Psalms 139
Questions answered from Psalms 139
Chuck Smith on Psalms 139
Verse by verse, the C2000, 1979 to 1985 and C3000, 1985 to 1999 series. Permission granted by The Word For Today.
C2000 · 1979 to 1985
Chapter introduction
Psalm 139, another psalm of David to the chief musician.
Verse 1
As David offers this prayer really unto God, declaring, first of all,
O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me (139:1).
Recognizing that God knows me completely and fully.
Verse 2
You know my downsittings and my uprisings (139:2),
Or you know my ups and my downs.
you understand my thoughts afar off (139:2).
The Hebrew is, "You understand my thoughts in their origins." Before I even think them, You know them. You know the processes by which they are formed.
Verse 3
You compassest my path and my lying down, you're acquainted with all my ways (139:3).
"When I'm walking, I'm encircled by You. When I'm lying down, I'm encircled by You. I'm encompassed by You in everything." Paul the apostle said, "For in Him we live, we move, we have our being" (Acts 17:28). The all-prevailing presence of God surrounding my life, God's omnipresence.
Verse 4
There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, you know it altogether (139:4).
So God knows me so completely.
Verse 5
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and you've laid your hand upon me (139:5).
I look back and I see the hand of God on my life. I look ahead and I see God's plan. And right now I feel the hand of God upon me. You see, I'm surrounded. My past, present, and my future is all wrapped up with God. "You've beset me behind and before, and Your hand is upon me."
Verse 6
The psalmist declared,
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it (139:6).
What knowledge? Self-knowledge. Very few people really know their selves. We have hidden the truth about ourselves so long that we don't even know the truth about our own self. "The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) Yet God said, "I do search the hearts of man." But who really knows the motive, the true motive behind our actions? And yet, it is God who weighs the motives. We put so much emphasis upon a person's actions. God puts the emphasis upon the attitudes, the motives from which the actions spring. And it is possible, very possible for people to have right actions with wrong motives. And God's looking at the motive.
"Take heed to yourself," Jesus said, "that you do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of men" (Matthew 6:1). In other words, that should not be your motive, to be recognized by men. That's why I'm doing my righteous thing, so people can see me. You've got to be careful that that isn't your motive. For Jesus said, "I say unto you, you have your reward" (Matthew 6:2).
Now he tells about people who were doing the right thing. They were giving to God. They were praying. They were fasting. But yet, they were doing it always with the wrong motive, and thus, no reward from God. No recognition from God for what they were doing. For God weighs the heart. God is checking the attitude, the motives by which I do things. And the Bible says that one day, "we are all to stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things that we've done in our body, whether they be good or evil" (II Corinthians 5:10). And our works are all going to be tried by fire, of what manner or sort they are. So all of the works that a person has done for God. "Oh Lord, weren't we doing this? Weren't we doing that? Weren't we big stars and we were on TV and we were doing all these wonderful things for You." And Jesus said, "Hey, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity." The whole motive was wrong. The motive was to receive the recognition and the glory, the applause, the praise of man. "So take heed to yourself," Jesus said, "how you do your righteousness, that you don't do it with the motive of being seen of men."
So here the psalmist declares, "Such knowledge too much for me; I cannot attain it."
Verses 7–8
Now whither shall I go from thy presence or from thy Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: but if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there (139:7-8).
The omnipresence of God filling the universe. There is no place that you can go and escape the presence of God. "In Him we live, we move, we have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Verses 9–12
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. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night will be light about me. Yea, the darkness does not hide from you; but the night shines as the day: and the darkness and the light are both alike unto thee (139:9-12).
In other words, with God there is no darkness. There is no hiding in darkness. It makes no difference to God. He can see just as well at night as He can during the day. Turn the lights out and hide from God. No, it doesn't make any difference. God can see us. Light and darkness are the same to Him.
Verses 13–14
For you have possessed my reins: you cover me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: and marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well (139:13-14).
Fearfully and wonderfully made. More and more we're discovering how wonderfully made we are made. The human body. There's a new book entitled, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. I recommend the book. It's just excellent reading for you. Written by a doctor who spent many years as a missionary doctor in a leprosarium and has done his most recent work back at Carville, Louisiana in the leprosarium there, which they no longer call leprosarium. It's an institute for the study of Hansen's disease. And it's an excellent book. I think you'll enjoy it as he, from a medical standpoint, delves into the marvels of the human body. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, and the title of the book is Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.
