I am a little undecided this morning on which
message to preach first, but this begins with our Lord Jesus,
and we're going to begin with this passage for our Bible class,
and then we'll look in Luke 1 for the second, for the main message.
Let's go to the Lord before we begin. Our gracious God and our Father,
we come to you through the blood and the righteousness of our
Lord Jesus, your dear Son. Lord, we ask your mercy this
morning to teach us and to make us truly behold there is salvation
in none but your Son. Lord, give us faith. Increase
our faith. Make us to submit to Your Word
and believe on Your Son. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. We
ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, Psalm 139. Now, we have looked at two... We've had two messages out of
this psalm. And we've seen, first of all,
the omniscience of God. The fact that God is all-knowing. He knows all. We saw that in
the first few verses. He said in verse 1, Lord, thou
hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting
and my up-rising. Thou understandest my thought
afar off. He goes on speaking of it there.
And then we saw the omnipresence of God. God is everywhere. with his people, particularly
all the time. All the time. He said in verse
7, Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee
from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold,
thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. So all through
this psalm we're seeing the glorious attributes of God. He is omnipresent
and He is omniscient. He knows all and He is with all. Now verse 13, as we read this
now, this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior
of sinners. This is Christ here that this
is speaking about. And He's speaking, He's speaking
to the Father, and this is true of the Lord Jesus, and it's true
of all God's people in Him. Now, we've been looking at Luke
1, seeing how a body, God prepared a body for His Son, and Christ
assumed that body. The Son of God came down and
took that body. Here He's gonna talk about that.
He says in verse 13, He says, For 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. Marvelous are thy works. That's her title, marvelous 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. That's the womb, he's talking
about in the womb. He said, Thine eyes did see my
substance, yet being unperfect, unformed. And in thy book all
my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them. Now, first of all, the
Lord Jesus Christ declares that God was with him in the womb. God possessed his reins, and
God covered him in the womb. Now, this is Christ speaking.
This is Christ speaking, I'll show you that. Look here in verse
13, he says, thou hast possessed my reins. The reins are the seat
of affection. That's the instruction where
we're instructed. Christ declared that God his
father possessed his reins even in his mother's womb. God the
Father and God the Son are one. God the Father and the God-man,
Christ Jesus, they're one. They're one. They're one in heart,
and it was so with our Lord Jesus from the womb. Now, we know why
he had to be born of a virgin. We are conceived in sin. Psalm
51, David said, in sin did my mother conceive me. In natural
generation, We are born with a corrupt nature. We're conceived
with a corrupt nature. So the Lord Jesus came through
a virgin without the aid of a man because for God to save His people,
we had to be holy in the womb. That's right, we had to be holy
in the womb. You see here, God sees us in
the womb. He knows all about us in the
womb. Christ had to be holy in his mother's womb because he's
representing all his people. And all his members, his people,
were in him. And then he says here, he said,
Thou has covered me in my mother's womb. I'm fearfully and wonderfully
made. I'm fearfully and wonderfully
made. The Lord Jesus was not like any other man. He wasn't
made. He didn't come into this world
like any other man. Now, as God, He's the Son of
God, eternal, always has been for before any creation. He's
God, the second person in the Trinity. But as a man, the Lord
Jesus had a body made for Him by God the Father. And it says
here, He said His human body was fearfully and wonderfully
made, fearfully and wonderfully made by God. Now, we've been
seeing this in Luke 1. The angels said, the Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow
thee. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Oh,
I'm telling you, when the Lord makes you know that he knows
us in the womb, and we're conceived in sin in the womb, that's glorious
good news that Christ is holy from the womb. That's the only
way we could be holy, from the womb. And he said, he said, I'm
wonderfully made, fearfully, marvelously, God prepared a human
body for the Son of God in the womb, unlike any other man. He said, in Hebrews 10, In verse
five, he said, when he cometh into the world, he said, sacrifice
an offering thou wouldest not. God was not satisfied with those
old covenant offerings. All those old covenant offerings
were pictures and types of Christ. God was not pleased with those.
