How many of you remember the song, “Santa Clause
is Coming to Town”? I won’t burst
anyone’s Santa bubble today, but I do want you to consider some of the
attributes that we are attributing to good ole St. Nick in that song. We are giving children the impression that he
knows everything (is omniscient) and is ever present (is omnipresent). I have a newsflash for you: only God knows
everything and only God is everywhere at all times.
Today we
are going to look at these two of God’s attributes together: His omniscience
and omnipresence, one being a communicable attribute and the other being an
incommunicable one. The reason we are
considering two attributes today is because these two particular attributes
often appear together in scripture and they go hand in hand. Actually, few of God’s attributes appear
alone in the Bible because God is such a gloriously complex being. Psalm
139 celebrates God’s intimate knowledge of His people, and does so by
emphasizing His omniscience and omnipresence:
[139:1] O
LORD, you have searched me and known me! [2] You know when I sit
down and when I rise up; you discern
my thoughts from afar. [3] You
search out my path and my lying down and
are acquainted with all my ways.[4] Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
[5] You hem me in, behind and
before, and lay your hand upon me.
[6] Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me; it is high; I cannot attain
it.
[7] Where
shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
[8] If I ascend to heaven, you are
there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you
are there! [9] If I take the
wings of the morning and dwell in the
uttermost parts of the sea, [10] even
there your hand shall lead me, and
your right hand shall hold me. [11] If
I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” [12] even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. [13] For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's
womb. [14] I praise you, for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful
are your works; my soul knows it very
well. [15] My frame was not
hidden from you, when I was being
made in secret, intricately woven in
the depths of the earth. [16] 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.
[17] How
precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
[18] If I would count them, they are
more than the sand. I awake, and I am
still with you. [19] Oh that you
would slay the wicked, O God! O men
of blood, depart from me! [20] They
speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. [21] Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up
against you? [22] I hate them
with complete hatred; I count them my
enemies.
[23] Search
me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! [24] And see if there be any grievous
way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting! (Psalm 139 ESV)
I.
The Wonder of God (Psalm 139:1-16)
a.
God’s Omniscience (1-6, 13-16)
When we say that God is omniscient, we mean that
He is not limited in any way with
regards to knowledge. He is “all-knowing.” He “knows
everything” (1 John 3:20). Job
37:16 describes God as “him who is
perfect in knowledge.” Wayne Grudem
defines God’s omniscience as follows: “God
fully knows Himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and
eternal act.”[1] This is a very helpful definition because
along with stating that God knows everything, it also points out that God does
not and cannot learn anything because He has always fully known everything “in one simple and eternal act.”
“If he
(God) should wish to tell us the number of grains of sand on the seashore or
the number of stars in the sky, he would not have to count them all quickly
like some kind of giant computer, nor would he have to call the number to mind
because it was something he had not thought about for a long time. Rather, he always know all things at
once. All of these facts and all other
things that he knows are always fully present in his consciousness. He does not have to reason to conclusions or
ponder carefully before He answers, for he knows the end from the beginning,
and he never learns and never forgets anything.
Every bit of God’s knowledge is always fully present in his
consciousness; it never grows dim or fades into his nonconscious memory.”[2]
Psalm
139 begins with a declaration of
God’s perfect, infinite knowledge, but does so on a more personal level. In Psalm
139:2-4, we see that God knows and is well “acquainted” with all of our ways (our sitting down, rising up,
lying down, our path). God even knows and
“discerns” our thoughts (2b)! Also, God knows altogether what we are going
to say before we say it (4).
In Psalm
139:11-16, we see that God sees and knows where we would hide, that He has
perfect knowledge of our existence and time in our mother’s womb, and that He
has perfect knowledge of our future because He has perfect knowledge of THE
future. “My frame” was not hidden from Him, even when there was no frame to
hide (15). Every one of the days formed
for my life are already written down in His book, even though they haven’t come
to pass yet (16). God knows everything.
b.
God’s Omnipresence (5, 7-12)
God is also not limited in any way with regards to
space. God Himself does not have size or spatial
dimensions. Like time, God also created space and is no way bound by it. He existed before there was any such thing as
space. And much like we said about God’s
relationship with time, God’s relationship with space is uniquely and qualitatively
different than ours. 1 Kings 8:27 says that “heaven and the highest heaven cannot
contain” God, and yet His omnipresence also means that He is present at
every point of space with His whole being.
Now He does manifest Himself differently in different places, but He is
fully present in all places nonetheless.
