How God Knows Us

Now you can be turning to Psalms 139. Put a marker in there because we're going to be there quite a bit.

We, of course, are living in an unparalleled time in the history of mankind. There's been some very bad times, yes, but it is different here at the end, because this truly is coming down to the end of the first time of the judgment of mankind for salvation!

It's for salvation this time, so it is very unique. You know what's happening in the government around us. I don't want to go through that.

But let's look at Psa. 139 because I think that by going through it in a way that we're going to see something deeper, and will soak in, about our relationship to God.

He knows us, as we're going to see. We're going to see how completely He knows is! But how is that to affect us? Well, hopefully we will find out.

This is David speaking. You know a lot about David, but it's in the past tense. He is saying:

Psalm 139:1: "O LORD, You have searched me and have known me." All in the past!

Did He know David after he wrote this? Yes, he did! He knew David to the end of his life. God knows what He has in store for David. He knows what He has in store for you and me. That's just a preview.

There are a number of things that is covered right here in this Psalm, and that's the reason I want to go through it. But first, in order to get into the depth of some of the things that come later, let's see how God knows us right now and how He knew David when he wrote this; they're astounding!

Verse 2: "You know my sitting down and my rising up…"

Now, He doesn't concentrate on that all the time, necessarily. But if He wants to know, He can know when we:

• sit down
• cross the room
• rise up to do that

That's how much He can know about us!

"…You understand my thoughts afar off" (v 2).

Now, thoughts are something in our mind that we have not yet spoken. You don't know my thoughts, do you? No!

But we're talking about our Lord and Savior Who created us. He knows!

He knows our "…thoughts afar off." He can project ahead based upon things that He comes to understand.

That's why I'm going through these 4 or 5 verses first, because it shows His absolute ability to do whatever He needs to do!

Verse 3: "You measure my going about and my lying down… [when I'm working, when I'm resting, sleeping] …and are acquainted with all my ways." That covers everything!

Verse 4: "For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, You know it altogether."

I have not yet spoken it; it's on the tip of my tongue, but He knows what I'm going to say. Well, that's pretty powerful! That is very powerful!

Verse 5: "You have enclosed me behind and in front, and laid Your hand upon me."

Now, that's a significant point for you and me, because stop and think about it: You knew that after God called you, and not very long after, sometimes it was just after; it took a little while, maybe a week or two.

If you would continue when God parted that veil, you knew that was something different, it rang so true in terms of being different from everything you had believed in the past.

That's when you realize that God had laid His hand upon you and me. But David's bringing it out. Then what does he say?

Verse 6: "Such knowledge is too wonderful… [it is too high]  …for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it."

What he's saying, like we say that we cannot fully soak it in, inculcate it! We just can't do it.

Ever since God called us and we began to learn, that's what we hoped to do, and we have made progress. Thankfully, we've made progress!

But I'm afraid there were in the past, if you've been in it as long as I have and some of you if you've been in it that long, We realize that there was way too long—back in the 70s, 80s into the 90s—where we just were not pushing ourselves as we should have to learn more about what God is showing us why He laid His hand upon us.

But now we know. We have a teacher that has helped us in that. We are able to see so many things now. For me, in the last 18-20 years, so much more than before. Well, that's good, because even as thick in the head as I may be, even I can learn something if God keeps prodding me. We need that!

Verse 7: "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?"

Now those thoughts probably went through your mind along the way. When things got tough, maybe too tough, and you though: Can I deal with this any longer? You asked that, but you're still here! You're still out there listening.

You know that you overcame that and you know what Peter then said when Christ asked the same question.

Peter said, 'Where shall we go? You are the living Christ!' We know that, too. We know it here, in the heart. That's where God looks. The heart is going to become very important in how we go forward.

Well, we've covered what David has been telling us and how it came to him.

Let's look at v 1 again and what took place. "O LORD, You have searched me and have known me."

That's what a search is all about. We have covered some of the ways that he can search us. It's unlimited!

We'll see that even more as we proceed. Let's turn back to Jeremiah, there's a couple of verses that shows why God searched him, and it gets into when. This was an appointed time of God!

Jeremiah 1:4: "And it came to pass, the Word of the LORD came to me, saying… [because He had something to tell Jeremiah, a great prophet.

Verse 5—to show His attitude at the time: "'Before I formed you in the belly I knew you…'"

When we're formed, we know what that is. It's in the womb of the woman, our mother. But he says: "…Before I formed you…"

We'll get into the details of that in Psa. 139; it's astounding to read. It's always so encouraging. Before Jeremiah was formed, he was begotten and made in God's sight. When the sperm united with the egg in his mother's womb, it was a new life. God knows every time that happens. He has that capacity. Every life!

I mean, if He knows it when every sparrow—one of the most common birds on earth—falls to the ground, He knows it, don't you think He knows when a new life has been created by the process that Christ established?

We're not created in the exact same way as Adam and Eve. That was direct to start things. But after that, the design of how it would go forward has taken place.

