Spirit of expectancy.
I really hope that's so.
It's nice for us all to say, sure
we have, but we never thought about it
till I asked the question.
Well, you really haven't.
So have you already expressed to God a
sense of expectancy that he is going to
make you a person that's different from the
one that came in here?
Don't answer out loud.
Just answer quietly.
For between the cross and heaven, there's a
whole lot of living going on.
And I don't know about you, but I
sure haven't arrived.
There's an awful lot more that I need
to not just know, but there's an awful
lot more that I need to experience in
my life.
I think, so often, you know, we think
it's as much as we know.
It's what we know that's really going to
make us better.
Now, obviously, we've got to know something to
experience it, but let me repeat what I
said last night.
That we're living in an age when knowledge
and the multiplication of all facets of knowledge
has become the be-all and end-all
of living, just about.
It used to be many years ago.
I think it was not too many, just
40, 50 years ago.
We were still in the manufacturing era, but
now, as Naisbitt said in his book 10
years ago, Megatrends, we're now in the information
era.
Now, it's not what you do that counts.
It's not what you make or manufacture.
It's not what you live that counts.
There's a whole lot of living going on.
Oh, but there's a whole lot of knowing
going on.
A whole lot of knowing going on because
we're in the information era.
It's not what you do or what you
actually know.
It's now, do you have access to that
particular site or website, wherever it is, that
you can find out what you want to
know, and then you're in.
My brother and sister, we have taken this
longing for knowledge and we've been sucked into
this so that we've made the Christian life
only knowing.
We've got to have the knowledge.
Without that knowledge, there is no living.
But when I have that knowledge, I say,
Lord, I want to put that into practice.
I remember a woman coming into my office
in Montreal a number of years ago.
Hadn't met her before.
She was the cleaning lady, and she was
a new person, and I guess she'd been
there two or three weeks, but she hadn't
met me, and I had books from ceiling
to floor, wall to wall in my office
there.
She came in, was stunned to see me
sort of there.
Oh, she said, you work in here.
I said, yes.
She said, oh, I've been wondering as I
dust these books.
Well, she flicks them, she meant.
I saw a flick of them once or
twice, but she said, have you read all
these books?
I said, well, I said, no, I haven't
actually.
I said, you know, I've got about 4
,000 books, but at that time, I had
about 3,000.
I'm sorry, about 3,000 books.
I said that there was about 800 of
them that I've never read.
She says, well, why is that?
Well, what's the problem or something, you know?
I said, well, you know, the problem is
that I keep on reading one all over
and over and over again.
She said, you do?
Which one is it?
I reached behind on my credenza, and I
picked out, I looked at it, and I
said, Holy Bible.
Oh, she said, I must be going, or
you'll be getting me thinking.
Imagine that.
I must be going, or you'll be getting
me thinking.
That's many people.
Wouldn't say that, but they think that.
But when she'd gone, I thought, you know,
800 books that I haven't read.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a capsule
that I could just pop into my mouth,
throw a glass of water down, it goes
in my throat, and bingo, I'd have all
the knowledge in those 800 books just like
that.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
And God stuck his arm out through the
clouds and clipped me across the face and
said, poppycock.
Well, sort of.
And he sort of put into my mind
the thought, Price, it would be much better
for you if instead of having a capsule
where all the knowledge in those 800 books
would become yours, if you had a capsule
that would give you the will to do
what you already know in the other 2
,200 books.
That really had a difference on my life,
made a difference in my life.
So between the cross and heaven, there's a
whole lot of living going on.
And it's living it's meant to be, not
just knowing.
But we've come here to lay a basis
for it.
And tonight we're going to look into a
wonderful, wonderful passage.
I suppose if I were on a desert
island and I knew I was going to
be marooned there and I could take three
books of the Bible with me, I would
take, first of all, the book of Exodus.
Oh, Exodus.
You say, goodness me, you wouldn't take Exodus.
All the wonderful books and you pick Exodus.
Yes.
Why?
Well, because if I didn't have the other
books, I have found that that one reminds
me in hieroglyphic form of all that's in
the rest of the Bible in alphabetical form.
Oh, I see.
So it gives me a clue.
Oh, yes.
I remember that.
Oh, yes.
That speaks of that.
Oh, yes.
I understand that.
The second one would be, and I'm mentioning
this specifically this week, because the second book
that I would want to take would be
the gospel of John.
