A prayer for God to search me

So Lord, may you graciously help me, I return your prayerful attention to the psalm that we read, Psalm 139, and reading verses 23 and 24. Though I do want to look at this psalm as a whole as well. Psalm 139, and taking for a text verses 23 and 24. This is a prayer. Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

We have before us in this Psalm 139 a precious realisation of the knowledge that God has. God is not a God that doesn't know much. He's a God that knows everything, our thoughts, our words, but not just our words, the motive behind those words, the things that trouble us, the things that grieve us, the things that rejoice our hearts. He knows everything.

Indeed, the psalm opens with those words, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. So our prayer in the verse that we've read for a text, search me, O God. But in the beginning of the psalm, it says the Lord has searched me. And really this prayer is then that the Lord would reveal to us the results of that searching, so that we might have the mind of Christ, that we might have a right understanding of how we are before God. The psalmist here is very concerned that he doesn't have a wrong view of what God thinks of him, because he can't deceive God. If God knows everything, then he cannot He cannot deceive God.

God knows everything that we do and say and the whole history of our lives and our parents and our grandparents and our great-grandparents. He knows everything. Everything that has ever gone through our minds is known to this God and therefore what a great God He is. His omniscience we have in verses 1 to 5. He knows everything. What effect that has on us really depends on where we stand. You see, if we are guilty before God and realize, as it were, trying to hide from God, then there's no place to hide. God knows everything. We cannot deceive him. Others, we can pull the wool over their eyes. We can pretend to be doing one thing when we're actually doing another, and they may not find out. But we can't do that with God.

He knows everything. But he doesn't just know everything. He also is in every place. There's nowhere that they can get away from him. If you have somebody who, sometimes you get a wanted person, but they can't find that wanted person. They don't know where that person is. But here, The Lord knows everything, but he's also in every place. There's nowhere we can hide from God. We cannot pretend. We cannot go to a place where God cannot find us and cannot bring us back.

Jonah proved that, didn't he? He was running away from God. He thought, well, if he went on that ship to Tarsus and got as far away from God, then he would not have to obey God. He would be able to escape God's reach. But he soon found that taking a ship to Tarshish was no escape, no escape at all.

As we have in this psalm, 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 guide, hold me. The sense of this psalm is a sense of serenity because the psalmist David thinks about this omniscience of God and this omnipresence of God as a positive thing, as a blessing, which it absolutely is if we are in Christ.

But if we are standing on our own righteousness, if we are thinking that we are pleasing God by our own efforts, then he's going to see through it. He's going to see that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. However good we are, we come short. Sin is mixed with all that we do. But here, for a child of God, there's a preciousness here. I remember some years back when I had to go to America, and I spoke to one of the elderly members in our church to say that I was going, and she quoted this text.

Verse 10, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. You can go the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but even there, you haven't got away from God. God hasn't lost control. He doesn't know where you are and can't help you. Even there shall thy hand lead me.

There's a comfort here to a child of God, to know that wherever we are, whatever dark places we come into, and that's another thing that's addressed here, you see darkness and light. Darkness to us, well, when it's truly dark, we can't see, can we? We can't see where we are or what we're doing. We stumble, we can't walk straight, we trip over things in the dark. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light unto me. So the Lord is able to see us in the dark. Oh, for us, it's darkness, but for him, he's still able to see us. Just because it's pitch dark, like it is sometimes if you go into one of these caves and they turn off the lights, absolute darkness, you can see absolutely nothing. You wouldn't see your hand in front of your face. Total darkness.

God can still see us. The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee. God is in every place. God knows everything. And then His sovereignty. He made us. He fashioned us in our mother's womb. before our brains were remembering and thinking like they can now. God knew us, and he made us, he put us together with those characteristics that we have, and we're all unique. We each have different strengths and weaknesses, but he made us.

