God Knows Me; God Tests Me

Well, I’m sure you will have done your homework, but let’s read the concluding verses of Psalm 139, from verse 13:

For you formed my inward parts;
 you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
 my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was … made in secret,
 intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
 the days that were formed for me,
 when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
 How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
 I awake, and I am still with you.

Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
 O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
 your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
 And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
 I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
 Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
 and lead me in the way everlasting!

Father, we thank you that these things are true. We thank you that Jesus is the resurrection and the life.[1] And we thank you that we can pray for one another that the things we affirm in song we will live in our lives, that you will make us bold and at the same time compassionate and kind. And we ask this as we turn to the Bible, seeking help, as always, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, this morning, we come to the second two passages—the two sections that we left from yesterday. I should say that just in reading it, it would become apparent to you just how much material there is to get through. I will adopt a planned neglect, so that if you find yourself saying, “Oh, he missed that part; maybe he didn’t know what it meant,” that is a distinct possibility, but that won’t be why I did it. But I’m referring you to your professors in the Bible department to fill in all the gaps that I purposefully leave this morning.

“God, You Made Me”

Verses 1–6 was “God, You Know Me”; verses 7–12, “God, You’re with Me”; and now verses 13–18, “God, You Made Me.”

It’s very, very important that we realize just how distinct is a Christian perspective on these things. We said yesterday that the questions, you know, “What am I?” “Where did I come from?” “Where am I going?” and so on—“Where was I before I was born, if I was anywhere?” “Where will I be, if anywhere, when I die?”—the Christian is able to speak to these things on the strength of the Bible and the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus: a distinct contrast to some of the great thinkers of our previous generations. Einstein, in his credo, says, “Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore[s].”[2] What a hopeless credo that is!

David, by contrast, here and elsewhere in the Psalms, he says, “I am the result of God’s creative handiwork, fearfully and wonderfully made.” And years later, when Paul stands before the Areopagus, he’s there to tell them of how God “himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”[3]

It’s important that we keep these things clearly in our minds, that… I always say to myself and to anyone who wants to listen to me, “Read your Bible first before you do anything with the news broadcasts of the day. Don’t allow the news to be the filtration system for your reading of the Bible, but rather, make sure it’s the other way around.” As an elderly friend in California would say to my wife, “It’s always Word and then world.” And when we get that the wrong way around, we’ll find ourselves in difficulty.

So, we want to be able to affirm that the universe was made by God, that the universe is providentially sustained by God, and that the universe is entirely and utterly dependent upon God. And, of course, it is this reality which makes, for example, your engineering department significant—which makes the ability to dock, for example, the space station possible: because of the entire order of the universe.

“It[’s] no accident,” writes Bruce Milne, who was out at Regent College… He’s a Scotsman. I always like to mention my friends. He says, “It is no accident that the scientific revolution was located in the Christianized West at the close of the Middle Ages, nor that so many of the leaders of the revolution were men of profound [biblical Christian] faith.”[4] That, of course, rattled and rolled at the end of the nineteenth century with Darwin’s Origin of the Species. And some who were previously professing to be followers and faithful adherents to the Scriptures lost confidence in the Scriptures. And as a result, they “became futile in their thinking, and their [minds] were darkened”[5] by their unbelief.

The universe was made by God, the universe is providentially sustained by God, and the universe is entirely and utterly dependent upon God.

It’s important, too, that as we take these metaphors and pictures that are particularly prominent in the Psalms, that we understand that when, for example, the psalmist speaks about God clothing the grass of the field, that is a picture of what God does. It is on account of the fact of the processes of the things that happen down in this area with Ohio State University in germination and so on, so that the picture that God is clothing it… How is God clothing it? It’s not in absence to the science; it is in relationship to the science. Similarly, when we read of God sending the rain, it is on account of the fact of the water cycle—of evaporation, convection, precipitation, and collection. But the understanding of those who write is that God’s omnipotence shapes and controls everything, including their and our understanding of the world.

Jeremiah, again, when he addresses the prophets of his day—the false prophets—he says to them,

Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain?
 Or can the heavens give showers?
Are you not he, O Lord our God?
 We set our hope on you,
 for you do all these things.[6]

And “all these things” includes the delicate intimacies that are represented here in the forming of life, in the creating of the parts of the body.

And so David is saying to himself and to his readers, “You made me. You designed me, created me, fashioned me, put me together, and did so according to a plan.” This morning, you got to be able to say to yourself as you look at your face in the mirror—and whether you like it or you don’t like it, or whether anybody else likes it or doesn’t like it, God made you the way you are—and you can say, “I did not arrive here by accident but by design. I am the intended result of the mind of God.” Think about that for more than a nanosecond!

