Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to the psalm that we read, Psalm
139. And we'll read for our text,
verses 17 and 18. How precious also are thy thoughts
unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they
are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with
Thee. Psalm 139, verses 17 and 18. God's thoughts towards His people. When God created man, then He
made him in His own image. And one of the things that he
gave to man was to have thoughts, to have that which we can inwardly
go over, have conversation with ourselves, with others, we can
plan things and everything is going on inside us. And those thoughts then often
are evidenced by what we do outside. You might have a wife, a loved
one ill at home. You might bring some flowers
for them. And you say, oh, what a thoughtful
gesture. And the thoughts are actually
being put into practice and actually done something. And you can only
know someone's thoughts until they express them either in words
or in actions, works or something like that. But they stem from
thoughts first. Sometimes it might be that we
do react to something and you say, well, that was a thoughtless
act. How thoughtless that was. You didn't think about what you
were doing. And so, it's very clearly associated. Things that we do, especially
good things or right things that we do, have been thought out,
they've been planned. And we would remember this, as
God has created man like that, He also has thoughts. And His
thoughts as well are known to us, but they are known by His
works and how they are shown. And it is in this way that this
psalmist David here is going through this psalm. On to the
whole of the psalm, bringing in and coming to this verse as
part of it. This sermon speaks of the attributes
of God and two specific ones. You would remember the many attributes
that God has, His holiness, He is infinite, He is eternal, He
is immutable, He cannot possibly change, He is self-sufficient,
He does not need man or anyone else to supply His needs, He
is not dependent on any at all, this was said in the book of
Job, that he does not need to be ministered to by man. He is all powerful, he is all
wise, all faithful, he is a good God, a just God, a merciful God,
a loving God. He has many attributes, but the
two specific ones that are spoken of here is his omniscience and
his omnipresence, all present, all knowing. So I want to look
this afternoon at four points. Firstly, those two divine attributes
that are highlighted in this psalm. And we'll see them in
the first six verses and then the next six verses, the psalmist
dwells on those. And then Secondly, as applied
to his people, we have verses 13 through to 18, his creative
power applying those attributes to his people. Then we have the
words specifically of our text, God's thoughts towards his people. And as David said, that they
are precious to him. Thinking of God's thoughts to
him, that is precious. to him. And then lastly the contrast
between the wicked and the godly that we find in the latter verses
of the psalm here. But firstly we have two divine
attributes. There's a good lesson for us,
instruction to follow David in this, to actually be thinking
about the attributes of God. Sometimes we might think about
those of our loved ones or those round about us, things that they
are specifically known for, what characterizes them, whether they
are gentle, whether they are loving, or whether they are wise,
whether they are understanding, those sort of things we sometimes
subconsciously will identify with people. But with our Lord,
with the God of Heaven and of Earth, it is to actually understand
and know those attributes that especially concern us, especially
involve us as His creation and His people. So those two divine
attributes, especially in the first six verses, He speaks about
God's all-knowing. Omni means all. So omniscience
or omniscience is God's all-knowing, state of knowing everything. So the psalm begins, O Lord,
Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting,
my not-rising. Thou understandest my thought. far off. He says in verse 6,
such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high I cannot attain
unto it. Now if you think you bring this
into perhaps gospel days, bring it into when our Lord, Emmanuel
God with us, is upon this earth and is making himself known as
truly God, truly man, And Philip says to Nathanael,
we have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus
of Nazareth. And Nathanael, he says, can any
good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip very wisely said,
come and see. And as he was coming to the Lord,
the Lord said to him, behold, And Israelite indeed, in whom
is no guile. In other words, what you saw
was what you get. He wasn't contriving, he wasn't
subtle, he wasn't trying to deceive. He was an honest, upright man. And Nathanael says to him, Whence
knowest thou me? And our Lord said to him, Before
that Philip called thee, when thou stoned in the fig tree,
I saw thee. And some of you may have known,
I've said many times, when we were children we had a big tree
like that, and if someone sat underneath it with its great
big leaves, you couldn't see them. There's one actually, it's
