The Creator/creature Relationship.
Psalm 139:1-3 “O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsittings, and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.”
Here, the All Powerful and All Seeing God is seen, in a personal sense.
You know me: how I am, how I act, what I think, and the way I like to go.
You know me when I have my fits against Your Providence. You see when I rebel, and seek my ways. You see my imaginations.
Psalm 139:5 “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.”
The psalmist sees that God has “hedged him in”,……so that he knows he is bare before a Holy God!
That all his plans, and schemes are all known to God.
And in what way do we react to this revelation of God, to our soul?
As we often do, the psalmist runs…just as hard and fast as he can. But….he finds he can not outrun God.
Psalm 139:7, 11 “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.”
Psalm 139:10 “Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”
He ran, but he found…as we often have, that we can not run from God.
We can not escape the Holy Spirit’s conviction, or the fact that God is everywhere.
All circumstances are made by God; we can try a “climate change”, but God can make every climate as “hot” or as “cold”, as where we were before.
[A climate change is where you find yourself in trouble. You “know” that if circumstances were different, you would not have trouble. If you worked with different people, had a better house, had better neighbors, etc. But when you move, you find that the circumstances are different….but you are the same; so the results are the same.]
The right hand of God is the hand of power. The psalmist here acknowledges that God rules, even in the midst of His enemies: He draws to Himself, or pokes, or prods, and moves….till we are willing.
Psalm 110:2-3 “The Lord shall send the rod of Thy strength out of Zion: rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Thy people will be willing in the day of Thy power,…”
When we begin to will, to yield as creature before the Creator, we can see ourselves as formed according to His plan.
Psalm 139:13, 16-17 “For Thou hast possessed my reins (our internal moral compass); Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
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.
How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”
You have possessed; or they are Yours by Your creation,…..make them Yours by redemption.
We are a masterwork: one thing formed upon another, each in it’s place.
His eyes were upon us then.
His plan and power was there for me….that plan and power I have been fighting against.
How precious are Your thoughts of me! “O God!” or as in the Hebrew, “O Master”.
Here is where we begin to bow before God, the Creator; as God, our Lord and Master.
I am finally awakened to Your Purpose: and here, I join with You to fulfill the purpose You have for me.
For now we know the way of Victory: It is in seeking after the Lord’s Way.
For as He sought me for my good, so He will continue to do so.
Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
(This “lead” suggests all that God does: bestow, govern, guide.)
To the psalmist (and it can be to us) Creator God has become the One help and Refuge of his soul: for he sees Him as He is…..and not as he feared He was.
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 