Psalm 139. There's an old bluegrass style
song that has a line in it, which says he ain't never done me nothing
but good. Any of you ever hear that? Huh? Surely somebody heard that. All right. I believe that's what David is
saying to us in this 139th Psalm. He ain't never done me nothing
but good. And so that's the title of our
message today. Nothing but good. Now, a whole
lot of life circumstances don't look good. feel good or turn out good. But the truth remains concerning
our God. He ain't never done me nothing
but good. And in this Psalm 139, such a
precious portion of God's word, David celebrates some of the
glorious attributes of God, his omniscience, that all-seeing
eye and infinite knowledge of God, he misses nothing. Then he talks about his omnipresence,
that it's impossible to find a place where God is not. Then he talks about his omnipotence,
a power greater than any and greater than all, talking about
God. So as we start into this chapter
this morning, we're going to take a little different format,
but I have three questions to ask as we go along. These are
things you might ask yourself. And then we look into the scriptures
here as we go. The first question, does God
know about me and about my life? I mean, after all, there's so
many people in this world for him to keep up with. There are so many. so much better
than myself? Does he even notice my existence, let alone know all about me?
Well, David was fully convinced that the Lord knew all about
him. He was in as many seemingly Of
course, you know the story of David's life. He was in as many
seemingly God forsaken situations as any of us. And yet he believed
that the Lord knew all about him. And so in verses one through
six, he addresses God's omniscience, God's knowing. And he says, Lord,
you know me. Lord, thou hast searched me and
known me. Thou knowest my down sitting
and mine up rising. Thou understandest my thought
afar off. Thou compassest my path and my
lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my
tongue, but Lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast
set me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such
knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. You or I could study one individual
all our lifetime and never learn all there is to know about that
one. But David says, Lord, you know all about me. And the rest
of us can say, Lord, you know all about me. David is not just
talking about in general here, but he's talking about himself. Look at the verbs in these verses
that we've read. Verse one, searched. Thou hast
searched me. The Lord has looked into and
has seen the very remotest corners of my mind and heart. He knows
everything there is to be known about me and about you. David goes on to say in verse
two, you know, every time I sit down and every time I get up, you understand my thought of
far off. That is before I think it, you
know, all about it. And you know why I think it.
And what my attitude is toward all things and all people. In
verse 3, there's the verb, the action word, compassest. And the Hebrew word there means
to measure. Lord, you've done, sized me up. You've done, pulled out the tape
and measured me. Thou compassest me. You've done
check to me out from every angle. I can't hide anything from you.
And he says, every word in my tongue, thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and
before. You follow me. You follow behind
me in everything, in every thought and word and deed. And then you're
ahead of me in every thought. and word and deed. So he's saying, I can't even
consider you not knowing. You know everything about me
before I do. And then he says, you've laid
thine hand upon me. David is really saying how foolish
for me to think you would miss anything about me. You know everything. And then
in verse 6, he says, just to think about this blows my mind. He said, such knowledge to think
that you are such a God as that is too wonderful for me. It is
high. I cannot attain unto it. I can't even grasp it. Now back to the question, does
God know about me and my life, where all I've been,
what all I've done and haven't done, all that's happened to
me in life, all the pleasant things, all the painful things,
the troubles I have, the problems I face? Am I just a statistic,
just a number? Or does God really know about
me? Well, David said, I have no doubt.
He knows all about me. And that's a good starting place
for all of us to understand that you don't have to inform the
Lord of anything. He knows all there is to know
about all. He knows more about your situation
than you do. He knows where it was yesterday,
he knows where it is today, and he knows where it's going to
be tomorrow. Of course, that's what we're worried about is tomorrow,
but he knows where it's going to be tomorrow. In Genesis chapter 16, the story
about Hagar, she got run off from Abraham's And you know the
story, Sarah was on the warpath and Hagar out there in the wilderness,
nowhere to go, no place to turn. You know, the first thing she
said, she said, thou God, seest me. That'd be a pretty good place
for you to start this morning. Thou God, seest me. As much of a mess as it is, nothing
is hid from you. You see it all, you know it all.
You know how it all came about. You know who's done what, who
said what, and you know where it's all headed. Thou, God, seest
me. Oh my, what a starting place.