They didn't satisfy justice. And God's not satisfied with
any offerings you and me make because it has to be perfect
to be accepted of God. And we can't offer God anything
perfect. But Christ, he said, a sacrifice
and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared
me. Christ came and took that body
to represent his people. Our Savior was fearfully, now
not as the Son of God, but as a man, he was fearfully and wonderfully
made by God, by God's marvelous works. No man had a part in this
work. This was God doing this. Mary didn't even have a part
in forming the Lord Jesus in her womb. This was all of God. First Corinthians 1547 says,
the first man, Adam, he's of the earth, earthy. The second
man is the Lord from heaven. The Word was made flesh, John
said. Capital W, the Word, the living
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now carnal religion,
vain religion, likes to boast of making themselves holy. Men
like to boast that they made themselves holy. And you and
me did too before God saved us and taught us. We thought we
were saved by our works, that we made ourselves holy and righteous.
But a sinner must be holy from the womb to be holy. And so,
knowing we're not holy from the womb, knowing scripture, believing
God, that he said we're conceived in sin, therefore when we come
out of the womb, we don't sin to become a sinner, we sin because
we are sinners. We are sinners from our mother's
womb. Every other man is conceived in sin. Our Savior was holy in
the womb. Every other man's a sinner in
the womb. God possessed Christ's reins in the womb. His holy inward
affection was set on God from the womb. Therefore, his people
and him were holy from the womb. God chose a people in Christ.
We were in Christ, holy. when he was in the womb. And
since his inward reins were set on God from the womb, the inward
heart of his people, he represents his people. And so this is how
God views us and sees us as having our hearts always set on him,
always doing what pleased him. It's only because that was Christ's
heart. Believe salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of the Lord. That means he does it all. That
means he gets all the glory and praise. And that's how God's
people want it. That's how believers want it
to be. We want him to have the glory and the honor. Because
he did this work for his people. Christ alone is the holiness
of his people. From the womb, he said, I will
praise thee. See what he said? From the womb,
I will praise thee. If he prays only the Father,
representing his people, and he only prays the Father, shouldn't
we only praise him? Shouldn't that be the only one
we give glory to? He said, I will praise thee for
I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works,
and that my soul knoweth right well. All right, here's the second
thing I want you to see. So first we see Christ was holy
in the womb. He sat on God from the womb. His inward affection was set
on the Lord. He was fearfully, wonderfully
made by God. Now secondly, all God's elect
were in Christ when our Savior was in the womb. We were all
in Christ when our Savior was in the womb. Look at verse 16.
He says there in the second part of verse 16, he said, and in
thy book All my members were written, which in continuance
were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. What is this
talking about? God saw Christ. He saw him. He saw his own substance. and all his bodily members before
they were formed. God saw it all, because God's
the one that's gonna grow it. And he saw Christ's substance
and all his bodily members before they were even formed. But God
also saw all Christ's people, those members, the chosen members
that God chose. And he said, in thy book, all
my members were written. The elect are the members of
his body spoken of here. You remember our Lord spoke of
his body, he's the head, and he said you're all members one
of another, and we're members of his body, all his people are.
And each one God chose, go with me to, let's just look at it
real quick, Ephesians 1. God chose his people, and all
by grace, And he did this before the world was made. Look here,
Ephesians 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Who's he talking to? He said in verse 1 there, he's
talking to the saints. He's talking to those God's called
and given faith. If God's called you, so that
you trust Christ only for your salvation and give God all the
glory for this. This is so, this is what God
did for us. He said, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings, all spiritual blessings. Where? In heavenly places. Where? In Christ. How? According as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. Holiness is separation. He separated us from all the
others that would be born and accepted us in Christ our holiness
right then. He says, and He predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself. He set
the time when He would call us and teach us that He's our God
and our Savior. And He said He did this all according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace. We give Him all the glory for
His grace. That means we didn't merit this.
We did nothing to make God do this for us. He said, wherein,
in Christ, he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of his sin according
to the riches of his grace. All of this was done in Christ.
So, when he speaks in our text about all my members were written
in your book, that's the members. All those God chose in Christ
were written in the book. We saw Revelation 13, 8. It speaks
of the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. Does God really have a book?