just in Oakfield, right near us, and have a look at it, it's
very similar leaves to what we had at home. And it's just like
an umbrella, you can sit underneath it. Just the Lord saying that to
Nathanael, when Nathanael knew no man would have seen him where
he was, he said, Thou art the Christ, Thou art the Son of God. He knew from the Lord's knowing
him, knowing where he was, seeing him where natural man couldn't,
he knew this was an attribute of God. This was something of
which God only could do. And in this way with David, as
he goes through life, the things that happen in his life, those
things that come to pass, similar to what it was with Nathaniel,
persuaded David so he is able to say not just even in outward
things, but even things in his heart, what goes on in his heart. Those things that perhaps thinking
of and then God brings it to pass or brings these things before
us and you think, how could he have known that? I haven't uttered
it, I haven't said anything to anyone, and he's done it. We might have thoughts in our
heart, maybe about a specific text or a subject, and we're
struggling over this and try to make it a matter of prayer,
But it is just known between us and the Lord, and you come
into the house of God, and the minister takes that text, he
takes that subject, and he opens that out, and you think, God
knew my thoughts. He knew what I was going over. My prayers that I'm uttering
in thoughts, hidden from man, the Lord has heard. And that
can happen not just once, many times in our lives. And David
is very persuaded of this. It's good for us to watch and
notice in our lives those things that are happening. And David
is picturing, he knows when I sit down, he knows when I rise up,
in all my path, in all my ways, he knows my way. He knoweth the
path, He knoweth the way that I take, when He hath tried me
shall bring me forth as gold. And so he's seeing the attributes
of God actually in his own life. That God knows all things, nothing
is hid from the Lord. And that's true with every one
of us here, every one of you. Your thoughts, whatever they
are, are hidden from me, they're not hidden from God. And your
lives, what you do, what you're planning to do, what you're intending
to do, what you're seeking help to do, the Lord knows all of
those things. Your children as well. You don't
have to be a certain age. The Lord knows all about it. You think of the son of Jeroboam. Jeroboam was the wicked king,
the first king that took the ten tribes away from Israel,
and Jeroboam's son Abijah was sick. Remember those of you young
ones that were here last night, we sung that in the hymn, the
second hymn we had, 196 in the young peoples. And he sent his
wife to the Prophet, who had made him or said that he would
become king, to ask whether that sick child would live. Now what that man thought, we
don't know, but how he thought that his wife could make out
she was another woman, hide that from the Prophet and the Lord,
but the Lord show him what would happen to the child, Man is completely
unreasonable, and you and I can be like that. We can think, we
like the Lord to know this. You say, what shall happen to
the child? But we don't want him to know
this part of our lives. You like that part of your life,
you say, I like the Lord to know and to guide me. This part of
my life, no, I don't want the Lord to know that. But David
would say he knows everything. But with that young child, The
message was that there was some good thing in him toward the
Holy One of Israel and therefore he would be brought to his end
in peace. He would die. Not many times
we would think that to die is a blessing. But that young child,
God said it was a blessing that he would die because he was going
straight to heaven instead of seeing all the wickedness and
evil that was in the earth. It was said with Josiah, remember
Josiah the young king, eight when he became a king, you imagine
those of you that are eight becoming a king. And then he was, what,
39 when he died. But he died fighting against
the Egyptians. But God had said to him that
because he'd done good and humbled himself before God, he would
die in peace. He'd come to his grave in peace.
What God meant was, he wouldn't see all the evil and all the
wrath that God would pour out upon Israel. But he actually
did die in war. But God speaks it with his people. Like the apostle says, absent
from the body, present with the Lord. The point is, the Lord
with Abijah, he knew that there was some good thing in that young
man toward him. He knew. He knew without being
told, even in that wicked house. The Apostle Paul, he speaks of
those in Caesar's household that were God's people. The Lord knoweth
them that are His. Elijah, great prophet as he was,
he said, I am the only one that knows the Lord. There's 7,000
that have not bowed the knee to Baal. The Lord knew them,
Elijah didn't. We can be like that. You say
in England, there's not many of the Lord's people left. The
Lord says, yes, I know where they are. I know those that serve
me, to truly serve me. And this is what David knew.
He knew the all-loving of God. It was so great, he says, it
is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain to it.