We see here the evil of abortion, that David speaks of himself as a living soul, as it were, before birth. Thou hast possessed my reins and hast covered me in my mother's womb. It's not just spoken of as nothing, this is David considers himself there, that God did this. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. So David is going over the knowledge of God, the presence of God everywhere, and how that God knew him in the mother's womb. And he knows us every day of our lives, and everything that we've sung of that sovereign ruler of the skies, ever gracious, ever wise, all my times are in his hands, all events at thy commands. Oh, God knows.

And yet, we live in a fallen world. We're fallen creatures. We sin. We come short of the glory of God. And here in verse 17, there's a beautiful word. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them. Or perhaps this might trouble you. You might say, but how do I know what the thoughts of God are towards me? Oh, that I knew. Oh, that I was able to say, yes, his thoughts to me are love and mercy. But are they? But the whole word of God is a revelation of the thoughts of God. The thoughts of God. I know.

The thoughts God said, I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil. Now, but the gospel is, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's precious thoughts of God, isn't it? God the Father sending God the Son, accompanied by the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary's womb, and the conception of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the anointing of the Spirit on Christ, the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I know the thoughts I think towards you. They're thoughts of mercy. We cannot always lay hold of that assurance, can we? But God's thoughts, although he's high and holy and righteous, he has made a way whereby sinners can come back to God. He had those thoughts of love and mercy. He delights in mercy. And he brings his people to that place where they cry for mercy. And if you've come to cry out, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Who made you cry like that? Who brought you to that place to see sin as it really is?

Such a transgression against the Holy God. You see, sin becomes exceeding sinful. As God, we see God's holiness, God's knowledge, God's omnipresence, God's sovereignty. And then we realise our sin more and more because we can't hide it. We can't get away from him. We can't hide ourselves away from him. We cannot deceive him.

But how precious are thy thoughts unto me. Can you think of the thoughts of God? What are his thoughts? Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You see, that's what God has said. He's revealed his thoughts in his words, in the word of God.

And you see, we are not to say, well, I need to first of all know whether I'm elect and then I will come. No, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden. Do you labour? Labour under a realisation of your sin, a realisation of the fact that your best is stained and died with sin, that you cannot come in your own righteousness. So how can you come? to this all-seeing, all-knowing God. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me." Well, you may not be able to say, to start with, unto me, but how precious are God's thoughts of love and mercy to his church?

He's made a way, he's made that way, and then when we come in and we're drawn, you see, Come unto me all the labor and a heavy laden. I will give you rest." And we're drawn, you see, not because we know that we're elect, we're drawn because we feel ourselves as sinners. The Holy Spirit has taught us that, and we are drawn by the call of the gospel. Come unto me.

But then when we come, When we come and go inside that door, and as it were, we look back through the doorway that we've come through, then we realise why we ever went through that door. I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Why did we ever go through the door? Why were we ever attracted to the Saviour? Because, you see, he's, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me.

If you can't say it personally, look at the attractiveness of the gospel. The gospel is for sinners. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The whole have no need of a physician but they that are sick. Are you sick? Sick of your own sin, sick of your own pride, sick of your own selfishness. Sick. Those that are sick, they come and look out of themselves to this one.

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 sands. I think it was Robert Murray McShane made the comment that it would not be until he got to glory that he would start to fully understand what God had done for him. How can we explain what God has done for his people to rescue them from a never-ending eternity in rebellion against God. What can we thank him for? How much can we, how can we really understand the greatness of that?

If I should count them, they are more in number than the sands. When I awake, I'm still with thee. And then we come on to verse 19, which may seem strange. Surely thou will slay the wicked, O God. See, the psalmist turns from meditating on God and his greatness and his holiness, and he knows everything, he's omnipotent, he's sovereign. And then there's a realization of sin and how a true child of God has a new relationship to sin. They were sinners and they loved it.

See, there was a little account that I heard of as a lady that was giving her testimony. She went in the Scottish church, this was, and their procedure there for sitting down at the Lord's table was you sit down at the Lord's table and then the elders would come and speak to you afterwards and ask you why you feel that you could have sat, what the Lord has done for you. Anyway, this lady sat down took the Lord's Supper in Scotland and the elders came up to her afterwards and said, what has the Lord done for you? Please, please tell us what the Lord has done for you. And the lady was speechless. She couldn't seem to say anything. So one of the elders, he tried to ask her questions to try and get her to start speaking.

