I invite you to turn to the hundred thirty-nine psalms, Psalm one hundred thirteen nine. We want to read the first twelve verses of this great psalm. We have been studying these past number of weeks on Lord's day morning the revelation that God has given us of himself, trying to answer the question, can we know God? Jeremiah chapter nine says, Let not the wise man, glory in his wisdom, let not the rich man, glory in his riches let not the mighty man glory in his strength but he the glorious let him glory in this that he knows me to know God we need to know what God has told us about himself had not God given us a revelation we would not be able to know God and it's only as he reveals himself to us that we can know him and we have been studying things concerning God we've been talking about his sovereignty, the fact that God is sovereign. We've been talking about his omnipotence, the fact that he is all-powerful. Last week we examined his omnipresent, the fact that God is spirit. He is everywhere present, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Psalm one hundred thirty-nine is a psalm of the omniscience of God. When we talk of the omniscience of God, we're talking about the fact that God knows all things. There isn't anything that God does not know. There isn't anything that is hidden about you. God knows every little detail of your life. And this is where the psalmist begins in Psalm. So we begin at verse one. O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and my uprising. Thou understandest My thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acclaimed it with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but O, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset 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. 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 Sheol, 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. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me, yea, the darkness highteth 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 reign, thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. Let us pray again. Our God and our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we bow to worship. We worship you because of who you are. And we know who you are because of the revelation you have given us of yourself. There isn't a thing, O God, that you do not know. And we worship you because of this. There is not a thing, O God, that you cannot do, for thou art omnipotent, except the things which are contrary to your nature. You certainly do not do anything that is not holy and righteous and good. We thank you, our Father, that thou art not only God, but you are consistent in all your ways. Help us to teach truth. Help us to so speak of thee that men and women will be drawn to worship you, to bow in your presence, to rejoice in your great salvation that you have provided to the death and the resurrection of your dear Son. We bow before you. Give us something from yourself in this hour for Jesus' sake. Amen. How well does God know me? How well does God know you? You see, in verses one and two of Psalm one, thirty-nine, I find that he knows my time. And the psalmist at another place said, Our times are in His hands. God knows our times. He says, Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. You know my down sitting and my uprising. You understand my thought afar off. In other words, when I say God knows my time, God knows what I am thinking. And if a man knows what he, since God knows what I think, then he knows exactly what I am. For the scripture says, as a man thinketh in his heart, not what he says, but what he thinks in his heart. That's what he is. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. How well does God know you? and you need to consider that. I'll tell you, according to the second verse, He understands your thoughts from afar. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter what circumstance you're in. God understands your thinking. He knows everything about you. But when we come to verse three, I learned that God's thinking is not limited by space. Verse three, for thou compasses my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. No matter where I happen to be, God knows all about me. This is the kind of knowledge, friends, that a person develops through a long marriage. We learn to know the person that we're married to, through a long marriage. And the longer we live with a person, the more we know about them. In other words, God has known every detail about us from all eternity. Now compasses my path and my line down. Thou art acquainted with all my ways. Again I ask you a question. How well does God know you? And you need to consider this. How well does God know you? The third thing we want to consider this morning is in verse four. Verse four says, For there is not a word in my tongue, but oh Lord. Not noticed it altogether. God knows every thought that I have. He not only knows every thought I have, he also knows what I say. We say things to people, but we have a lot of thoughts that we don't say. God not only knows what we say, but He knows our thinking behind what He says, what we say. God not only knows what we say or have said, but He knows what we're going to say before we say it. He knows our thoughts before we say them. God's knowledge is not limited by time. It's not limited by state. He knows everything. And he knows it exhaustively. There are no details that are left out. How different is the knowledge of God in comparison to human knowledge? In First Corinthians thirteen concerning human knowledge it says we know in part and how little that part is that we know. Now I've known a lot of intelligent men in my time. Men that I thought were really intelligent. When I think of sitting and listening to Dr. Warren Rearsby, for instance, what a brain that man has. What ability. When I think of how I used to sit as a teenager, when I got my first car, and I'd go to the Chautauqua grounds at Mount Gretna and listen to Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse, the greatest preacher I ever