God’s omnipresence is richly described in this
passage. This section offers four
hypothetical situations, but communicates one truth: GOD IS EVERYWHERE! Each hypothetical situation is establishing
an answer to the question: “Where shall I
go from your Spirit? Or where shall I
flee you’re your presence?” If one
ascends to heaven or to “Sheol” (hell),
God is there (8). Yes, God is present
even in hell; His presence is just manifested in a different way. If a person could move at the fastest speed
imaginable (“the wings of the morning”),
it would not be fast enough to get away from God (9a). If one were to dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea, God is even there (9b-10).
Notice that this truth of God’s presence means comfort, security, and
guidance to David (10). Finally, it one was
to find the darkest hiding spot in the universe, God would still be there, we
would be found, and God wouldn’t need a flashlight to find us (11-12)!
Remember that the writer of these words, David, is
a man who knows how to be a fugitive!
But this man who knows how to be a fugitive also knows that there is nowhere to hide from God. As we will see, this can be either a
wonderful or a dreadful truth.
II.
The Worship of God (Psalm 139:18-24)
a.
These Truths are Precious to God’s People (17-18)
Meditating upon God’s omniscience and omnipresence
moves David to praise (17-18) and prayer (19-24). This is the same thing we saw last week with
Moses in Psalm 90:1-17. Three times
David calls God’s knowledge and works “wonderful”
(6,14). In Psalm 139:17-18,
David calls God’s thoughts “precious” and
vastly innumerable.
These truths are wonderful and comforting for a
child of God. When we contemplate who
God is, we too should be filled with such wonder and praise. We should feel the security and comfort that
David does as well, like a child sleeping in their parent’s bedroom at night.
Think of the manifold applications of these
truths! Believers should never feel
lonely. Believers can approach God at
any time, in any place. Believers should
be at peace, understanding that God has perfect knowledge of everything they
face. Believers should glory in the
love, mercy, and grace of God, because God has infinite knowledge of all of their
imperfections and rebellion and can rest in the fact that all of it has been
atoned for on the cross of Jesus Christ.
There will be no failure, past, present, or future, that can separate us
from God because He knew everything about us when He called us to Himself.
b.
These Truths are Perilous to God’s Enemies (19-22)
While these truths are wonderful for God’s people,
they are dreadful for God’s enemies. The
wicked are never safe and should never feel so.
They cannot hide themselves, their thoughts, or even their intentions
from God. When Jeremiah confronted the
wicked priests and prophets in his day, he did so by pointing to the
omnipresence and omniscience of God: [23] “Am
I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? [24] Can a man
hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I
not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:23-24 ESV)
Much like this Psalm, Jeremiah puts forth three
rhetorical questions that all have “no” for their answer. God is a God who is both “at hand” and “far away.” God does “fill
heaven and earth.” And because of
this, there is absolutely nowhere that man cannot hide. There is nowhere that God cannot see
him. There is nothing that man can keep
from God.
Consider A.W. Tozer’s quote concerning what these
truths means to both the wicked and the righteous: “That God knows each person through and through can be a cause of
shaking fear to the man that has something to hide – some unforsaken sin, some
secret crime committed against man or God.
The unblessed soul may well tremble that God knows the flimsiness of
every pretext and never accepts the poor excuses given for sinful conduct, since
He knows perfectly the real reason for it.
“Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light
of thy countenance.” How frightful a
thing to see the sons of Adam seeking to hide among the trees of another garden. But where shall they hide?”[3]
This truth will be seen in the final judgment as
well, where God will make every word, action, thought, motive, etc. manifest
and display that everyone condemned is getting exactly what they deserve (Revelation 20:11-15). There
are no secrets with God and there will be no secrets on judgment day. What will this day mean for you?
My hope is that all of us would turn to God with
as devastating a prayer as David prays in Psalm
139:23-24. Here he lays his heart
bear before God. He is not asking God to
know something that He doesn’t already know, because God already knows David’s
heart and thoughts. I believe David is
asking God to put His heart and mind on trial.
He says, “try me…and see if there
be any grievous way in me.”
Wow. That is a devastating prayer
because there are grievous ways in every human heart, ways in which we are not
even aware of. David is asking God to
bring them into the light so they can be confessed and repented of.
He
then asks God to lead him “in the way
everlasting.” This is a humble and
devastating prayer because David assumes that God’s assessment of himself is
more accurate than David’s himself would be and asks God to change those things
about himself that are grievous to God.
David desires to live in a way that is “everlasting.” He is stating a desire to dwell eternally with God, to have eternal life. There is only
one such way, and His name is Jesus Christ.
So in some sense, for a Christian, this prayer is a plea to draw them to
Jesus Christ who is there only hope.