So that is one attribute that David looked upon, meditated
upon, he could see it actually working in his life. And it was through the things
that happened that he was persuaded of it. It's a great blessing.
for us to be brought to know God and to know who He is, not
just in some figment of our imagination, but to know the real true God
who is working and is dealing with all that happens in this
world. In Him we live and move and have
our being, says the Apostle. And the second one is God's omnipresence. That is, God is everywhere at
the same time. To us, we cannot, we cannot get
our mind round that. How can it be that if people
here in Heathfield Chapel can have the Lord's presence here,
and over in Australia they may be meeting and they have His
presence there, And right through all of the little chapels around
England, the Lord's presence is there. How can He be everywhere
at once? We can't do that. And of course
our Lord when He was on earth as man, He could only be in one
place at one time. In that way, And now, as risen
and ascended up into heaven, he is in heaven. The bodily presence
of the Lord is in heaven. We say in our articles of faith,
the cross for standard articles of faith, that the same bones
and flesh that hung upon the cross, they are now glorified
in heaven, and that he shall come again. They're nowhere else.
They're not in the tomb. The tomb is empty. And he showed
his disciples, behold my hands, my feet, Is I myself? Yes, you say, you can go through
closed doors. But the Lord can overrule all
the laws of nature. He doesn't need to have an open
door. He didn't need to have an open
tomb. That was open so the disciples could see it was empty. But he
could come out without the stone. And nothing too hard for the
Lord in that. It's a great mystery to us. But
just because we cannot fathom it, doesn't mean to say then
we think it's not true. We cannot be so. Sometimes I
go for a walk in the woods near us in Cranbrook, and I see an
ant nest. And there is a pile a couple
of feet high, and three or four feet round, and it's teeming
with ants. I look at those ants and I think,
what would those ants know about what I know? About how I could
go 12,000 miles the other side of the world. How we can make
machines and how we can have computers and all that. What
does that ant know about that? I think we like that ant. We
know so little and God knows so much. And you can get these
contrasts and you get a psalm like this, and David, a man after
God's own heart, He's looking at these attributes of God, and
not arguing with them, but he's seen them, and again he realises
from those things happening in our lives how true it is. He
says, Whither shall I go from thy spirit? What a foolish thing
it was with Jonah, running away from the Lord. One of you running
away from the Lord, running away from his will, running away from
what the Lord would have you to do. which only wasn't the
last one, you know. Many people have devised things
to try to engineer the Lord to do something, or to get away
themselves, or to bring something about. I remember a time quite
a few years ago now, and I was due to be swapping pulpits with
Mr. Aspie, who was taking mine at
Cranbrook, and I was at East Peckham. And I realized that
Mr. Ashby was going to go in the
afternoon and sit as a hearer. And I hadn't been that long,
I suppose, in the ministry and I thought, hmm, I don't like
the idea of a minister sitting and listening to me. And then
I heard that one of the other churches, I think it was Hastings,
hadn't got a minister in the afternoon and might have been
Braybourne Lees. And I thought, I know what I'm
going to do. I said, you know what, you've got to get Mr. Ashby.
He's free. I know he's free. You go and
get him. So they did. They asked him. And Mr. Ashby said to me, he said, he
said, you know, he said, I had to turn him down. He said, I
felt terrible. He said, I felt I just couldn't
do the third service. And I felt so guilty. And I had
to confess to him. I said, Mr. Ashby, advising that did that. I was
trying to get you away from East Peckham so you didn't come and
hear me. And you know, he's very kind.
He said to me, he said, Roland, he said, never be frightened
of the Lord's servant in the congregation. He'll be praying
for you, he'll be helping you, not pulling you down. But we
can have these scheming things and think, oh, we're going to
do this, and we'll get rid of this person, and we'll take ourselves
away, and we're going to run away from what the Lord would
have us to do. Sometimes the Lord gives to young
people an intimation even before they're called by grace. One
day you will be a minister. One day the Lord will make you
a deacon. You say, I don't want to be a
deacon. I don't want to be a minister. And you think that the way you'll
fashion your life, you're going to get out of that. And you're
not going to do what the Lord would have you to do. You never
will. You won't succeed. You know, my uncle Don, who was
deacon for many years at Decker, he felt that. He felt that he
would be a deacon one day. He didn't want to be a deacon.
So he thought this, I'm never going to go forward to church
membership because if I'm not a church member, I can't be a
deacon. So that was his device. The Lord overruled that, and
he had to become a church member, and he had to be a deacon. He
was a deacon for 26 or so years, and the Lord greatly favoured
and blessed him there. The Lord's people too have these
things, where they fight against the Lord. They're like Moses.