Verses 15–16
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 (139:15-16).
In other words, God knew me completely before I was ever born. When I was still just chemicals. God knew me completely.
Verses 17–18
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 you (139:17-18).
God's thoughts for me, how precious they are. How great is the sum. If I should number them, more than the sand. I love to go down to the beach and just take and get a handful of sand and just open up the bottom of my hand and let it just drop on down and form a pile. And watch those grains of sand fall. I think there's something therapeutic about it. Just feels good. But also as the grains of sand are falling, I think, "Wow, God's thoughts concerning me, if I could number them, are more than the sand of the sea." Each one of those little grains of sand represent one of God's thoughts concerning me. God's thinking about me all the time. And then God said, "My thoughts towards you are good, not evil" (Jeremiah 29:11). And so I drop a few little piles of sand on the beach and then I just look up at the beach and see all the grains of sand and think, "Oh my, how wonderful, Lord. How precious are Thy thoughts of me."
The psalmist then speaks of the wicked. God is going to destroy the wicked. Therefore I want to depart from wicked men. I don't want to keep company with evil men.
Verses 20–22
For they speak against God wickedly, they take his name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate you? am I not grieved with those that rise up against you? I hate them with a perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies (139:20-22).
The psalmist said. And then his prayer, that is, his petition. The whole thing is prayer. This is now the petition:
Verse 23
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts (139:23):
Who is the man who prays, "Search me, O God?" He's the man who understands and knows that he doesn't know himself. The man who recognizes that he really doesn't know himself is the man who prays, "Search me, O God, and know my thoughts. And know my heart. Try me. My heart is deceitful. My heart is desperately wicked. Lord, know my heart. Try me. Know my thoughts."
Verse 24
And see if there be some wicked way in me (139:24),
Because You're going to destroy the wicked. I don't want to be wicked. See if there is something there, Lord, that is displeasing to You.
Now the work of the Holy Spirit is not only revealing Christ to us, but revealing ourselves to us. How often the Holy Spirit reveals to me the truth about myself. My reaction, my response to a situation. The Holy Spirit will say, "All right, Chuck, now that was wrong. That wasn't Christ-like. That wasn't a Christ-like spirit. You weren't responding in love. You were angry with them." And I usually say, "Yes I am, and I have a right to be." Then He starts dealing with me as He reveals these areas of my life that are not yet brought to the cross. Not yet brought into conformity to Jesus Christ. Those areas of self that are still there that He is desiring to give me victory over. The Holy Spirit's work is that of revealing to us those areas of our lives that are displeasing to God. And then the prayer ends.
lead me in the way everlasting (139:24).
Lead me in the path of life. Lead me in the way of everlasting life. There's one thing I don't want to be deceived about, and that is my eternal destiny. How many, many people are deceived concerning their eternal destiny because they're trusting in the word of some man. They're trusting in the word of some religious leader. Some maybe charismatic leader who has a lot of charisma, personal charisma, and personal magnetism and whatever these things are. And they are encouraging people to follow after them, engaging in brainwashing techniques. Making zombies out of their followers. And how many people are blindly following them today thinking, being assured that this is the path of life.
"Everybody else is wrong. We're the only ones who have the truth. We're the only ones walking in the light. All of the churches are wrong. They're all lying to you. None of them are telling you the truth. We're the only ones who have discovered the truth." And people blindly following them. And even within the churches, how many people have come to just trust in the church, church membership, or infant baptism. And they're deceived as to their eternal destiny. "Lead me in the way everlasting." I don't want to be fooled on this. I don't want my heart to be deceived on this issue. I want to make sure that I'm in the way everlasting. "For there is a way that seems right unto man, but the end of it is death" (Proverbs 14:12). I don't want to be in that way, thinking that I'm right and landing up in the pit.
C3000 · 1985 to 1999
Chapter introduction
Let’s turn now in our Bibles to psalm one hundred and thirty-nine as we continue our journey through the Bible. Twenty-four verses, they are divided into six verses. The first six verses he talks about the omniscience of God, the next six verses he talks about the omnipresence of God, in the next six verses he talks a little about God’s creative powers and the six verses are more or less a prayer and application of these things.
Verses 1–2
O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off (139:1-2).