He's speaking to us in language we can understand. God, we've
seen in this Psalm, God knows all things. He didn't have to
have a book to write it down. But in that book, they were all
written in the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Another time, we saw in Philippians 4.3, He talked about those two
women that had a disagreement, and he said, you women get along
now, he said, because your names are in the Book of Life, written
in the Book of Life. Now, I say this every time I
preach, it seems like, and I'm not embarrassed to repeat it.
There's two heads, and we're gonna be found in one of those
two heads. We're either gonna be found in
Adam, or we're gonna be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
we're found in Adam, when he sinned in the garden, all his
members, everybody was in him, we all came from Adam, didn't
we? Everybody came from Adam. So all his members in him became
guilty when he sinned, and we perished. We were born of him,
so we were sinners from the womb. Romans 5.12, by one man, sin
entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sin. All right, but God, we just saw,
chose his people in Christ by his grace and blessed us with
all spiritual blessings, all the blessings God would give
us, he blessed us with them in Christ. And he wrote our names
in the Lamb's Book of Life. Now get this now, in eternity,
In God's purpose, a body was prepared. According to the Council
and the Covenant of Grace, a body was prepared in God's purpose
in the mind of God, a body was prepared for the Son of God,
a human body was. In the purpose of God, that's
what he would do. Also, a spiritual body was formed. He chose his people in the Lord
Jesus. All the members of his body were
written. They were written in continuance. He said in our psalm, he said,
and in continuance, they were fashioned. But at that time,
there was none of them. They hadn't been formed yet. God saw our substance. He saw
each member he would save. In time, he would fashion us.
He would make us come forth as his children, but he saw us and
knew us and wrote our names down. So when our Savior said, a body
hast thou prepared me, he's talking about more than just his human
body. He's talking about this whole elect body that God prepared
for him to come and save. And when the body of our Savior
was made in the womb, all the members of his body were in him.
Go with me to Ephesians 5 and look here. Ephesians 5, when
He formed that human body in the womb, all the members, all
the elect that Christ would save were in His body. Look here,
Ephesians 5.30 says, we are members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones. This was the whole reason why
God told, ordained marriage and said, there he said, for this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined
unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. He said this is
a great mystery but I'm speaking concerning Christ and the church. I'm talking about Christ and
the church. We're members of his body. Now go back with me
to Psalm 139 and let's hear one more time what the Lord said
there. Psalm 139. Look here. He said, verse 15,
my substance, that is my strength or my body, my body was not hid
from you when I was made in secret in the womb, curiously wrought
in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect, unformed, and in thy book all my members
were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there
was none of them. You see that? That fits us some,
doesn't it? Because we're talking about God's
omniscience, Him being everywhere, His omniscience, His all-knowing,
and His omnipresence, His being everywhere. Christ said, you
knew me in the womb, when as yet my body wasn't fully formed,
and you were there. You had me. You possessed my
reins. And now look what He said there. He said, I'm fearfully
and wonderfully made. Fearfully and wonderfully made.
Now, a few sermons ago, we saw how God's presence is with his
people and we referenced Moses. Go with me to Exodus 33, 15.
We referenced Moses here. Look here in Exodus 33, 15. In
verse 14, God told Moses, he said, my presence shall go
with thee and I will give thee rest. And Moses said to him,
if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in
thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest
with us? So shall we be separated, sanctified,
I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth. And the Lord said to Moses, I will do this thing
also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight,
and I know thee my name. That word separated right there,
how should we be separated? That word separated means sanctified,
it means set apart, it means made holy, it means to put a
difference between, put a difference between one man and another man
or one man and a group of men. Now that word separated is the
same word in our Psalm that's translated wonderfully made. Same word, I'm fearfully and
wonderfully made, I'm fearfully and I'm separated. God's elect
by His grace, He separated us in Christ when He chose us in
Him, and from eternity we've been separated by God in Him
from all the people on the face of this earth. That's how we
were made to differ the only way. You didn't make yourself
to be different from anybody. It was not by your will or your
works or anything you can take glory in, nothing. It was all
by God. Now, to help you understand that,
I wanna show you some other places this word is used. In Exodus
8, 22, and I'm getting to a point for
our Psalm. I'm fearfully and I'm wonderfully made. I'm fearfully
and I'm separated. I'm separated from all. You've
made me different than all. That's what Christ is saying
to God the Father. Look here. Here's the word to
be separated. Exodus 8, 22. When God sent flies
in Egypt during this plague, He said, verse 22, and I will
sever in that day the land of Goshen in which my people dwell,
that no swarms of flies shall be there to the end that thou
mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth." You
see, he's saying this is how you're going to know my presence
is with you. I'm omnipresent. I'm in the midst
of the earth. and wherever you go, I'm there
with my people. And this is how you're gonna
know I'm the one that severed you, I separated you, I wonderfully
made you separate from all others. Now look, that really happened.