Wilcock, the Old Testament commentator, describes God as the “already God,” in this way: “I [can’t] utter a word without his knowing it already …; I [can’t] go anywhere without his being there already …; I cannot even be what I am without his having already made me thus in my mother’s womb”[7]—knitted me, intrinsically wove me.

You got the medical thing over here. You students, you understand this. It’s just fascinating, isn’t it? Flesh, bone, skin, arteries, eyes, genetics. “You made me.” We have to teach our grandchildren this. You have to tell your grandchildren, “Before there was time, before there was anything, there was God.” God made everything, but God is not part of everything. God is not one with the universe; God is separate from the universe. It’s New Age nonsense that combines them, so that people are looking for God within themselves and within different things.

I made a journey (to just realize how apropos that is) yesterday afternoon, to a place called… What do you call this place? Yellow Springs. Okay? I want to stand in the middle of the street and go, “Wait a minute! Please! Can I tell you this amazing story?”

Now, you’re medical students, and you will be. This is not the way you would answer a question in a gynecological examination about the formulation of a fetus. You’re not going to answer to the Cleveland Clinic, “I was intricately made in my mother’s womb.” You’re about to fail for that—not because it isn’t true. But when you explain the reality of what has taken place in the formation, in the gestation period, in everything that’s going on, as a Christian medic, you know that God is the one who has formed this.

It’s very, very personal, isn’t it? Because God has made us all for a unique purpose. We didn’t come into existence by accident, nor, actually, did we come as a result of the mechanical consequence of a particular act of sexual intercourse. (I can hear your ears going back.) Think about this with me: Intercourse occurred millions of times in history without producing in conception. But when it does, the Christian sees this as an act of God. God purposed in this way to do this through this means that he himself ordained—a means and a context that is expressly within the framework of a monogamous, heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman in marriage, which is not to be entered in lightly or carelessly but thoughtfully, with reverence for God, and so on. All of this and more is contained.

It’s fabulous, isn’t it? We used to sing, when we were small, a children’s song that went, “If I were a butterfly…” It was a kind of silly song, really. But I like silly songs as much as some others.

If I were a butterfly,
I’d thank you, Lord, for giving me wings;
[And] if I were a robin in a tree,
I’d thank you, [God], that I could sing. …

[And] if I were a fuzzy, wuzzy bear,
I’d thank you, [God], for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair. …

But I just thank you, Father,
For making me, me.

[Because] you gave me a heart,
And you gave me a smile,
[And] you gave me Jesus,
And you made me your child.
And I just thank you, Father, for making me, me.[8]

The first prayer in the morning: “O God, I’m alive! Thank you! Thank you! This is good.”

And that is not insignificant. Because you will notice he goes on to say, “You determined my days.” “All the days [of my life] were written in your book before one of them came to be.”[9] That’s the NIV; we’re reading from the ESV. “All those days when, embryonic, I was in view and when, embryonic, your end purpose for me was in view.”

What is the reaction to this? Well, the reaction is in the text—first of all, to say God is praiseworthy: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works”—art, music, science, literature. The atheist has no one to thank. That’s why man is so centered on himself. If I did it all, if “I did it my way,”[10] then there’s really nobody else to congratulate.

God is praiseworthy. God’s thoughts are “precious to me”—17 and 18, almost a refrain from verse 6: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” I take it that when David uses this terminology, he’s referring to the thought that God has put into the forming and fashioning and framing of his life. And you have a very interesting little statement there: that “I fall asleep, and when I awake, I am still with you.” That’s not somebody in the eleven o’clock service at the local church. What was he doing, falling asleep and then waking again? No, I think what we see is a glimpse of the resurrection. For what is it but to fall asleep? “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”[11]

I have to confess that I didn’t sing that “Because He Lives” song entirely accurately. And I’ll tell you why. Because the person who wrote it apparently had a dimension of conviction and faith greater than my own, in this respect: When we are supposed to sing, “Because [I live], all fear is gone.”[12] Now, just for the encouragement of those of you who are, like, in the tertiary level of faith along with me, then I’m going to let you know that it’s okay for you to sing, “Because he lives, most fear is gone.” Don’t let’s try and hold ourselves to a standard that we don’t even understand or can live by. Read the end of Pilgrim’s Progress. Read what happens to Pilgrim when he walks out into the waters. Just read that again, and you realize.

But here’s the thing: What we may fear most we will never experience, because we fall asleep in the arms of Jesus, and we waken up, and we’re home. But for me to try and explain to you that I’m not afraid of an MRI is a flat-out lie. ’Cause I’m so claustrophobic, it drives me nuts. I mean, I could have a heart attack thinking about somebody telling me, “You’re getting an MRI in five minutes.” That’s—I’d throw myself off the top of the engineering building before I do that. I’m not going to do that.