He said, are you a sinner? Oh, she said, I'm a sinner. He said, have you always been a sinner? She said, yes, I have always been a sinner. He said, well, is there any difference between you being a sinner now that you've always been? Ah, she said, there is. She says, once I was a sinner and I love sin. She said, now I'm a sinner, but I hate sin. Have you known that change?

This is the words you see that we have in this Psalm 119. David expresses his deep hatred to sin. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against them? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. He hates sin.

This is not revenge, this is hating. You see, God is a God of love, and we're told to love our enemies in the New Testament, but we never, that does never mean that we're to love Satan. It never means that. We're to love other fellow human beings that may be our enemies, yes, but not to love Satan. were never commanded to love Satan. I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them my enemies.

Well, David was able to look out on others that lived their lives, as it were, in rebellion against God and see in his heart something that really hated sin in them, rightly so before God. But that's when we come to our prayer in verse 23. Search me, O God. You see, it's one thing to see sin in others, to see it rearing its ugly head. And as human beings, we seem to be very able to pick up inconsistencies and wrong in others. We can see it as clear as day sometimes. And we are to hate sin where it rears its ugly head.

But David then turns the spotlight internally and says, search me, O God. Don't just let me hate sin in others, see sin in others and reprove sin in others and condemn sin in others, but search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there'd be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of the last. And you see, David was not content to see sin in others. He did condemn it. He did say it was wrong. It grieved him when he saw others walking contrary to God, and it should grieve us.

But primarily, what should grieve us most? and make us most concerned is search me. Oh God, and as I pointed out at the beginning verse of this psalm, it says, Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. So this was not a case of the Lord God not knowing about David, but this was a case of David wanting to have the mind of Christ on this so that David was in tune, in step with God. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Don't leave me to go in a wrong way. Don't leave me to walk contrary to thee. Don't leave me to love sin in my heart. Search me, O God, and know my heart.

David recognized. You see, it was written later on in Jeremiah 17, Verse 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? David no doubt recognised something of that and recognised that he couldn't necessarily come to a right conclusion himself because he could be deceived, he could be biased, he could come to a wrong decision and a wrong estimation. So he wants God to do it. And he wants God to do it. in mercy. You see, this is the absolute opposite of trying to hide from God. This was the sweet psalmist of Israel. But I don't think the sweet psalmist of Israel was always there. David wasn't always there. I think for nine months Psalm 139 wouldn't have been so precious to David.

After the issue of Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite and adultery and murder and all the cover-up that went after that. I don't think David was praying, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any wicked way in me. Oh, he didn't want God to search him. He wanted God to keep away. But God, in his mercy, you see, he sent Nathan, thou art the man. He sent Nathan to bring David to his senses again and David, when he's in a tender, good spiritual state, he cries, search me, O God. He recognizes that he could so easily be wrong. And you see, if you're really concerned about something, you check it, don't you? Think about that.

If you're due to go abroad on a holiday or on business, and you know that your passport, you need a passport to go abroad and you You might keep saying, well, I do hope my passport's in date. I do hope it's in date. You say, well, go and have a look at your passport. Is it in date, or will it be in date when you go on holiday, or will it not? And if it isn't in date, and you do that several months before you go on holiday, then you can then apply for a new passport. There's a way to deal with that. But all the time you go, I hope my passport's all right. And you get right to the airport, right to the check-in desk, and then they open it, and then they say, your passport's out of date. All your plans for that holiday have gone. You won't get through.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. David doesn't want to get to the gates of the celestial city. and be found to be ignorance in the pilgrim's progress. I can't think of a more solemn thing to happen to somebody who's perhaps gone to the house of God all their lives, to get to the gates of the celestial city, and then to find that they're nothing but an ignorant. They never knew true repentance, never knew hungering and thirsting after righteousness, never knew what it was to look out of themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, never had believing views of Christ. Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. It's a prayer, you see, for the child of God, that they be right with God. that they be a genuine Christian, that they be not deceiving themselves and others, but that they may know. And as I say, when you check your passport, not so that you always would be uncertain, but so you can become certain. And if you are wrong, if you are, if your passport has expired, then there is there's a way back, and you see there's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. If we come before this side of the grave and recognise that we come short, we can cry out, God be merciful to me, a sinner. We can come and plead for mercy. But you see, if we never plead for mercy, we just say, well, I hope the passport's all right. I hope the passport's all right. No, find out. Is Jesus Christ thy only plea? Is he thy great for a runner there?