There was some people called Israel that God treated differently
than he treated the Egyptians and all the rest of the world.
All right, that's what God does for his elect. Look at Exodus
nine and look at verse four. Exodus 9.4, when he set the plague
and destroyed the cattle in Egypt, he said in verse four, and the
Lord shall sever, same word, he'll sever between the cattle
of Israel and the cattle of Egypt. And there shall nothing die of
all that is the children's of Israel. One more place, Exodus
11.7. He talked about he's gonna send
them out, and he said there's gonna be a great cry in Egypt
when they pass through, but he put the children under the blood,
under the Passover lamb, picture Christ our Passover. And he said
this about the children of Israel when he passed through. He said,
verse seven, but against any of the children of Israel shall
not a dog move his tongue. against man or beast, that you
may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the
Egyptians and Israel." That word translated, put a difference
between, same word. I'm showing you that I make the
difference between my people and everybody else. So it's not
us who separated ourselves. We didn't make ourselves to be
wonderfully made. We didn't sever ourselves. God
did that. He separated us, sanctified us. He said, who maketh thee to differ
from another? What do you have that you didn't
receive? That wasn't freely given to you
of God. And if that's so, then why glory? You can't glory. I can't glory. All right, now
go back to our psalm. So being in Christ, all God's
elect did everything Christ did. Because we were severed and separated
in Christ by election and we were the members of His body,
everything Christ did, we did. So, He's the author and finisher
of faith. That means He's the only one
that began in faith and He went all His days and ended in faith. He's the author and finisher
and He is that for all His people. Now look here. Our Lord, and
one time He said, I do always those things that please the
Father. Can you say that? Can you say, this is what God
requires, that you always do those things that please Him.
That's what God requires. That's what righteousness is,
to do always what pleases God. Now, if you can't do that, then
we can't come to God by our works, but Christ did. And His people
in Him did. We did everything He did. When He obeyed, we obeyed. When
He pleased God, we pleased God. When He was made sin, it was
the sin of His people He was bearing. When He bore justice,
it was the curse His people deserved that He bore. When He went to
the grave, it was the death His people owed to death. And when
He came out, we came out in Him, and we sat down at God's right
hand in Him. He has made us sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. This is why God will not impute
sin to his people. Blessed is the man to whom God
will not impute sin. Why? Because he made him sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God. So, right now, brethren, John
said, as he is, So were we in this earth right now. We were
as Him when we were in the womb, in His mother's womb and Mary's
womb. We were in Him and we were everything He is. And now that
He's seated at God's right hand, perfect, accepted, all His people
are seated there in Him. And the same as God possessed
Christ in the womb, the same as He separated Christ in the
womb, all His elect were separated by God and sanctified in Christ
from the womb. Go over to Galatians chapter
1. Galatians chapter 1. Paul said this. Who did Paul glorify? Who did
the Apostle Paul give the praise and the glory to? Look at Galatians
1 verse 15. He said, let's look at verse
14. He's talking about his past life. He said, I profited in the Jews'
religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more
exceedingly zealous of the tradition of my fathers. Look, verse 15,
Galatians 1 verse 15. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace,
He revealed His Son in me that I might preach Him among the
heathen. When was He separated? When was He severed? When was
Paul fearfully and wonderfully made? He said, You separated
me from my mother's womb. From my mother's womb. Jeremiah
1. You probably know that's where I'm headed. Jeremiah 1. Who did Jeremiah give the glory
to? Who separated him? Who wonderfully
made him? Look here, Jeremiah 1, verse
5. Jeremiah, he doesn't think he