Whatever I'm facing, this is not news to you, Lord. And I repeat, David here is not
talking about God's knowledge of everybody else and everything
else, but it's himself. In these first six verses, he
uses the personal pronouns, my, mine, and me 12 times. You know me. Throughout this Psalm, he's saying,
Lord, let's talk about how wonderful you are. and how awful I am." That will take more years than
any of us have in this world to talk about how wonderful He
is and how awful we are. Then verses 7 through 12, the
psalmist addresses here another attribute I see of God's omnipresence,
that is, that He is everywhere Second question. First was, does
God know about me? And the second question, does
God care about me? Well, why else would He keep
coming around where I'm at and turning the light on when
I've resigned myself to be buried in the darkness forever. Why
does he keep coming around? Why does he keep staring? Look
at verse 7. Whether shall I go from thy spirit
or whether 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. He's not referring
here literally to heaven and hell. He's saying, Lord, the
highest I can ever reach, you'll be there. And the lowest I can
ever go, you'll be there. And verse nine, he says, running
away is no option. 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. Lord, you're
the one that said you'll never leave me nor forsake me, and
you never have. Now others have said they wouldn't
and broke their word. I've had people right here in
this congregation, Brother Poole, I'm with you. I'll be there with
you. If everybody turns on you, I'll
be right there. Guess what? They're not here. Others have said, I'll not leave
you and broke their word. But Lord, you've said it and
have never broken your word. And David is saying, if I say
I'm going under, never to lift my head again. If I'm convinced I'm buried in
darkness, never to behold the light again. He said, Lord, sure as I do that,
you turn the light on. Look what he said in verse 11.
If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me. This is it. Even the night shall be light
about me. In the midnight of my misery,
you turn the light on. When I've then decided that I'm
going to be in that mess forever, when I've then decided that it's
all over, when I've then decided that I'll never lift my head
again, you come and turn the light on. and brighten things up a bit
and put it in my heart once again to get up and go another mile. What a God. David is saying, you continue
to show me that you care. And I can say that to you this
morning. The Lord continues to show me how much he cares. Somebody says, well, I don't
know if he cares for me or not. If He don't care for you, you
won't care for Him. If you care for Him, if there's
something in your heart for Him, that's not your doing. That's
not your caring for Him. It's Him caring for you. We love Him because He first
loved us. We seek him because he first
sought us. In the remainder of the Psalm,
David magnifies the attribute of God's omnipotence, his power. God does what he wills to do. how he wills to do it, when he
wills to do it, where he wills to do it, and with whom he wills
to do it. He's God. So a third question, not just
does God know about me and does God care about me? But then there's
the question, does God have a purpose? in all that concerns me, all
my ups and downs, all my successes and failures, my whole life. Is it all this
good luck and bad luck? Is that what it is? Or is God somehow involved in
it all? Does He have a purpose in it? I assure you, as His child, He
does. David magnifies God's omnipotence
here by saying, all I am or will be was determined, decreed, set
in motion by God's power before I was ever heard of in this world. See, it'll help you to believe
that about you. I don't know if you can, but it's better than any energy boost
you'll find. It'll do something for your spirit
to believe that God is God. It'll wake you up, get you up.
I promise you that. So listen to what he says here,
verse 13. For thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother's
womb. That word possessed means, you know what possessed means?
It means I'm your possession. You owned me before I was here
to own. covered me. You had me covered. All that
I'd ever be or not be, all that I'd ever do or not do, all that
would ever happen or not happen, you had me covered before I ever
came forth from my mother's womb. You say, I just don't believe
God's that big. David did. And I do. in my mother's womb. So much
for the business life begins at birth and all the abortion crowd. You remember back in Luke chapter
1 when Mary went to the house of her cousin Elizabeth and Mary
was carrying the Lord Jesus in her womb. and Elizabeth was carrying
John the Baptist in her womb. The Bible says that when Elizabeth
heard the salutation of Mary, words spoken on the outside,
that John the Baptist leaped for joy on the inside. He was filled with the Holy Ghost
from his mother's womb. So much for life begins at birth. See, you better believe this
book and ignore all this God-hating generation that we're in that wants to conceive children
and kill them. Then he goes on to say here,
verse 14, I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth it right
well. I will praise thee." He's saying,
I may as well praise you because you're running things and nothing
anybody can do about it. You were in on anything from
the beginning and before the beginning. And he says, I'm sure
of it. This my soul knoweth right well. I'm convinced without any doubt,
Lord, that you've been running things all along. Then he says, my substance was not hid from thee when I
was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lower, 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." The blueprint was drawn. All
the questions were answered. All the blanks were filled in
before you ever started. You knew all about me before
there was anything to know, to be known. You, Lord, decreed the end from
the beginning. This is how big God is. He don't
operate on a plan-as-you-go basis. I mean, you didn't get him to
change his mind yesterday, and you're not going to get him to
change his mind today or tomorrow. Our God's never started anything
and said, well, we'll see how this turns out. I've said that
a few times. No. He decrees how it'll turn out
before he starts. And it's going to turn out. You see, while David was a young
man growing up in the house of Jesse at Bethlehem. Now just
try to get the broad picture here while he's a little boy
growing up, God had another young man growing up. over at the king's
palace. His name is Jonathan. God never created a Jonathan
when David needed him. He was there all along. God had
it all in motion from the beginning. All that time, God was bringing
up a bunch of little boys. Some of them to be David's friends.