Well, many of the Psalms of David have a, what we call a messianic side. That means they spoke of Christ. Yes, this was David speaking, I believe, of himself. as his own heart was, but also there is in many of the Psalms, they have a aspect of Christ himself saying these words. You might say, well, how can this be?

You think of the words of our text, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. This is what took place when the Lord Jesus Christ offered himself as that acceptable sacrifice. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

You see, If you think of the Passover, the Passover lamb was to be without blemish. And it wasn't to be without blemish because you didn't look too closely. It was to be truly without blemish. And the more you looked, the more you inspected that lamb, it was to be without blemish.

Well, the Lord Jesus, you see, was perfectly holy. And as he was searched, you see, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, as the searchlight came upon him, Pilate had to say, I find no fault with him. Judas has said, I have betrayed innocent blood. And all of those that tried him, they all came to the same conclusion, that he was innocent. And of course, that was the qualification for being the Lamb of God, that he had no sin.

He was there on the place for others. So the Lord Jesus could pray this, search me, O God. And he's the only one that could perfectly satisfy the requirements and see if there'd be any wicked way in me. as Christ prayed this prayer as it were. And he then, his offering up of his life was a sweet savour to God. The one that perfectly kept every command, the one that perfectly kept the law.

Then as we and David pray this prayer, you see, search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me We all come short. Sin is mixed with all that we do. We all come short. Lead me in the way everlasting. Lead me in that way. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. Lead me in the way everlasting. This is the way, walk ye in it. So we are, you see, as we come to realise our shortcomings, we come to realise that sin is mixed with all that we do. We have to look out of ourselves and to look to Him who perfectly kept the law, who satisfied that righteousness. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. Christ perfectly hated sin. But he came to deal with the awful consequences of sin. And when we go to Calvary, we realise that sin was no small problem.

If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The silence of God the Father to God the Son in Gethsemane was an indication that it was not possible. There was no other way that reconciliation could be made between sinners and a holy God, but with an acceptable sacrifice. The Lord Jesus had to go, had to drink that cup. There was no other alternative.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. I need to be served. to recognise that I be a genuine Christian. And the safe place you see for God's people is that they're in Christ, that their hope is not in themselves to have perfectly kept the law, but to be looking out of themselves like those Israelites, smitten, bitten by the serpents. They looked to that brazen serpent that was set up and everyone that looked. They lived. It wasn't because they weren't bitten that they lived. It was because they looked.

And you see, you won't get to heaven because you have no sin in and of yourself. But those who get to heaven will get there because they've been washed, because they've been cleansed, because they've been accepted in the beloved. And then, of course, those words that we look back at in verse 17 become a fresh beauty. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me.

The great high priest, you see, he went into the, on that great day of atonement, wearing the names of the tribes upon his heart and on his shoulders, both on his breastplate and on his shoulders. On his heart of heart of love, on his shoulders to carry the weight of them. And he went in and represented them. We need a representative. We need one to stand in our place. And if you see, if we're looking to ourselves and all the things that we think that amount to being suitable to stand before God, it will come short.

You see Saul of Tarsus, was a very religious man in his unregeneracy. Very religious. He'd done everything that he was meant to do as a devout Pharisee. Circumcised the eighth day, this is Philippians 3 verse 5, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. He thought he'd kept the Ten Commandments perfectly.