The psalmist is aware of how completely and thoroughly God knows him and knows all about him even as God knows you and knows all about you. The Bible said, “Everything is open and naked before him with whom we have to do. That is, you don’t hide anything from God.
In the New Testament the book of Acts chapter five, in the early church they were having this move of the spirit. People were selling their property and they were creating sort of a communal life within the early church. One of the couples Ananias and Sapphira had sold their property. They brought a portion of the money and laid it at the feet of Peter. First of all Ananias came in and Peter said, “Ananias, why is it that you have conspired in your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Is this what you sold the house for?” and he says, “Ya”. He rebuked him and he said, “You haven’t really lied to man, you’ve lied to God. The idea that a person can deceive God, can hide from God issues of his life, you just don’t understand God.
When David said, “You understand my thoughts afar off” in the Hebrew that does not imply that God is way off in some corner of the universe billions of light years away and I’m way over here but from that distance God understands my thoughts. The Hebrew indicates that God understands my thoughts in their origins. Now where do thoughts come from? What chemicals are mixed in the brain that causes these little brain flashes that bring thought and idea to me? Where do they originate and how do they originate? What David is saying, “Lord, you know my thoughts before I think them, you know the origins of my thoughts”.
Verse 3
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways (139:3).
That acknowledgement and realization of how thoroughly and completely God knew about every facet of his life.
Verses 4–5
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me (139:4-5).
This goes back to you encompassed my path. I’m surrounded by God. He’s behind me, he’s in front of me and his hand is upon me.
Paul the apostle was invited when he Athens to come up to Mars Hill to present his ideas to the philosophers who spent their time debating and discussing and listening to new thoughts and new ideas. As Paul stood there on Mars Hill with the temple to Athena above him, the temples of Jupiter just down below him and the agoura of the city of Athens with all of the gods and the idols and altars throughout the streets he said, “I perceive that you’re very religious people. As I have been going through the streets here I’ve observed all of your altars and idols, the gods that you worship”. He said, “I did observe one altar down there and I saw the inscription to the unknown god” he continued “I would like to tell you about this God. He’s the one that has created the whole universe and in him we live, we move and we have our being”.
In other words, He’s omniscient, He surrounds us. He’s in front of us, he’s in back of us and his hand is upon us. Our lives are totally encompassed by this God. I never arrive at any point but which God has not preceded me there. As I look back I can see how the hand of God has been on my life every step.
Verses 6–7
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? (139:6-7).
Now we are going to deal with the omnipresence of God. God is everywhere. How can I escape him?
Verses 8–10
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 (139:8-10).
Remember the case of Jonah? God called Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah, being a true patriot, did not want to go to Nineveh, that was their enemy. God had given him a message of judgement to give to Nineveh. Forty days and God’s going to destroy Nineveh. Jonah was afraid that if he went there and preached he might be successful that they might repent and God wouldn’t destroy them. So he decided to flee from the presence of God. He tried to hide from the call of God. He went down to Joppa and got a ship that was going to Tarsus, which was the end of the world at that time.
Jonah discovered that he could not escape from the presence of God out in the Mediterranean. God stirred up the Mediterranean in a storm, they threw over all the cargo. Finally, one of the sailors looking for anything else in the hold to throw over board found Jonah fast asleep. They woke him up and they said, “Man, you better start calling on your God, we are in big trouble”. Jonah said, “Just throw my over and it will all be over. I’m a prophet of God”. They didn’t want to do that, they did their best to try and ride out the storm but they saw that it wasn’t going to happen. They finally threw Jonah overboard. Suddenly there was a great calm and you know the rest of the story. Trying to flee from the presence of God by taking off to Tarsus.
Many times people make a mistake of thinking of God in way of sort of localizing God. In the Old Testament when they said, “Well he’s the God of the mountains, let’s fight him in the valleys. Our mistake was fighting him in the mountains” and God said, “I’ll show them I’m the God of the valleys too”. A lot of times we think he’s the God of the mountains when things are going great and we are on the mountain top of praise God but he’s not the God of the valley. He’s forsaken us when we are in the valleys. We think that when we enter the church we come into the presence of God, “Oh Lord it is so wonderful to gather in your presence this evening”. We think of, as we enter into the church, be dignified we are coming now into the presence of God. Let the holiness change our voice, be stiff in God’s presence as though God’s presence wasn’t with us when we were on the way. Where can I escape from his presence?