They say, I'm not going. We send anyone else, but not
me. But the Lord knew all about Moses
in his life. He knew where he was in Pharaoh's
palace. He knew where he was in the desert
and nothing could be heard. He knew where Jonah was going
and he prepared everything, he prepared the fish. And David
here, if I send you to heaven thou art there, make my bed in
hell thou art there, take the winds of the morning, dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hands shall lead
me, even darkness hide it not from thee. the knowledge and the sense of
the Lord's presence everywhere. For the Lord's people often is
a real comfort, that the Lord knows where they are. You know,
those of you children, you imagine if you, when you did something
you didn't want your parents to know about, you didn't tell
anyone where you were going, but when you were in that place,
you got into trouble. serious trouble, and there you
were lying helpless and in trouble, and you thought, no one knows
where I am. Even if they miss me, they don't
know where to search, whether they're there or they're anywhere.
But what a comfort it would be if you broke your leg, if you're
lying helpless, and you thought, my parents know where I am. They
know where to find me. What a comfort that would be. And my wife and I, we often have
both of our phones. She can track me where I'm going.
I can track her as well. She knows when I arrive at the
chapel. She knows where I go. But God knows everything, where
his people are. And that is to be a comfort for
his people. But if you and I are devising
wicked things, if we're trying to go contrary ways, then we
won't like that thought. We won't like the thought. that
the Lord knows where we are and what we're doing. But whether
you like it or not, it's true. It's true. You won't hide from
Him. So these two divine attributes,
David here thinks of, and you read his thoughts in these first
12, 13 verses, of these two attributes of God. Well, the second thing
I want to me for you is as applying to his people the creative power
of God. In verse 13 and through the following verses we read, Thou
hast possessed my reins, Thou hast covered me in my mother's
womb, I will praise Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made Marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right
well. My substance was not hid from
thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the
lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
them. So he's picturing the bay being formed in the womb, right
from the seed, where there's none of those members, but as
time goes on they're all formed and they're all fashioned. This
is why abortion is so wrong. Life begins at conception, and
taking that life is murder. It's very clear from this psalm. And it's a comfort when we know,
especially when we have those, like my own dear wife, she was
born with congenital heart defects, four heart defects, hole in her
heart, and of course that happened in the womb. In those days they
couldn't tell us, only after she was born they could find
out. Nowadays they can find out in the womb. But it's a comfort
to actually know. ordered by God, because God's
fashioned me in the womb, and sometimes those are very deformed. There's a comfort to know that
we are what the Lord has made us, and He has formed us right
from the very beginning. We write through the scriptures,
we read that He gave her conception. He gives life. You and I are
brought into this world because the Lord gave conception to our
mother. He brought us forth, not by chance,
God did it. And God formed that child in
the womb. But we would go from that and
we think of the creative power of God in a spiritual sense. God begins with God creating
the world. He speaks and then He's done,
He's formed. And then we have here the Lord
creating man or procreating man. But then we have the Lord speaking
about the necessity of being born again. And that which is
also formed, hidden in man where there is the new birth, where
the work of the Lord begins. And like with creation, like
with procreation, it begins first hidden from man. It begins as
a seed. It begins so small, the naked
eye could not see it. So it is in the spiritual like a mustard seed, very, very
small. But there will be a continuance,
there will be a growth, there will be a bring forth to the
birth, there will be a bring to light what God is doing in
secret. It cannot remain hidden all the
time, it must be brought forth. And so the creative power of
God Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within
me. It goes on in the life of a believer
because creation is bringing something out of nothing, is
making all things new. The work of God in saving a sinner
is not just renovating our old nature, is not just turning over
a new leaf, is making us new creatures in Christ. A new spirit
will I put within you, a new heart, a new will, a new creature,
all things And David here, his mind is going
to this creating God, a forming God, right from the very beginning. And that again is a comfort to