“God, You Test Me”

Well, God knows us intimately (verses 1–6), God is with us constantly (verses 7–12), God made us wonderfully (verses 13–18), and in these concluding moments (19–24), God judges us righteously. Or, if you like, “God made me, and God tests me,” since we’re putting it in very personal terms. God knows me and so on, and he tests me.

It would seem likely that when you come to this closing section, where David is alert to the wicked that are around him—aware of his enemies—I think that this closing section actually gives the context for his reflection on the security that he enjoys. Remember, we said yesterday morning that we ought not to think in terms of being hemmed in behind and before in terms of restriction but in terms of protection. Protection from what? Protection from whom? Well, here you have it at the end: It would seem that the context in which he finds himself, which is very routine when you read 1 and 2 Samuel, is one where he is being besieged, and he is being opposed. He is the anointed king, and the enemies are against him. So if the harsh reality of the presence of the wicked gave rise to the first eighteen verses, it is then equally clear that all that is contained in verses 1–18 prepares the way for this closing section.

And this is very, very important to say, for a number of reasons, but at least for this: It is not uncommon to find in a public auditorium—in much the same way that would be true, for example, of the reading of Psalm 90, which is often regarded as the funeral psalm—depending on people’s faith or their convictions, they leave out the hard bits. They leave out the hard bits. And so they just try and move on. And it’s very dangerous to do such a thing.

In fact, one of my friends, who is a hundred today—Dick Lucas in London—he says, “It is never wise to dismiss from the Bible things we find difficult or distasteful.” Okay? It’s never wise to try and step away from that. And here you have, if you like, the most difficult stanza in the psalm. Because it seems as though it sounds a discordant note—an abrupt, perhaps even a strange, intrusion, causing the reader, perhaps, to say, “Well, where did this come from?” Well, where it came from was from the heart of God through the pen of the psalmist, who is aware of the fact that God is so precious to him that those who speak against God he finds intolerable. He finds that the revolt of the wicked is revolting to him.

Now, when you think about this—when a person’s world is full of God, then they’re going to long for the elimination of the evil. The elimination of the evil. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t have all of this stealing? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t have this and wouldn’t have that? There’s hardly a person on the earth that wouldn’t say yes to all of that. But that is set within the context of righteousness and of evil.

The psalmist finds that the revolt of the wicked is revolting to him.

This is an imprecatory piece of the psalms. There are a number of imprecatory psalms. Again, go to the Bible department; they’ll fill you in on all of the details. But for now, notice this. Ask yourself this question: To whom does David here direct his comments? Answer: To God. To God. That’s how the psalm begins: “O Lord…” Verse 17: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” “Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!” This is a prayer. It’s a prayer. It’s one, as I say, of about thirty-five of these. It is a call for divine vengeance.

Now, embarrassed by this, some are tempted to play the Old Testament against the New Testament. And so what they do is they come to this, and then they say, “But you’ve got to understand: That’s all been changed now. That was the old times.” Well, actually, no, not at all. To say these things, you’re talking off the top of your head and with a closed Bible. Because the statements, for example, even made by Jesus in Matthew 23 reinforce the reality of the distinction between a broad road that leads to destruction and a narrow road that leads to life.[13] In the same way, in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament, vengefulness is expressly forbidden. Forbidden. It’s not that in the Old Testament, you’re allowed to say all these bad things about your friends up the street. No! No, it’s very clear. Leviticus 19: Love for enemy is not optional; it is an obligation.[14] You read of it in the Proverbs as well, and you will find it out.[15]

We all long for a day when all the wrongs will be righted, when sin will be no more. But that will only be because evil is finally dealt with righteously and entirely. We can’t have only one side of this coin. We can’t walk around saying, you know, “‘There will be a new heaven and new earth in which dwells righteousness.’[16] And there will be no sorrow. There’ll be no sadness. There’ll be no esophageal cancer. There will be none of that at all.[17] It’s going to be absolutely fantastic.” Yes. But what’s the other side of that equation?

This is a prayer; that’s the first thing I want you to note. Secondly, this is not a program for David or for us to implement. It’s not a program for David to implement. And you will notice, actually, when you read the narrative of 1 and 2 Samuel, that David was very, very careful to make sure that he didn’t violate this in relationship to Saul, who really had treated him so shamefully and horribly. And he did not seek to execute vengeance himself. He wasn’t driven by spite, he wasn’t driven by vindictiveness, he wasn’t driven by a desire to get even, but he was moved by a zeal for God. For God.