But you see this is where this prayer, search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me. There was a wicked way in Saul. Saul recognised that he'd failed on that covetousness and then he recognised that actually all the commandments he'd broken.

But what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency, the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done. All those, all the list of credentials that made him seem a very devout Pharisee, all that list. had to go. But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ." So you see, we need a substitute. We need a high priest. We need one that died.

I was only reading this morning in numbers of how that the tribes had to present, all of the tribes had to present that the rods before God that had been cut off. And God was showing which ones of the tribes could come before God. Nadab and Abihu, Dathan and Abiram and the others, the sons of Korah said, we all be holy, we can all approach to God. Then there was this test, put these rods before the Lord and which rod would come back to life, would show life. And that was the one that should approach. And it was Aaron's rod that budded. This was a picture of, this is the appointed priest. But Aaron came short. Aaron was a sinner.

It was pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ is that one that is appointed. You see, Hebrews starts with those beautiful words. As the book of Hebrews opens, let me just quote those words. God, who at sundry times and in divest manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Moses being one of the great prophets in the Old Testament, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son.

He is the fulfillment of it all. Yes, Aaron had types and shadows and his rod that budded and brought forth almonds all in one night. Blossom and you never have blossom and fruit all in one night, do you? Coming from death and so the resurrection as Christ rose. cut off, that cut off branch. He rose triumphant over death, hell and the grave, and he is therefore to bear fruit.

And this is the one, this is the high priest, the high priest that could truly come before God and present himself. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me. And there was no wicked way in him. Perfectly, I do always the things that please my Father. And as then he was accepted, so that all his church is accepted in him. He did it on their behalf.

Lead me in the way everlasting. This is an everlasting life. This is life eternal, that they may know thee. And Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. This is the way everlasting. Every other way is a way that will very soon end. Life is short. Whether you live to a hundred years, life is short. But this is an everlasting way. This is a way everlasting, is to be led. And David prayed for this. He recognized that he was so easily to be deceived, and yet he prays, God search me.

Like somebody coming with cancer or something like that, they could come to the doctor and they could hide it from the doctor and say, I won't show you really where it's bad. I don't want you to see it. And you say, well, really, it's not the way forward. You need to expose, as it were, the doctor needs to see the tumour all in its awfulness.

And so that therefore, if it's possible, there may be something done to it. You see, you want the doctor to find everything because you trust that the doctor has your good in mind. You trust that the doctor then will be able to do something good. And so when we come to the heavenly physician, we say, search me. Instead of trying to hide from God, hide from God our sins and our shortcomings, we say, Lord, search me. Find every last problem. like they do with cancer. They say if one cell remains, it can still start again. They want to get the last cell gone. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.

Internal holiness, we want to be those that know and love the Lord. And yet, you see, of course, we're sinners and we come short. Sin is mixed with all that we do. And so our hope is in the way of the lasting. is in Christ who's kept the law, made it honourable, and is able to bring his people with his searching knowledge and his understanding to bring them to a knowledge of themselves and to make them then look out of themselves to a precious Christ. This is all my salvation and all my desire. This is the gospel.

The gospel is for sinners, but the gospel makes sinners who come sensible of their sin, they ask, they plead this, they want to be right. They recognise their ability to easily deceive themselves and they want God to make them right so that they will go to that celestial city and get to that gate. And here, come in, ye blessed of the Lord, wherefore standest thou without? And not hear those words, depart from me, ye cursed. into everlasting burnings. What an awful contrast.

And yet, in Christ, Jesus said, I know my sheep. God knows his people. Search me, O God. Thou hast searched me and known me. I know my sheep. And Jesus has also said, nobody is able to pluck my sheep out of my hand, and nobody's able to pluck them out of my father's hand. They're safe, you see, because they're in him.

So if we're in Christ, we need to cling to the promises. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanseth us from all sin. We're to come and confess our sins. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we're then to go on and live lives of true hatred to sin, primarily as it rises its ugly head in ourselves, and love to God. who loved us and gave himself for us. May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.

A prayer for God to search me

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A prayer for God to search me

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