name, I'm there. I'm there. And I'm grateful for
that, but it's more than just showing up. He also leads us
and holds us. He gets involved. He got to.
He got to. If the Lord is just a spectator
in this, we're goners. We're the man laying there helpless
and hopeless and dying, bleeding out in the ditch. The good Samaritan
has to come right where we are. He got to lift us up. He got
to carry us to the end. He's got to pay our way. He got to do everything for us.
He's not just a spectator. Not even a close one. Not even
a present one, even more than that. He takes hold of my hand and
leads me. He leadeth me. That is a blessed
thought. David said in Psalm 23, he leadeth
me beside the still water. He not only brings me there,
but He is what I need. He's the water. He's my refreshment. He's my life. He taught us to
pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation. We don't want to
go there because we know we'll fall. If the Lord leads us to
temptation and leaves us there, we don't stand a chance. So we're to pray that way, and
even that shows that wherever we are, He leads us there. He
leads us there. Are you in trouble? Have you
ever been in trouble? Any kind of trouble? Maybe you
are right now. You know, we say, I got myself in trouble. I got
into trouble. And that's true in the sense
that it's nobody's fault but mine. But it's not true in the
sense we don't get ourselves into trouble. He leads us there.
As a believer now, there's nowhere I go. He didn't lead me there. He didn't cause me to err. He
didn't cause me to fall. He didn't cause me to stumble.
But I didn't go there without him, I'll tell you that. I didn't
get there without him. He's in complete control. Jonah
got in trouble. He got himself in trouble in
the sense that whose fault was it? He ran from God. That's his
fault. But who put Jonah in the belly
of the whale? Jonah or God? Was it just a coincidence
that when he went in the water that that whale just happened
to be swimming by? Jonah was at fault. But he didn't just happen to
get swallowed by a whale. Who put him there? Who got him
out? Who caused that fish to spit him out on dry land? What
would have happened if he'd spit him out out in the middle of
the ocean, a thousand miles from shore? He spit him out on dry
land. And who was with Jonah while
he was in the belly of the whale? Jonah learned some things in
there. That'd be a good read if you want to read something
before you go to bed tonight, the book of Jonah. It's not very
long. You know, Jonah, there was some light shining on Jonah
in that whale's belly. Who shined that light? Who was
that light? You see what we're saying? He
leads me. He leadeth me, O blessed thought,
O words with heavenly comfort from, where'er I go, where'er
I be, still tis God's hand that leadeth me. May be my fault, but I'm not
there by myself. I didn't get there without Him,
without His good purpose now. We experience troubles and trials,
even consequences for our sin in the good providence and grace
of our Lord. And that's a great comfort. And
David said, he leads me and he holds me. See, this is one of the words that distinguishes
this knowledge from just as the Lord knows everybody. He knows
how many hairs are on everybody's head. But when it says the very
hairs of your head are numbered, it's not just talking about science.
It's talking about the fact, as it says in the context there,
not a bird falls to the ground without Him, and how much more
valuable are you to Him than them. He holds us. You know that scripture
that says in John 10, is able to pluck them out of my hand. You think about that every once
in a while? You remember the context of that wonderful picture? That we're in the hand of Christ
now. And he said, you're not getting out. You're not getting
out. But remember the context of that.
What's the context of that? I know my sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep. I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish. In the context, we see ourselves
in the hand of God. How did we get there? By blood. By death. By Christ crucified. I lay down
my life for the sheep. And they're my sheep. That's
why we're in his hand. They're where he is. We belong
to him. He holds us in his very hand. And that hand that holds
us has the print of a nail in it. And that's what we need to remember.
He opened his hand to receive the nail for me. When he opened
his hand to receive me, as his own. He accepted me. People like to say I accepted
Jesus. Yeah, but you know what's glorious? I don't know who this Jesus is
that people accept, but the Lord Jesus Christ is not up for that. If you want to see something
beautiful, See the Lord Jesus Christ accepting a sinner. He receives us unto himself and
holds us. I'm held in the hand of the Son
of God. He covered me, David said, with
that hand when I was in my mother's womb. He knit me together. He covered me. He holds me. He
leads me with that hand wherever I go. And that's a comforting
thing. I'm glad that when I leave this
building tonight, I'm not on my own. People get fighting mad with
you if you tell them that they're not a free agent. They don't
have a free will. I'm so glad I don't, aren't you? I'm so glad. I don't want to
be free. Are you crazy? Are you out of
your bleeping mind? You want to be free from God?
You want to be free from his constraints? You want to be free
from his influence? You want to be free from his
love, from his protection, from his restraint? You don't want
him to stop you from doing what you want to do? Crazy, insane. I used to be insane, so I know. I know what I'm talking about. I know insanity when I see it.
I know it when I see it in myself, and I see it a lot. I don't want
to be free. By God's grace, I don't want
to be free. He leads me everywhere I go, and I'm so glad of that.
He holds me in His omnipotent hand, the hand that bears the
mark of His eternal love for me. And I pray, you know, the Lord
told me to comfort you. And I pray that he will, by means
of this message tonight, be a comfort to the hearts of his people. David said this knowledge is
high. It's too wonderful to think that
God knows me, that he's with me, that he knows me in such
a way that he holds me and keeps me,
possesses me, treasures me. Gave himself for me. And you know, I love the way
that the Lord expresses these deep. We can study the love of God
for the rest of our lives. and never understand it. And yet he gives us these simple
pictures, doesn't he? We're in his hand. And we can't get out. Anybody
want out? I don't want out. Even if I did,
I couldn't get out. If I go plum crazy, sure enough,
and want out. I'm not getting out. Bless his
name, let's pray.