You see, the only way to really understand those narrative passages in the Old Testament, with the destruction of the enemies, is in relationship to the fact that David is not simply there as an individual. He’s there as the anointed of God. He is there as God’s man. And as a result, his enemies were not simply private enemies. They were the enemies of God. And so he is prepared to pray, “Do I not hate those who are your enemies?”

Walt Kaiser… I don’t know where he is now—I hope he’s still around—but good Old Testament stuff. I’m giving you page 296 from Toward Old Testament Ethics. Toward Old Testament Ethics, Walt Kaiser: These wicked enemies embody wickedness as they “[carry] out the program … that is anti-God, anti-Messiah, anti-promise. Doeg”—who is a character in 1 Samuel 21—“Doeg, Cush, and Ahithophel are not your average criminal or hostile types; they are the culmination and final fruit of all falsehood, greed, hate, cruelty, and treachery aimed against the very means of their own salvation.”[18] Right? So the devil thinks he’s done his best. And then you have that Easter song:

Go ahead, drive those nails in my hands;
Laugh at me where you stand.

But I’ll rise again.
There’s no power on earth can tie me down![19]

But this is all hell let loose against the very means of salvation! David is praying. He’s not suggesting that he gets out into any community and start laying this on people. David sees how evil evil is, and so he longs for it to be destroyed.

You’re going to be an oncologist? Then you’re not going to rejoice when the scan comes back, and it’s there again. You’re going to hate it with the hatred of an oncologist’s disregard for the cancer that they seek to drive from the body—indeed, from the planet if they could. It’s understandable. You hate the drugs that your kids are taking. You hate what that means. You understand all the defiance that is represented against the perfect plans and purposes of God.

It’s a prayer; it’s not a program. But we’ve got a problem. That’s my third point under P: It’s a prayer, not a program; but we’ve got a problem—or a predicament. And let me tell you what it is: If we’re honest with ourselves, we are distinctly hesitant to pray in this manner—and not just because we’re not, as David was, God’s king but because we find such confrontation distasteful.

Here’s the problem: One, we’re confused in our thinking. “What,” says somebody from row 42—“What about ‘Love the sinner and hate the sin’?” Well, there is truth in that, but “it can be overpressed.” John Stott writes, “For ‘evil’ is not something abstract; it exists in the hearts and [the] ways of evildoers. So when the judgment of God falls, it will fall upon evildoers, not upon evil in the abstract.”[20]

That’s the problem. Because we’re easily confused by failing to understand or to embrace or to faithfully communicate the relationship between John 3:16 and John 3:36: “For God so loved the world, … he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have [everlasting] life.” Okay? Verse 36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Again, loved ones, we got to keep the Bible as the Bible as it is given to us and to be faithful in proclaiming it.

We are confused in our thinking, and we are at the same time—and this is part of the problem—compromised in our living. Compromised in our living. Let’s just be honest about this. I mean, I come from a different vintage. You couldn’t believe how weird my background was. I never wore long pants until I was twelve, because my mother says, “You’re nowhere close to being a young boy until you’re twelve years old.” So I had short pants, so that I knew that I was in elementary. I wasn’t anywhere close to middle school or any other school for that. You want to go sledding in shorts? It’s an amazing experience! We never had a TV in our house till I was twelve years old. That’s how I managed to learn how to read books and memorize so much stuff. And the first movie that I got to see, after pressing my parents to an abominable length, was The Ten Commandments, ’cause they figured that would be safe. Then followed up by “The hills are alive with the sound of music.”[21] “I am sixteen going on seventeen.”[22] The whole deal, right?

It’s hard to make the move from the simplicity of ’52, ’62, ’65, ’66—from the simplicity, the security, the absence of vulnerability there (although the sexual revolution was on its way), to the fact that the average person of your age has imbibed through your eyes, through your ears, through your appetites more garbage than the average person would ever have experienced at that time.

And that is part of the reason. The reason we have difficulty with this, if we do have difficulty, is not an intellectual reason. It is a moral reason. It’s a moral reason. Because having observed how David sees how evil evil is, we fail to. And so we recoil from God’s judgment. We’ve grown accustomed to disgrace, like frogs in the kettle, in danger of boiling to death.

As a result, we’re weak—weak in a sense of moral outrage. Not that we’re unable, even unwilling, to address matters of public morality, but in that very mechanism—which we might be very tempted to jump up and champion—in that very mechanism, it may prove to be a mechanism to avoid facing the reality of my own personal morality. My own personal morality: me on my own, me in the car, me in my bedroom, me wherever it is, that thatness—that’s the issue. Why, unless you’re a complete hypocrite, would you go out and address the world in such a way and call them to such account while failing absolutely to bow before God and acknowledge what the facts really are?