listened to publicly. And when he would stand there and expound the Word of God, I would sit there and drink it in. I tell you. But you know, the more I learned about Dr. Barnhaw, I learned there's a lot he doesn't know. The most intelligent men I've ever met. I admire them for their intelligence. I admire them for their mental capacity. But there's so much that they don't know. There are things that they never learned about me. I didn't tell them. And there are things that you can't learn about me unless I tell you. My brother says, and my brother is on Godre, he says, you go to psychiatry. He said, and you sit there, and you just keep your mouth shut. Don't tell him a lot of things. Say, I've come for you to tell me. He says, you don't tell him anything. He can't tell you anything. So that teaches you that you're smarter than he is. That's what my brother says. You see. But there are intelligent men unknown. But there are a lot of things about me that they didn't know. But that's so different than God. God knows everything about me. There isn't a thing. Our problem when it comes to thinking about God is that our thoughts are too human. And God tells us that in the fiftieth psalm. He says to the people in the fiftieth psalm, you thought that I was such a one just like you. And God is not like me. Thank God he isn't. God knows everything. God's knowledge is on the limit. God's knowledge is exhaustive. This is what we mean by omnipotence. No, excuse me, omniscience. That is what we mean by omniscience. Dr. Edward Young, who wrote a great commentary on Isaiah, also wrote a commentary on the hundred thirty-nine psalms. And the name of it is Psalm one thirty-nine, the omniscience of God. In other words, things pass, things present, things future, things in heaven, things in earth, things under the earth, they're all known by him. But think of it. There is a one sparrow that falls to the ground without his knowledge. The Bible says the hairs of your head are numbers. Take it over. I'll never forget one day I was going to speak at Western Electric. And at the noon hour, and one of the men who, the guards that were assigned in to get into Western Electric to pick up the man who's going to be with you all through your stay there, he didn't have any hair on his head, and the fellow brought him a comb. He said, here's a comb for you for all two. All two of your hair. See, it wasn't a job to number the hairs on his head. But what about mine or somebody else's? I may pull one up. And it may be number four hundred sixty-five. See, they're numbers. Each one of them has a number to it. And God knows the number. And he knows which one is which. We can't think of God in human terms. Our minds fail us. His eye is on the sparrow. You see, according to verse six, we have to say, like David, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain to it. The only thing we can do as we consider the omniscience of God is wonder, worship, and adore. in his presence. Such wisdom, such knowledge, such an understanding of his creation, it is all known by him. Now every Christian believes that God knows everything. But we really don't understand that, do we? That God knows everything. But he does. It is such a profound truth that the psalmist said such knowledge It's too wonderful for me. So, having gone this far, what does that truth mean to us? What does that mean to me as a child of God living here at the end of the twentieth century? Well, let's apply these truths that I mentioned so quickly. First, application number one. That means you can have comfort that God understands. If God knows everything, then God understands perfectly. You see, this Psalm, Psalm one thirty-nine, should minister comfort to every believer at all times. Have you ever had that feeling that no one understands you? I believe everybody has had that at one time or another. No one simply understands me. Maybe you think that no one could possibly understand what you are thinking or feeling. You're all alone. But God understands and God knows. Or what a comfort this is. The Negro spiritual put it. No, how did they put it? Nobody knows the trouble I see. Nobody knows the Jesus. They had it right. They believed in the omniscience of God. God understands. You see, this song tells us that there's one who does know, and there's one who does understand. Mr. McNeil told me that when his father, who was a leader in the assembly in Pili Kutri in Scotland, when he died, he died unexpectedly. Bill said, I was in a quandary. I didn't know what to do. And he said, I was walking down the street one day and a young man who had lost his father came over and he took my hand and he said to me, Bill, I understand. He said, that's all he said. And he said, we had a kindred communion together. We both experienced the same thing. That man truly understood. So when you come to the book of Hebrews and we read concerning our great high priest in heaven, he was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. We have one who understands. Psalm number three, verse fourteen says, For he knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are done. In the Bible class I used to say, I said a number of times that God remembers what we forget. He remembers our frame. He knoweth our frame. He remembers that we are dust. We think we're cast iron. Oh, nothing can stop me, but God knows that we're just plain dust. He knoweth our frame. How comforting that God knows all things. God knows every circumstance about you. Boy, that comforts me. What a comfort. Application number one. What a comfort that is to the child of God. But application number two. You can have confidence, therefore, that justice will prevail. God will see to it that the righteous are rewarded and that the wicked will be punished. And that will take place, of course, in the kingdom of God. In other words, For that to take place, it calls for something. It calls for a righteous judge. A righteous judge must, and that to be righteous, he must know everything. And the eternal judge knows all things, even our thoughts. That's why we read concerning