Our problem is the lack of the consciousness of his presence. That’s what we need. What we need is to be more aware of the fact that I cannot escape his presence. When I do those things that I think are being done in secret, God is there. I do not hide from God. I cannot hide from God. I cannot escape his presence. Where can I flee from your presence? The answer is you can’t. We live, we move, we have our being in God.
Jonah found out that God was down in the depths of the sea when he was there in the belly of the whale. He cried unto God, “I cried unto the Lord out of the depths of hell I cried and he heard me”. God’s presence down there in the depths.
Verses 11–12
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee (139:11-12).
An interesting thing about light is that we have the infrared by which what is to our eyes dark with the infrared light you can see in a dark room. Armed forces have these special glasses that will pick up the infrared light and with these glasses you can see in the dark and they use them a lot in the night fighting. We’ve discovered that it’s possible to see in the dark if you have the proper glasses that are equipped to help you see with the infrared rays. With God it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s dark or light, it’s all the same to him. I’ll wait until night and then slip out where God can’t see me. No, he can see you just as well in the darkness of night as he can in the noon day sun.
Verses 12–13
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: (139:12-13).
You are in control of my life, you are the one who is holding the reigns of my life.
Verse 13
thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb (139:13).
Now we are going back to even before I was born God knew me. We are getting now into this area of God’s knowledge. From the eternal, before I was ever formed, before there was ever any substance God knew me. God said that to Jeremiah. He said, “Before you were ever formed I knew thee”. In Jeremiah the first chapter verse five “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before you came forth out of the womb I set you apart and ordained you as a prophet to the nations”. God spoke of Cyrus, the work that he would do a hundred and fifty years before he was ever born, before his mother was born. God spoke about Cyrus and the way that God would use him to set the children of Israel free from the Babylonian captivity.
Verse 14
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well (139:14).
So looking at my human body and all my marvelous attributes and aspects of the human body, truly I am fearfully and wonderfully made. The capacities of the body; sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. I marvel at the design, the body’s capacity to mend itself.
A while back when I was cutting down one our trees with my chainsaw, as I was cutting the small branches trying to hold the branch and cut it the chainsaw jumped and came across my finger ripping my flesh on off to the bone. I was just so disgusted with myself for doing something that stupid. I took off my T-shirt and wrapped it around it saying, “How can you be so stupid?” As I watched that thing with the blood spurting I grabbed it to put some pressure on to slow it down and I watched the blood begin to coagulate, I saw it shutting things off. I stood there and watched it for a while marveling at how these little platelets where already beginning to seal the thing off. I realized that in a couple of weeks it would be like new again. I said, “God, you are so marvelous to build in that system to cause the little platelets to seal off the wound and allow my cells to take over and reproduce and the scab will be gone”. All I have left is a little line there, you can hardly see it.
Fearfully and wonderfully made, think of that. Creating me so that my body can mend itself. What tremendous wisdom in creation.
Verse 15
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, (139:15).
When I was being formed within my mother. When those two half-cells came together and they began that process of reproduction and I was starting to be formed in within my mother’s womb, God knew all about me.
Verses 15–16
and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; [not yet complete] (139:15-16).
I was in the formative state within my mother’s womb and God saw me.
Verse 16
and in thy book all my members were written, (139:16).
God made a list of all my bodily members being there.
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them (139:16).
I think of this scripture in light of abortion. Though the humanist would pass it off as just tissue, they’re always careful not to call it a baby but a fetus, they refer to it as just a tissue. It is interesting, that’s not the way God looks at it. God sees it as a being, as a person, from the moment of conception.
Verse 17
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! (139:17).
One of the things that I constantly marvel at is the fact that God thinks about me. Now I find that as something that is just absolutely astounding and amazing that God would think about me. Look at how many billions of people there are in the world today. Yet God thinks about me. Think of governing and guiding this whole universe, the awareness of God of the universe and life. Jesus said, “There is not a sparrow that falls to the ground but what your father doesn’t take note of it”. When I was a kid shooting sparrows with slingshots and BB guns as an afternoon practice, we gave God a lot to make note of.
God knows interesting trivia about you. For instance, he knows how many hairs you have on your head, interesting trivia. He knows all about us, he thinks about us but he thinks about us all the time.