him. I wonder how much we think about
that. About our need of being created
anew in Christ Jesus. Made new creatures. made to be
instead of the lost image, to be made again in the image of
the Lord Jesus Christ and to have fellowship with Him and
communion with Him. We need a creating God, nothing
less than an all-present, all-knowing and all-powerful creating God
is necessary to make us. to be prepared for eternity,
to be washed, cleansed, renewed in the precious blood of Christ. I wonder how much we ask the Lord
for that. I will yet be inquired of by
the house of Israel to do it for them. He will not come unto
me that ye might have life. and may it be that we desire
life of the Lord, desire that he would do for us what is evidenced
in a natural sense and do for us in a spiritual way. Well then we come to God's thoughts
towards his people. The words of our text specifically,
how precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, How great is
the sum of them! If I should count them, they
are more in number than the same. When I awake, I am still with
thee. How precious also are thy thoughts
toward me. It doesn't say that. It says
unto me. we might have a person and we
might say that person is precious unto me. It's different from saying they
are precious toward me. They are precious unto me. When
I think of that person, they are precious. So David is saying,
I'm thinking of all the of the Lord, and those thoughts of the
Lord, they're precious unto me. Those thoughts are like with
Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 29, I know the thoughts that I think towards
you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected
end. The way that the verse is written,
It is in two ways, not only that God has thoughts toward His people
that are good, that are what is comforting to them, but that
it is comforting to the people of God to know those thoughts
that He has towards them. To be able to discern, this is
His thoughts toward me. And you might say then, how is
it? How can we know the thoughts? How can we discern those thoughts? Well, one of the main reasons
is through the Word of God. If the Lord has opened our ears,
He's opened us to hear the Word of God, then in the Word of God
is revealed what His thoughts are towards His people. They're not hidden, they're not
kept from us. What if we were to take a book,
or take a piece of paper, and someone said to us, right, you
write down your thoughts, you write down your thoughts, and
you wrote down your thoughts, and then someone read what you
wrote, in a way that would be what the Bible is, what the Word
of God is. God has written down His thoughts
through the inspired Word of God, and we can read His thoughts
in that way. We can't literally read someone
else's thoughts. We might if we see the expression
on their face sometimes, and we might think, I know what you're
thinking, but generally we can't. But we will remember this, the
Word of God is the thoughts of God put in words. shown us, set
forth before us. The second way is by His works,
and right the way through the Word of God, God is known by
His works. They declare His thoughts by
what He does. We mentioned about showing her
love or appreciation or care to her wife, husband or so, especially
to her husband, to the wife, maybe flowers or doing something
for her, is that actual expression that reveals what those thoughts
are, a thoughtful act. and it is the Lord's works. God
commended His love toward us that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us. All that the Lord has done in
salvation is to be commending to us. This is the counsel and
purpose of God. This is what I have planned.
Christ is the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world.
In the purposes of God, God has given, God the Father has given
to the Son a people to redeem. He has redeemed that people and
it reveals what He has done. It reveals what His thoughts
are. Now we can have thoughts that
change from day to day. Just because someone is nice
to us one day doesn't mean to say they're nice the next. and
sometimes we can have nice thoughts of someone and sometimes not.
But when we read the Word of God, we've got 6,000 years of
history, 2,000 years from the beginning of the world to Christ,
and right in the Garden of Eden, he gives an expression of his
thought in the promise of the seed of the woman to bruise the
serpent's head. And right through the scripture
you get promise after promise, Emmanuel, God with us, the promises
to you and your children, the promises to Abraham, to thy seed
which is Christ. All the time it's being reinforced,
this is still my thought, I haven't changed. This is my plan. He says to Abraham, thy seed
shall be a stranger in a strange land, 430 years, and then they
shall be brought forth. They had 215 years before they
came into Egypt, 215 years in Egypt, out of Egypt, another
40 years through the wilderness, and then they came into Canaan.
And the Lord knew all of that. He told Abraham what he was doing. And the Lord hasn't changed.