Verse 6—Jeremiah's speaking: "Then I said, 'Alas, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak; for I am a youth.' I'm not qualified; I can't do this!

• What was it?
• What was it that God wanted him to do? He wanted him to be a prophet!

Before there was anything to see, even under a microscope, as to what he was. But God says:

"…I consecrated you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations" (v 5).

Well, that's to the nations of Israel. Israel, that God created, especially to Himself, for a very great purpose, and they have not yet fulfilled it. In other words, God searched Jeremiah to see if He could use him to be a prophet. A responsibility, a job, and then a future job, even after that.

So, we go back to Psa. 139, and let's go on down here and see some of the details and see how this thing works.

Psalm 139:13—David says : "For You have possessed my reins…

What are the reins? Well, sometimes when you try to look up the definition of words in your Bible study, you get kind of stumped because they only give you maybe part of the information. I guess they just cannot see it. Most of not all did not have the Spirit of God in them.

God may have been working with them to carry out a very useful thing for our time when we would have the written Word. But what are the reins? It's it is the inner person, it's physical. And some of the comments right here in vs 13-14 point to that.

It's physical because the physical would be how God in the miraculousness of His power knit us together in our mother's womb. Have you ever sat there? Well, a lot of you maybe haven't. But if you're as old as I am, I would sit there at night and see my mother sit in the chair knitting, knitting together, knitting a scarf, because winter was coming on and she knew we needed a scarf to hopefully not have a sore throat or she'd knit a whole sweater, things like that.

Well, that's how God put us together. And what did David say? It's just too wonderful to completely understand. That's the physical!

But the spiritual: Do you think that God searched David and Jeremiah just to see what they were going to look like physically? Well, no, no! Everything with God is leading to the end of His purpose! And the end of His purpose is our salvation when we can be absolutely changed from physical to immortal and be in the very image of God and our Savior! That is the purpose and that's how He searches anybody He searches whom He wants to use.

"…You have knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am awesomely and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well" (vs 13-14).

Well thankfully, brethren, we also can say that along with David, because God had mercy and laid His hand upon us and opened our mind so that we could know Him.

Now we've been going over how God knew David and Jeremiah and how He also knows us, because He has entered into our life.

Verse 15: "My substance…" What is the substance!

There's where Brown Driver and Briggs just completely flunked out. They said it's basically our skeleton, the bones, and how they're arranged together. Yes, our substance includes that physically. But again, spiritually, they don't give a clue.

Substance is talking about:

• the inner man
• the innermost being
• the heart and the mind
• the spirit
• the seat of thought and emotion

Now that's our substance that God is interested in, because all of those things make up what we are as a human being functioning. When we are doing things because of the spirit of man, that God made that possible:

• we can think
• we can reason

Therefore, once God calls us, lays His hand upon us, He is interested as to what we are going to do with the things that He has shown us. I mean, amazing things!

We go along every day. We have to sleep, we have to get up, we have to take care of ourselves, eat and go through the day. You've got to go clean the yard all day or something else.

God is interested how we are going to approach that day and then day after day. As our judgment goes closer to the fulfillment of our judgment, which is the resurrection to become a literal son of God, that's what He's looking about.

That's why He's concerned even about our emotions and our thoughts. But what about when did he see this?

Verse 15: "My substance… [David says] …was not hidden from You when I was made…" That's the sperm uniting with the egg, a new human being! I wish some people understood that.

"…made in secret and intricately formed in the lowest parts of the earth" (v 15).

Again, how we are knit together in the mother's womb, "…lowest part of the earth."

Verse 16: "Your eyes did see my substance, yet, being unformed; and in Your book all my members…"—members is not in the Hebrew. So if you read this without that, you say in your book, O Lord, all, all was written! Everything about us,

He could see everything about us, and we had not yet been formed. But those things that were not formed, you see, were fashioned when as yet there was none of them.

But God could see from that conception forward to everything that we would become as a human being and what we would be like.

How many times have you asked the question? I've asked it, I don't know how many times myself, and I know that you have also. Why did God call me?

We need to ask it in the right attitude, gently as it were. But no, it's curious. Why do we ask that question? Because we know ourselves, and sometimes it hurts. We look back and we see the things we have done. We know even from Scripture what Christ says about us before He called us.

We were nobody, absolutely nobody in this world. And we weren't the sharpest tack in the box, but He called us. Why? It's because of the search that He did of you and me, before there was anything to see in the womb of us, we were not formed. That's when He searched us, the same as David and Jeremiah and anybody else.

• Why would it be different?
• Does He have a job for us?

You know, we've been studying on that and trying to figure it out deeper and deeper, ever since we really got into study in God's Word.

He knows us! He has the power. We've seen that. If with one man, He can do it with another. So, he has searched us. And that is absolutely astounding! That's all before we were anything except conceived. So, we were created!

I want to go to another place you're very familiar. But it'll bring us what it brings us into what we have been talking about more personally and more directly.