can preach. He thinks he can't preach. He's a baby and just too unlearned. God said, verse 5, Jeremiah 1,
5, He said, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou camest forth
out of the womb, I sanctified thee. Same word, I severed you,
I separated you. And I ordained thee a prophet
unto the nations. God did that for Jeremiah from
the womb. Now go back to Psalm 139, Psalm
139. So you get some idea here that when what Christ is saying
about himself before God is true of his people in him. Now look
here, Psalm 139, and look at verse 16. He said, Thine eyes
did see my substance, yet being unperfect, unformed, and in thy
book all my members were written, which in continuance, this is
what I want you to see, which in continuance, as time went
on, they were fashioned. They were fashioned. Now, every
member of Christ's body, every elect child that God chosen him
in eternity, In time, just like Christ was born from his mother's
womb, in time we'll be born, we were created in our mother's
womb by God, and we'll be born from our mother's womb. And just
like you were born from above, in
time each one will be born from above, created in the image of
Christ, and Christ will be created in him. That's what he meant
when he said predestinated to the adoption of children. He
said they're in continuance. And as time went on, my body
was fashioned. My members were formed. And this
is so of all these people. In time, the Lord is gonna form. We're preaching this gospel so
that as we preach it, God separates us in our heart by creating a
new heart in us, and he unites us with that body of Christ,
with his people, and unites us together in faith. And that's
when He teaches us this message. That's when He gives you discernment
to know Him. And that's when we stop glorying
in ourselves and we give Him all the glory. That's when we
start believing Him and trusting Him. And this is what we find
out. When God does this work in your
heart, this is what we learn. We can say this about ourselves.
Verse 13, Thou hast possessed my reins. Thou hast covered me
in my mother's womb. I praise thee for I'm fearfully
and wonderfully made in Christ by Christ. I was in Christ when he was in
Mary. He says, marvelous are thy works. That's what we say to God. We
give him the glory. That my soul knows 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. How precious also are thy
thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them. That's
our word to God, just like it was Christ's word when he reveals
all this wonderful good news that He's known us from eternity.
He knew us when we were in Christ, when as yet His body wasn't even
fully fastened. He knew us when we were in our
mother's womb. He separated us from our mother's
womb. He knew us because He saw us
in Christ, righteous by Christ's obedience. Our sin put away by
Christ on the cross. And so he sent the gospel and
he united us into the body of Christ, his church, and gave
us faith to trust him. And he brought us to give him
all the praise and all the glory to know, you've possessed my
reins. When my body wasn't fully formed,
you knew me, you were omniscient and you were with me, present,
and you did all this work. Remember when our Lord, Scripture
says of Him in Isaiah, I think it's Isaiah 7 or 5, when it says,
wonderful, His name shall be called wonderful. That's what
He's declaring in our text. I'm wonderfully made. Severed,
separated, made by God. I hope that's, maybe I should
have waited until the second message to preach it. I hope you, Lord bless you with
that. Let's go to him. Our Father,
we thank you for this word. Lord, the amazing grace that
you've shown your people is just absolutely, absolutely amazing. free grace, saved by grace. Lord, we'd love to know that you get
all the glory and salvation. And we're so thankful that you're
so present with us, that you know everything, that you have
done all this work. You knew it all from the beginning.
and you have saved us in your dear son. Lord, we ask you to
bless this word to the heart of some lost sinner. Make your
people hear this and know and believe on Christ. Lord, we pray
for that and we ask you, by your grace, work that word in your
people. Forgive us, Lord, of our sins
and our unbelief. And we ask you that as we take
a break, Lord, keep us thinking on this and bring us back to
hear your word again. Bring us back to rejoice in Christ
the Lord. Thank you for your grace, Lord.
In Christ's name, amen.