He reveals His plan, He reveals what His thoughts are, and then
it's slowly unfolded and it's all been done. You know with
me, when I was in design engineering and I'd get the spec as to what
the machine should be, And I think, what does this machine, what
does it look like? How big is it? Is it going to
be hydraulic, electric, pneumatic? How is it going to work? And
all these thoughts in my mind as to designing this machine
and then all the calculations. And then they come to the drawings
and maybe three months later I go to the workshop and there
is this big machine sitting there. That was my thought. That was
my thought. My thoughts have been transposed
from just in my mind to that great big building there, or
that great big machine. And all the works that I've done,
all the drawings and then the things that others have done,
have all followed along from those first thoughts. And that's
what we have through the Word of God. And David is saying,
when he realizes, realizes the thoughts of God
towards him. And so it equates to providence
as well. You know, you couldn't read the
book of Esther, and you read the timing of things that happened
through that book, and how Israel was preserved and delivered as
a nation, and not realize that God had thoughts towards his
people that were good thoughts. Why did he bring Esther into
the kingdom? Who knoweth, says Mordecai, that
thou art brought to the kingdom for such a time as this? And we see then, we go back to
the thoughts of the Lord. He's not just saying, looking
at one work of the Lord and thinking, well I'm thankful for this. I'm thankful the Lord has done
this, he's answered my prayer. But David is going back even
further and he's earning, he's done this because his thoughts
are towards me. They're precious thoughts, they're
good thoughts. He means good for me, he means
a blessing for me, he means help for me. and to realize that,
because God's people do have tribulation. In the world you
shall have tribulation, in me you shall have peace, our Lord
says. But when we realize that those trials, those difficulties
that we go through, the Lord isn't angry, he is not against
us, his thoughts are actually for us. With all that Joseph
went through, and remember Joseph was thrown into a pit, He was
dealt with hardly by his brothers, he was falsely accused by Potiphar's
wife, put into prison, he was forgotten by the butler, and
again and again you read, but God was with Joseph. Those things in it that were
a comfort to Joseph, God knew. God had already given to Joseph
two dreams. Dreams that one day his brothers
would bow down to him. Dreams that one day he would
be in a position of authority and power. And yet in between
that came all of those sorrows, all of those perplexing things
that we read in Psalm 105, until his time came. The word of the
Lord tried him. But he is a special comfort in
trials, in tribulation, in dark paths, to be able to discern
by some of the paths the Lord walks, has gone with us in, that
his thoughts towards us are peace, and they're not of evil. Many,
many years ago, the late old Mr. Warren, he came and preached
at Cranbrook, and he gave an illustration of how the Lord
can bring his people into a trial that it's a very, very long trial,
many years from the start to the end of it to when they're
delivered from it. But what he does, he gives them
a small trial in the middle of that time where they're brought
into the trial and out of the trial to give them an assurance
that he is actually with them and that his thoughts towards
them are not evil in this that's going to take a long, long time.
before it is brought out. It would be like the children
of Israel 70 years in Babylon, but the Lord gave those wonderful
deliverances to the Hebrew children, to Daniel. While they were in
that captivity, they had tokens of the Lord's presence with them
in it. Watch the balancing of the clouds,
watch those tokens for good, and discern from them the Lord's
thoughts towards you. And then you'll have the comfort
of what David has here, how precious also are thy thoughts unto me,
O God, how great is the sum of them. Now as if he would think
They're thoughts concerning eternity, thoughts concerning my soul,
thoughts concerning my house, my employment, my job, my loved
one, my children, my grandchildren, thoughts concerning all these
things that are about me. You might have someone you say,
all you think about is yourself. All you think about is just this
little part in life, but what about this and what about that?
And your wife's saying, no, you're doing everything in the garden,
but what about your house? And you're neglecting my kitchen,
and you should renovate that first before you do that out
in the shed. And we can have thoughts that
only focus on one part. But when David, he says, no,
what are the sum of that? They're going into all aspects
of my life. The Lord is not just neglecting
one. Some Lord's people are tired
in this and they say, I can see the Lord's hand in providence
but I'm not sure whether in grace. Am I one of God's children? Providence
and grace they go hand in hand together. You read in Peter,
if so be thou tasted that the Lord is gracious. in a providential way. That has
been encouragement to taste and to see in a spiritual way as
well and to ask for those spiritual blessings. You think of those
that had the loaves and the fishes. They tasted the goodness of the
Lord in a providential way for their bodies. They followed the
Lord the other side of the sea and He said, you see me not because
you saw the miracles but because you did eat the loaves and the
fishes and were filled, labour not for the meat that perisheth,
but that meat that endureth unto everlasting life. And he would
encourage them, if you have tasted I am gracious in things in this
life, then seek me for that which is to come. If the Lord has answered
your prayers in providence, then make your prayers for your soul
and for eternity, and take that opportunity where you see His
hand is towards you, His thoughts are towards you for good, that
you impress Him for those eternal blessings and that which shall
be beyond this world. He says of the thoughts, if I
should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When
I awake, I am still with Thee. And the Lord doesn't change.