Having observed how David sees how evil evil is, we fail to. And so we recoil from God’s judgment.

So, it’s a prayer; it’s not a program. We’ve got a problem. And here’s our posture: David calls on God to deal with the wicked, and then he submits himself to divine scrutiny. He doesn’t confuse his attack to the evil around him, but he faces up to what may be within him. Remember, we began yesterday morning, “Almighty God, before whom all hearts are open and desires known and from whom no secrets are hid…”[23]

So he concludes where he began: “O Lord, you[’ve] searched me and [you know] me!”[24] Here’s the end: “Search me, O God. Know my heart! Try me. Test me. Check me for grievous ways. Lead me in the path. That’s the way of everlasting.”

Deep down in all our hearts are seeds of appalling evil. Seeds of appalling evil. M’Cheyne says, “I’ve discovered that the deepest problems known to the heart of man—all these things exist in my heart,”[25] he said. And that’s why the psalmist is honest enough, humble enough to acknowledge that he doesn’t take it for granted that he won’t deviate from course. It’s not because he doesn’t have confidence in the God that he’s just described in this amazing way, but it’s because he’s aware of himself.

Well… And classically, of course, you’ve got it in the temple, don’t you? When you think about this—and I’ll definitely stop now, ’cause we need to go—Isaiah 5:8:

Woe to those who join house to house,
 who add field to field ….

Woe to those who rise early in the morning
 [to get drunk,
who stay up late
 to be inflamed by wine]! …

Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood,
 who draw sin as with [the] cart ropes ….
Woe to those who call evil good
 and good evil,
who put darkness for light
 and light for darkness ….
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes ….
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine.[26]

And “in the year that King Uzziah died,” the guy who wrote that says, “I saw the Lord”[27]—“and then I saw myself.” The woes of chapter 5 are entirely understandable and legitimate, but the real woe is the woe that he addresses in chapter 6: “Woe [unto] me!”—one of the greatest preachers of all time. “For … I am a man of unclean lips, and I [live] in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”[28] Were it not for the fact that our salvation is ours in Jesus Christ, and that, as Luther says, in one sense is entirely outside of us, we would have a hard time going on, wouldn’t we?

Well, a brief prayer, because it’s time to go. And just a quote from a song we used to sing in Scotland. I sing it to myself in the car. This is our prayer:

Cleanse me from my sin, Lord;
Put your power within, Lord;
Take me as I am, Lord,
And make me all your own.
And keep me every day, Lord,
On the narrow way, Lord,
And make my heart your palace
And your royal throne.[29]

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

---

[1] See John 11:25.

[2] Albert Einstein, “Mein Glaubensbekenntnis” [My Credo] (speech, German League of Human Rights, Berlin, 1932), quoted in Michael White and John Gribbin, Einstein: A Life in Science (New York: Dutton, 1994), 262.

[3] Acts 17:25 (ESV).

[4] Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief, 3rd. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 100.

[5] Romans 1:21 (ESV).

[6] Jeremiah 14:22 (ESV).

[7] Michael Wilcock, The Message of Psalms 73–150: Songs for the People of God, rev. ed., The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 279.

[8] Brian M. Howard, “The Butterfly Song” (1974).

[9] Psalm 139:16 (NIV).

[10] Paul Anka, “My Way” (1969).

[11] 1 Thessalonians 4:14 (ESV).

[12] William Gaither and Gloria Gaither, “Because He Lives” (1971).

[13] See Matthew 7:13–14.

[14] See Leviticus 19:17–18.

[15] See Proverbs 25:21–22.

[16] 2 Peter 3:13 (paraphrased).

[17] See Revelation 21:4.

[18] Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1983), 296.

[19] Dallas Holm, “Rise Again” (1977). Lyrics lightly altered.

[20] John Stott, Favourite Psalms (Milton Keynes: Word, 1988), 121.

[21] Oscar Hammerstein II, “The Sound of Music” (1959).

[22] Oscar Hammerstein II, “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (1959).

[23] The Book of Common Prayer. Paraphrased.

[24] Psalm 139:1 (ESV).

[25] Robert Murray M’Cheyne, quoted in Andrew A. Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Minister of St. Peter’s Church, Dundee (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1844), 201.

[26] Isaiah 5:8, 11, 18, 20–22 (ESV).

[27] Isaiah 6:1 (ESV).

[28] Isaiah 6:5 (ESV).

[29] Richard Hudson Pope, “Cleanse Me.” Lyrics lightly altered.