the coming of the Lord in Isaiah chapter eleven, concerning the king, he's going to sit. upon the throne and who's going to judge. The word of God says he's not going to judge after the sight of his eyes. And he doesn't, he isn't going to judge according to the hearing of his ears. He doesn't need a witness. Why? He knows all things. He's the omniscient God before whom man must stand. Think of standing in the presence of one who knows everything you ever thought. but to be standing there and to have rejected his dear son, to have been living in rebellion against the knowledge of God, in spite of all that he's told us about himself, to say, no, I want my own way instead of the way of God. And we say that to the one who knows everything that you say. You don't have to say it. You can only need to do his thinker, and he knows that you thought it. And out of the abundance of the heart of our speakers, and you've done what you thought. You see how heinous sin is in the sight of God? When man deliberately commits adultery, when man deliberately lies about somebody else. When man deliberately steals, God not only knows what he did, God knows why he did it, and he understands the thought concerning it. To those who are outside of Christ's if you've never bowed the knee in humble repentance to him. The truth and the omniscience of God should strike terror in your heart. This one who knows every little detail of your life, you're going to have to meet him. You're going to have to stand before him. God is not going to let anyone get away with anything. He's omniscient. All because for those of us who are saved, to be judged by one who knew everything about me. Oh, can you imagine what a blessing it is. He knows me perfectly, and that's a matter for rejoicing, because it makes me want to worship that I stand amazed in the presence of the God who knows me far better than my wife does, far better than my children do, far better than anybody else. And he said to me, I want you. Oh, the greatest thing there is, is to be saved, to come to the God who wants us in spite of our sin. He's the one who said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. To think that the ungodly say, I want my own way, and said, I'm not going to come. Or be like the man I knew in Pennsylvania. with whom I had a lot of business deals. He said, I'm coming in through the side door. I'm not coming through the front door. I'm coming to heaven through the side door. I preached John X to that man. I said, Jack, or his grandfather, was a great missionary in Korea. He opened Korea, a Presbyterian preacher by the name of John Livingston Nevis. And Jack Nevis That was his name. Two years ago I was up north and I stopped at his home and his wife came to the door. He's up close to ninety. She said, I said, is Jack still around? She said, no, Jack passed away. I'll tell you this, he didn't go through any side door. There isn't a side door. Christ said, I'm the door. knows all about you. There's nothing you can hide. And he invites you to come. And if you don't come, he knows what you secretly think. He knows what you secretly say. You don't have to do a thing. And he knows it. That's what this psalm is all about. You see, there's a day coming that truth will be known. I want you to turn to a few passages of Scripture. Isaiah chapter forty, verse twenty-seven. Justice will prevail. Isaiah forty, twenty-seven says, Why sayeth thou, O Jacob? and speaketh, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God, hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, he fainteth not, neither is weary, there is no searching of his understanding? That's the omniscience of God. And I want you to turn to two New Testament passages. Isaiah, excuse me, Matthew, chapter six, in the Sermon on the Mount. Our word Jesus is teaching. In Matthew six, in the Sermon on the Mount, he has this to say in verse one, Take heed that ye do not do wrongs before men to be seen a man, otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in heaven. If you give to be seen or to be heard a man, you don't get a reward, you already have it. That's what he says. That's why I'm irritated when people tell me about somebody what they put in the offering place. I don't want to know. The Lord says they shouldn't know. For the more he says in verse three, But when thou givest thine arms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand does. Do we really believe the Lord? That's what he says. He'll take care of it in due time. Concerning our giving. But what about our praying? You see in verse four concerning giving he says that thy norms may be in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Much better to get the reward from the heavenly father than from men. Now he talks about praying in verse five. He said, when you pray, thou shalt not be as a hypocrite. They love to pray standing in the synagogues, etc. But verse six says, But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door. How often we pray to the person next to it, which we tend to, we're talking to the Father, but we're trying to give information to somebody else. What's our Lord saying here? He says that is in prayer at all. When you pray, enter thy car, when ye have shut the door, pray to thy father in secret, and thy father receiveth in secret, shall reward thee openly. Turn over to Ephesians six. I could say a lot about these verses, but these verses are teaching us the truth of the omniscience of God. Ephesians chapter six, verse five. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ. Not with I servants, with I service as men-pleasers, but as service of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men. Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free. What is our Lord teaching us here? He's teaching us how often at work you labor and you labor diligently and the fellow next to you who doesn't believe in God he gets away with everything. God says you be faithful as one of mine in your work as a servant. In due time, I'll set the record straight. You just live for me is what he's saying in this passage. Don't you worry about Jack Smith. You live for me and you do your work as unto me. You see, there is no possible way that a person can vindicate himself at all times. But God, in due time, will vindicate those who are his own. Oh, application number two, justice will prevail. We have an omniscient God. But number three, application number three, you can have the conviction that God sees all things. Oh, boy, this is convicting to one who is lost, but to us who are saved and he's blessed. God sees all things. The wicked believe that God doesn't know what he's doing. You see, that's what the psalmist in the hundred thirty-nine psalms said, you see. They said, the darkness covers me. No. Verses eleven and twelve. He said, the darkness and the light are the same thing to the Lord. He sees and he knows all. I want you to think about a character in the Old Testament by the name of Ahab. God told Ahab, if he goes to battle at Ramaphiliate, he's going to come back a dead man. He's going to die. Do you remember what Ahab did? He disguised himself as a chariot warrior. He had the hood on. Well, he thought that because nobody else knew who Ahab was, that God didn't know. But the thirty-third verse of the eighteenth chapter of second chronicles in one of the great verses of the Bible, it simply says, and a certain man, that certain man happened to be a Syrian soldier. He drew a bow at a venture. He just took a bow and an arrow and shot. And the scripture says the arrow hit the joints of the harness. There's about three quarters of an inch space between the upper part of metal and the lower part where he was vulnerable and that's where the arrow hit. God said it would take place. A certain man who were bored of answer, and he smote the king of Israel, between the joints of his harness. And he died before the Lord. You see, Psalm seventy-three tells us that the wicked are self-deceived. They have deceived themselves into thinking, and the Seventy-third Psalm deals with why do the wicked prosper? And because the wicked prosper, they're self-deceived. They think that God doesn't see what's going on, that God doesn't know what's going on. It's too disturbing to them to realize that they're being watched. Remember Adam and Eve? When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, what did they do? They hid themselves because they were naked. God says to them, who told you you were naked? Who told you you were naked? He said, have you eaten a tree? God knew they did, but he had to have Adam confess that he did. For some reason or other, we hate to be found naked. We're trying to hide. You see, before sin, man was naked and unashamed. Nothing to be ashamed of. But once sin entered into the picture, the first thing he realized, he was naked. We don't like the idea of being washed. You know, I used to play games. They didn't realize it with the young people. I used to stare at them. I'd stare at it and what I would do, I would prove that people do not like when other people stare at them. Why? And then if I was with somebody, I'd pretend that I was talking about them. And if they were watching me, I'd ask them if there's something wrong with that other person and there's something on their chin or something. And I'd get them all upset. You see, there are a lot of things. It just proves one thing. People don't like what God has done all the time. We're never out of His sight. God is everywhere present. God knows all about me. He knows what I'm thinking. Hebrews four, verse thirteen says, all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom they have to do. Application number four. The omniscience of God teaches me the certainty of God's love. Oh, my friend, oh, if you're, the other three applications, if they scared you, don't let this one. They teach me the certainty of God's love. It's like a little girl who came home from Sunday school and her mother asked that great question. What did you learn today? I wish more mothers did. What did you learn in Sunday school today? And she said, I learned. that God knows all about me. He knows everything I think. He knows everything I say, and he knows everything I do. That little girl had a good teacher. And she said, well, how does that make you feel that God knows everything you do? Oh, she said, it makes me feel good. She says, I know that Christ died for everything about me. Woo! Isn't that great? Christ died for everything about me. He knows all about me. You see, nothing about you ever surprises God. Nothing about anybody surprises God. And nothing will ever stop God from loving me. Hebrews eleven twenty nine says the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. In other words, God's never going to change his mind about me. When he called me to himself, he called me in love. He knows all about me. He knew every time I'd fail. He knew every time I'd sin. He knew every time I'd have wrong thought. He knew every little detail. And what about it? He will never change his mind about me. David understood that in the hundred thirty-nineth psalm. That psalm begins with a word. Lord, I have served me and known me. And in the twenty-third verse he says, Search me some more. Search me, O God, and know my fault. Try me and know my way. See if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting. My friend, are you the Lord? Are you the Lord? The love of God is so real. And God knows all about you, and He says to you today, come. If there's a reason for you to come to Christ in repentance and faith, it's because God knows you better than anybody else. And he's made provision for your eternal salvation. You've never come. There's no better time than now. Let's pray. Now, our Father, we commend your word. of each heart. We thank you for that abundance of grace and gift of righteousness which is available in our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask you now that you'll take the word and convict and comfort according to your will as we commend this company to thee and to your grace in the name of him who loved us and gave himself for us. Even Christ Jesus the Lord. Amen.