We can have one day who says a good day and another day a
bad day, one day someone is favourable towards us and the next day he
is not, but the Lord changes not. I am the Lord, I change
not. Wherefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed day unto day, after speech, no place where their
voice is not heard. and the Lord is constant with
his people, he is the same, yesterday and today and forever. I want
to end just in the last point, contrast between the wicked and
the godly. Often in the word of God, there
is contrast. Always look for them, and in
our lives as well. You think right at the very start,
he gives two worshippers. You get a contrast, don't you? One is worshipping according
to God's pattern, the other is not. One is a murderer, one is
the one that's murdered. You get the two, you don't just
get one and say this is how I'd have you to worship. You've got
the two. And that goes right through.
You get Jacob, you get Esau. You get the two gone up into
the temple to pray, the Pharisee and the publican. The Lord doesn't
give just one praying and say this is how you pray. He gives
how you don't, what is wrong and how is right. You get the
contrast of when Naomi goes back to Bethlehem, has she got one
daughter in law? No, two daughters in law. One
goes back and one cleaves to her. Contrast again, all the
time you've got not one but two. and you find it many, many times
through the Word of God. If I was to get a black piece
of paper and put a bit of coal dust on it, you would hardly
see it because there's no contrast. You get a white piece of paper,
you put coal dust, you can see it because of the contrast. And
that's with the Word of God. Sometimes if we cannot see our
picture is what we are amongst God's people, He shows us who
are not God's people, so do you fit in there? You show us clearly
by showing the opposites, and so you have it here. You have
at the end of this passage with the wicked, Surely thou wilt
slay the wicked, O God, depart from me therefore, you bloody
man. He does not desire to be with
the wicked. He does not want to die with
them. In a lot he had to be pulled out of Sodom, otherwise he would
perish with them. But God had mercy to him. He
said, They speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take
thy name in vain. What a difference! Here is David
and how he views the Lord, but here is the wicked, here is the
enemies, and they're speaking against the Lord, and taking
His name in vain. We read in another psalm, they
only consult to cast Him down from His excellency. That is
the world, that is the wicked. In the people of God, in the
temple of God, everyone shall speak of Thy glory. Often a person
is known by that. Are they taking the name in vain?
Are they cursing and swearing? How are they acting towards the
God of Israel? We spoke last night about, in
all thy ways, acknowledge him. You start acknowledging the Lord.
The Lord said, I have given thee thy word, and the world hath
hated them. The Apostle Paul saw that he
was the reason why he persecuted the people of God was because
they called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
why he persecuted them. And the contrast here, the psalmist
here, he says, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee?
How can two walk together except they be agreed? Come out from
among them and be ye separate. Touch not the unclean thing.
The psalmist says, Am not I grieved with those that rise up against
thee? I hate them with perfect hatred,
I count them mine enemies. When we hear the wicked and hear
what they speak and say of the Lord, does it hurt us? Does it
hurt us? Does it wound us? Or do we find that we are quite
happy and at home with the ungodly? David certainly wasn't, there's
real contrast. With him, he says at the end,
search me, O God. But didn't he say at the first
verse, thou hast searched me and known me? Yes, he did. But
here he is at the end, he still wants to be searched. He wants
to be transparent and open before God. He does not want to hide
anything. What has been a comfort to him
has been God's thoughts towards him, evidenced by the works that
God has done for him. And he wants that God that then
knows his thoughts, to search those thoughts, see if there
be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Gives us a lovely prayer, doesn't it, at the end of this psalm.
May that be our prayer, whether we be young, or old, to be searched
and found out. He that cometh to the light,
he comes there so that his deeds might be made manifest. Those
that come, go not to the light, they avoided the word of God
because it shows what they are walking in. But may it be a comfort
to us as we discern the works of the Lord discern what He does
in our lives, we look beyond that to His thoughts toward us,
and that be a comfort to us, that the Lord has purposes towards
us, not just for time, but for eternity. And we discern that
in Romans 8, 28, all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them that are the called according
to His purpose and that is really according to His thoughts, His
intentions of His heart. May we be able to discern that
and that be a comfort and a blessing to us. The Holy Spirit may He
shine and bear witness to the work of the Lord. He will have
a regard to the work of His own hands and those works when they
are known to us, shown to us, They show us the thoughts of
the Lord towards us, and that is what is precious to David
here, the psalmist here. Those thoughts will not change.
They are eternal towards his people. He loves his people eternally. I love thee with an everlasting
love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. May
the Lord bless this word to us. Amen.