The apostle Paul writes to the Church in Rome and in the 8th Chapter of that missive he says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:35-39 NKJV). God, is with us, no matter what or where, and nothing can separate us from the one who has given His all for us. I thought of this when I read Psalm 139 this week, it was one of my devotional readings. God spoke to my heart when I read this psalm and he has given me this word for today.
King David, a man after God's own heart, a man who loved God and even though he sinned, he still knew God was present with him. He knew he could be forgiven his sin, because he could take his broken and contrite heart before his God and ask forgiveness and it would be given. David begins his love song to God with these words: “139:1-6 O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.”
David speaks of the reality of God knowing all things, that all that David thinks and says and does, God already knows. David realizes that God is always present with him, no matter where he is or what he is doing, God is with him. Not only is God with him, but David goes even further saying that God has protected him that God is his hedge, his armor both in front and in his rear. That also God holds him in His hand. David knows that God knows more about himself, than he, David, does. He says that God has searched him and known him, completely.
I wonder if Paul was thinking about the next part of this psalm when he wrote those words to the Church in Rome. 139:7-12 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me," Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.” Nothing, can separate us from God. In the midst of his darkest night, when his son Absalom was trying to kill him and steal the kingdom for himself, God held him in the palm of his hand. I don't know if you have ever read the book “Tortured for Christ” it was written by a man who had been a Pastor in eastern Europe when communism took over. He refused to renounce Christ and was thrown in prison, beaten and tortured repeatedly and yet never gave up on His God. They finally released him and his family came and brought him home. When the Iron Curtain fell he and his family praised God.
I have to admit, the enormity of the knowledge that God knows me intimately is as David said, so far above me I cannot fully comprehend it, I can only bow before the throne of grace and worship my Lord and my God.
David now goes on to state that he has been formed by God verses 13 through 15: “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” David knows that he cannot even take a breathe without the truly wonderful work of God in forming us and giving us lungs to breathe, and they work automatically, because we would be unable to remember to breathe if we had to do the mechanical realities of breathing.
Now there are those who say that it is not God but just chance that we have become what we are today. That truthfully we are nothing but a bunch of molecules that happened to form just the right way and we end up as men and women. We are the top of the evolutionary totem pole for now, of course who knows what will happen in the next few thousand years, we might evolve into a super race because we are continually evolving. Of course that means that God really doesn't exist, because everything began with a BIG BANG and over millions of years we evolved and became intelligent and of course began to take over the earth from the animals who are inferior to us.
This argument has been going on a long time, it is a terrible thing to behold, if you do not believe in God what do you believe in? Evolutionists believe that when we die, that is the end of it all, there is nothing after death, we just go back into the ground and become fertilizer, food for insects and nothing much else. I like the thought that the one who created this wonderfully crafted body in which I live, loves me and wants me to be his person. That when I die, it is really just the door into the future in heaven in the presence of Jesus my Savior and God.
The simple reality that we are made in the image of God, that we have eternity staring us in the face, and that we are wonderfully crafted together in our mother's womb. That God knows us because he visited us in that place of pre birth into this world, that our God has written our days into his books, and that we live those days either in His grace or not. God knows whether we will or will not come to Jesus as Savior and Lord, because he is there at our birth and through our entire lives, working to bring us to the kingdom, knowing that we will come to him or will go to the side of eternity which is spent in weeping and gnashing of teeth, in the fires and darkness of eternal damnation.
I know that science sees us as higher forms of animals, but it is nice to know that God sees us as just a step below the angels, and one day as above even the angels. That because we are made in His image, like David we too know that we are made by God, not just animals who look only to their next meal, or to pleasures. We are wonderfully made, for a purpose, we were made to do great things for the kingdom. As we see in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Now comes a difficult passage because David now talks of hate, hatred for those who are enemies of God. “Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men. For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.” Of course there are those who forget that David's world is not our world, and will castigate him for his words of hatred and loathing. Yet his is a righteous anger, not a hatred as some use it, but rather a righteous hatred for all those who will be enemies of God. Since David is a man after God's own heart, he hates those who would deny God, who would speak terrible things against God.
The interesting thing is that when we pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We too are praying for the destruction of the enemies of God. His kingdom will come, his will is going to be done on earth as it is already in heaven. When it is done on this earth, it will mean horrible death and destruction of the armies of Satan, the humans who have come to the plain of Esdraelon to destroy Israel and all who are there who profess Jesus Christ as Lord. The death and destruction of that day will feed all the carrion eating birds, the Angel calls them to that place. They have come to wage war against God and his saints, and the sword of the Lord destroys them all. That is the time when the Millennial kingdom will come on the earth. Christ will reign for a thousand years with his saints, and then will come the last and final war, Satan will come out of the pit and will raise his army and will finally and forever be sent to the lake of fire with all of his people.
Lastly we find David praying for God to show him any wrong that is in him that he might repent of that sin, and walk on in his journey with God.139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” The scriptures tell us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, David is aware that he is human, that he is not perfect, that his life has been full of sin that God has forgiven. He is aware that there are things in his life that he has not recognized, and now asks God to cleanse any wrong from his life and help him to live in the presence of his God forever.
This is a lesson that we all need to learn, for none of us is perfect, there may very well be things that we do not think are sinful, and yet may be moving us away from God's path. As we prepare for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, let us take time to pray and ask God to show us those things that come between us and Him. Let us too come before the throne of grace, that our hearts might be cleansed, our lives renewed, and our path clear before us. Remember, you are wonderfully put together, God walks with you even when you may think he is far from you. He knows your going and coming, your thoughts and your actions. Jesus wants to heal your soul, to cleanse you of any iniquity, and walk with you into the rest of eternity.