There's a few things we need to just read again. But, Paul had an amazing way of explaining things. He had many characteristics and a passion. part of that passion was because his passion was so misdirected in the beginning of his life and up and to whatever age; I don't remember if we know how old he was when God called him in a very, very dramatic way. But he lived under that burden of guilt until his death, and we can understand, in part, why.

Ephesians 1:3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us…"

Who's Paul talking to? This whole thing, the whole New Testament and much of the Bible, is written to those who would become firstfruits! So, that's us.

Verse 1: "…to the saints…"

Go through and tie Scriptures together and you can do that to prove that I'm not just 'blowing smoke'! No, he's talking to those that are in judgment now in the first time of judgment, as Peter pointed out in 2-Peter 4:17. It started back after Christ went back to the Father and 50 days later, the Holy Spirit was given.

That's when the Church started and that's when judgment for salvation started. We have been blessed. I mean:

• when you get discouraged
• when you get down
• when you get frustrated

and looking at what we're looking at before us, it is very daunting, but we must resist that and we have to turn to God for the encouragement we need in order to go forward! That's what we have to do at the present time.

I love v 4, because it shows so much about God the Father Whom we serve. How do we serve Him? We serve Him by:

• obeying Him
• seeking to have a right heart before Him

God speaks very pointedly of a contrite heart; that is one who is humble before Him, and we need that constantly.

Verse 4: "According as He has personally chosen us for Himself…"

• He chose us
• He chose David

He wanted David to be king over Israel, and he was.
There were many things that took place during his kingship.

It was what God wanted. Why? He picked him after Saul, who started maybe with the right idea, but he bailed out! He lost focus somewhere and we don't know all that detail.

But then God picked David and look what David had to put up with before he actually took over as king. Yet, what did he do? Saul was still king, and this shows the heart of David that God speaks of as being 'a man after My own heart.'

Just look at what David put up with, with Saul trying to literally kill him every chance he could get. Saul knew he was in disfavor with God. Now, that showed a major character in David. Those are the things that God looks at. He personally chose us for Himself; it says:

"…before the foundation of the world…" (v 4). He personally chose you and me when we became a new life!

It was predestined to operate that way in the implementation of the Plan of God. But with us, it was the same as with David and Jeremiah. It was in our beginning that He searched us. Why?

"…in order that we might be Holy and blameless before Him in love" (v 4).

That is our present assignment, so that we can be counted worthy to be in the first resurrection or to literally live to the end for some of you.

But that's our assignment: "…in order that we might be Holy and blameless before Him in love; having predestinated us for sonship to Himself through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His own will" (vs 4-5).

All of this, of course, is God's own will, and we fit into it. We were born into it, and we now are going for judgment.

Verse 9: "Having made known to us the mystery of His own will."

How many times has Fred gone over about the ministers in the world: Protestantism, Catholic, whichever? How they so completely miss the boat!

• they do not know the mystery of God's will
• they do not know the Plan of God

Look at what we have been partakers of!

That's why we are so blessed! God laid His hand on us and we now can comprehend those things! Truly, it is something that we do not want to ever turn back and run away from! It is everything!

The mystery of "…that in the Divine Plan…" (v 10). They don't understand the Plan of God. We always have to understand that. But then:

Verse 11: "Yes, in Him, in Whom we also have obtained an inheritance…"—so that we can become a son of God and the world cannot soak that in either!

Verse 12 brings us right back again to us who are in the first time of judgment.

That is some of the things I want to cover. But there's some other things here that will help emphasize what we have covered.

Psalm 73:3: "For I was envious at the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked."

• What are we looking at?
• Who is it that prospers in this world today? Those that have all the money, all of the power; they are in charge!

That's why they think they can take over the whole world and rule it without God!

• how foolish they are
• how blind they are

We know that; we know it because God laid His hand on us! He wants us to be with Him, helping Christ throughout the Millennium, throughout the eighth day judgment for all the rest of mankind.

What kind of a job is that? It's no light thing and we need to never forget that!

1-Cor. 13—you know this as the love chapter, but what does Paul say? An astounding thing:

1-Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see through a glass darkly…"

We go over that many times, because we literally do see through a glass darkly!

"…but then we shall see face-to-face…" (v 12).

1-John 3 is saying the same basic thing. That's when we can literally see Him. What is this last part in Cor. 13?

"…now I know in part, but then I shall know exactly as I have been known" (v 12).

We've spent all of this time showing how God knows us! That's how we have been known by God, our Father and Christ, our Creator!

Remember: that day is coming when we can know at that level. They will always be up here and us down here, but we will be their very sons and daughters. Think about that!

Scriptural References:

• Psalm 139:1-7, 1
• Jeremiah 1:4-6, 5
• Psalm 139:13-16
• Ephesians 1:3, 1, 3-5, 9-11
• Psalm 73:3
• 1 Corinthians 13:12

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

• 2-Peter 4:17
• Ephesians 1:12
• 1 John 3

RT:bo/po
Transcribed: 9/18/24

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