Verses 17–18
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: (139:17-18).
Someone has estimated that there are some ten to the twenty-fifth power grains of sand in the earth. That’s a lot of thinking. In fact, if God thinks about you a billion times every minute he will be thinking about you for several thousand years.
Verse 18
when I awake, I am still with thee (139:18).
The psalmist realizes that the wicked are going to be cast into hell. God is going to destroy the wicked.
Verse 19
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: (139:19).
Therefore the psalmist addressing the wicked makes a declaration.
Verses 19–20
depart from me therefore, ye bloody [wicked] men. For they speak against thee wickedly, (139:19-20).
The bloody men, the murderous men actually, the men who shed blood.
Verse 20
and thine enemies take thy name in vain (139:20).
I sort of shudder they way some people speak of God contemptuously, wickedly. I was reading and article in Saturday’s register on the sports page concerning this fellow Buster who was going to be fighting Tyson in Japan. It said that after his last bout in July when he knocked this guy out that the next day he accepted Jesus Christ and became a born again Christian. He said that he wasn’t afraid of any man, he was only afraid of God and he believed that God was going to help him”. Of course the writer of the article for the Boston Globe sort of tongue-in-cheek said that he’s going to need more than God when he gets in the ring with Tyson”. Evidently he didn’t. It was one of those kind of contemptuous things, speaking wickedly of a man who had come to put his trust in Jesus Christ.
Verse 21
Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? (139:21).
It really grieves my heart to read some of the articles that people write against Christianity, against purity and morality and against God. Now Jesus said to love your enemies, I find that hard. I find it a lot easier to join with David and just hate them that hate the Lord.
Verse 22
I hate them with a perfect [complete] hatred: I count them mine enemies (139:22).
David ends this psalm with a prayer.
Verse 23
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: (139:23).
Go back to the first verse, “O LORD, you have searched me and you do know me”. In those first six verses he was speaking about the fact that he knew that God knew him better than he knew himself. Who was it? Socrates that said to his students, “Man, know thyself”. Self-knowledge is the most difficult knowledge you will ever attain and once attained it will probably some of the most painful knowledge you’ve ever had to know the truth about yourself.
The Bible speaks so much of those who have deceived themselves, the truth is not in them. People are diluted, people are deceived. God said to Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked who can know it? But I the Lord do search the hearts”. So Lord you have searched me, you have known me. In God’s searching me and knowing me and knowing everything about me, knowing my thoughts even in their origins David said, “Such knowledge is too great for me I can not attain it”. David admits his inability to really know himself.
Knowing that God has searched me and that God knows me, he ends up praying “Lord search me and know my heart, try me and put me through my tests and know my thoughts”. It’s not here for the purpose that God might know me. Lord let me go through the trial that I might know myself. It is in trials that I really get to know myself. When the pressure is on, when I’m going through a real testing or a real temptation then is really when I know myself. The purpose of trials is so often to reveal the truth of yourself to you. God talking about the forty years that the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness he said, “To prove you, to know what was in your heart”. Now God new what was in their hearts but they didn’t. So God put them through all of that testing so that they could see what was in their hearts. God also puts you through testing so that you can see what’s in your heart. Do I really trust in the Lord when the chips are down or do I begin to connive and try to work it out myself? God reveals.
Usually our opinion of ourselves is higher than what we really are. Getting this exalted of “I’m not too bad” Jesus said that that arises from the fact that we compare ourselves with each other. “You are they which do compare with each other but in this your error”. You look at me and say, “That guy’s got a lot of flaws. I know I’m not perfect but I know I’m better than he is”. You compare yourself with me and you look pretty good. Compare yourself with Jesus and then how do you look? I’m not the standard of comparison, he is. So we usually, because we are comparing with each other, we get this exaltation of ourselves.
Lord, put the test on so I don’t see the truth so I don’t rely upon myself and so I realize that I must rely upon God at all times. I don’t trust in myself, I trust in God. I don’t look within myself for strength, I look without unto God for my strength and my help. I don’t become self-reliant, I become God-reliant. That is what David is praying, you search me and know my heart, try me, know my thoughts Lord and then you see if there be any wicked way in me. Lord let it be exposed, let me see that in my life that is not in line with what you want, not in harmony with you. Lead me in your everlasting path.