some of them to be his enemies. And God was doing it all on purpose,
deliberately. He was bringing up some to be
David's mighty men, warriors. He was also bringing up some
little girls. A daughter in the king's house
to be David's first wife. A Bathsheba to bear Solomon. and Abigail to love David. All the men and all the women
who would be either a blessing or a curse in David's life, God
was bringing them all up at the same time he was bringing David
up. What power, the omnipotent God. Think about your life, all
these things. When I was a little boy growing
up in Greenville County, about 20 miles down the mountain, South
Carolina, I thought North Carolina was a long way off. I thought, you know, that was
an all-day drive. I didn't know it was just about
a little over 20 miles. And never did I dream that in
just that little distance, when I was a little boy, God had a
little girl and he was bringing her up at
the same time to be my wife for soon to be
44 years now. Talk about God. And yet people say, well, my
life's been sort of haphazard. I mean, this happened, another
happened. I've just been bounced around, kicked around, beat around. Well, maybe you have, but God's
been on top of it the whole time. He's behind it and in front of
it all the way. Some of you didn't have a daddy
worth shooting. Some of you didn't have a mama worth shooting. And
I'm not being mean. That's just how it is. I thank
God I had a good daddy and a mama, but not everybody does. And not everybody has a good
companion. Not everybody has perfect children. And then I have run into a few
that thinks they have perfect children. You know, it's just,
it is what it is, but it's nothing our God's not on top of. And
I bless his wonderful name for it. But you see, you can live
and believe that all of life is just one big coincidence if
you want to. That's your business. But I don't
believe that. I can't believe that. God has
shown himself strong too many times for me to live in that shadowy
happenstance world. And I find it great consolation,
great comfort to know that God had it all worked out before
I got here, whether or not I like it all
or not. And let's be honest, there's a lot of it I don't like. The devil says to me, you'll
never be what you ought to be. But you know what I say to him?
Yes, and I'll never be where I ought to be. I'm not going
to hell because Christ loved me and died for me. I was rescued from the judgment
I deserved, chosen in Christ my Lord before the world was,
long before God ever hung the stars and the moon. I was in
Christ. Somebody said, God took us out
of Adam and put us in Christ. Oh, no. God's children were in
Christ long before we were ever in Adam. I was represented on a cross
that I deserved to be on, but Christ was there in my stead. Darkness came that day. Judgment
fell that day on my sin, but not on me. This great God I'm talking to
you about fixed it all from eternity. And I'll stop with verses 17
and 18 as David pauses to say, Lord, you sure have been good
to me. Look what he says. 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. My mathematic skills fail me
when I go to try and calculate God's goodness and blessings
to me. And then he says, when I awake,
I am still with thee. No matter what happens, Lord,
you'll never leave me. Many is the time I've expected
you to be gone, like all the rest. But you're still here. Then he says, uh-oh, I've got
that backwards. It's not that you're still with me. But look
what he said, I'm still with thee. That's the order. That's the
order. As sister Sonia Smith used to
sing, Lord, I'm not leading you in paths that you would never
take, but you're leading me in paths that I would never take.
You bring things. into the path of my life that
I would not choose. And when those times come and those
things, uncomfortable and painful things happen to us, that might suggest to our carnal
mind a minimizing of God's love to us. But it's not true at all. The truth is he's never loved
you better than he does today. Talking about the omniscient,
the omnipresent, the omnipotent God, our savior can be trusted. He can be trusted. I know there's
something in your nature and in your situation that says I
can't afford to trust God right now. I've got to do this. I've got to work this out. I
know this is good stuff, but I just don't have time to talk
about God. Right. I've got to work this out. I can't afford
to trust him right now. But David says to us in this
Psalm, you can't afford not to. You can't afford not to bless
his Holy name. All right, let's stand together.