Because it would remind me more than any
of the other gospels of all the wonderful
words of Jesus as he would talk to
me, as he walks with me, as he
talks with me, and he could speak to
me and tell me what he told those
disciples.
The third book that I would take would
be the book of Psalms.
Oh, it's all right.
Most of you, if you were young at
the back there, all you young people, you're
going, what in the world would you take
Psalms for?
Well, it's a wonderful book, you know.
If you're over 50, well, you just close
your eyes and your Bible falls open to
it, right?
If you're under 30, there's, at the beginning
of the Bible, you've got an index page,
and it'll tell you where the Psalms are.
Because you don't get to know the Psalms
until life gets rough, right?
Well, tonight and tomorrow night, and then again
on Thursday and Friday, we're going to look
into a marvelous Psalm.
And I want you to turn to it.
It's Psalm the 33rd Psalm, the 33rd Psalm
of the fifth book of Psalms.
I saw you getting worried there, Don.
Now, of course, if you've got a proper
Bible, it'll divide the books of Psalms up
into its five books.
And Psalm, the first book of Psalms begins,
believe it or not, with Psalm 1.
Isn't that wonderful?
But the fifth book of Psalms begins in
Psalm 107.
So all you've got to do is count
33 Psalms from there and turn to that
Psalm, will you?
And if you can't count, then just turn
to Psalm 139.
All right.
139.
Now, you've got it before you.
I know there will be at least half
a dozen people here say, never going to
read the NIV.
All right, that's fine.
Let you do it.
I wish you'd learn a little bit about
the history of the Bible and learn how
we got our Bible.
And you'd know that no English version can
properly, absolutely represent properly.
I need so many in order to show
me what it really means.
So don't please get hooked on any one.
I'm not hooked on this.
The only reason I use this is because
Zondervan did a good marketing job on it.
And it is such a good marketing job
that where I go across North America, I
ask in many places and two-thirds of
every group of Christians, just about two-thirds
of the Christians, use the NIV.
Now, that's not necessarily, as I said the
other day, I don't think it's the most
best rendered, particularly in the New Testament.
I happen to think the Old Testament, the
philosophy of translation, is wonderful, far better than
the others, because it's difficult sometimes to translate.
But the poetic books of the Bible differ
more than all the other books.
The translations differ more in the poetic books
than any other books of the Bible.
So if you're going to use another version
tonight, and you're determined, then that's fine.
You use it, but you'll probably think I'm
on verse 13 and I'm verse 10.
In fact, I'll be on neither of those
verses tonight, because we're only going to do
the first six.
So you'd be wrong on both counts.
But I'm just asking if you wouldn't mind
tonight using this.
And I've given you that sheet with Psalm
139 in the NIV on it.
And that means that at least we can
use the same version.
And we'll know where we're going.
All right?
And if you get upset about it, then
I won't look if you leave.
All right?
I want us to read together.
Would you join with me?
Oh my word, I've taken all that time
just introducing this.
Well, I've still got an hour and eight
minutes, is it?
No, no, I'm right.
Would you read with me then?
Let's stand to read the Word of God.
When I go to other countries, particularly in
Eastern Europe or other places, I love for
folk to stand to read.
The ushers shut the door.
Nobody comes in when you're reading the Word
of God.
They stand.
So we're going to read from the NIV
and we'll read, in fact, I think, the
whole Psalm.
Let's read it together.
Oh Lord, you have searched me and you
know me.
You know when I sit You perceive my
thoughts on my
tongue.
You know it completely, oh Lord.
You hem me in, behind and before.
You have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too
lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you're
there.
If I make my bed in the depths,
you're there.
If I rise on the wings of the
dawn, if I settle on the far side
of the sea, even there your hand will
guide me.
Your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, surely the darkness will hide
me and the light become night around me,
even the darkness will not be dark to
you.
The night will shine like the day.
For darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully
made.
Your works are wonderful, I know that full
well.
My frame was not hidden from you when
I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths
of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed
body.
All the days ordained for me were written
in your book before one of them came
to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O
God.
How vast is the sum of them.
Were I to count them, they would outnumber
the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O
God.
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men.
They speak of you with evil intent.
Your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you,
O Lord, and abhor those who rise up
against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them.
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in
me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
You may sit down.
Father, in your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.
Grant us, therefore, now that reverence and humility,
without which none of us can understand your
word.
In the strong name of Jesus, we pray.
What I'm going to do is to take
four evenings to look at this psalm.
Now, you read it so well together, but
I know there was a section of the
psalm you wished wasn't in there.
You frankly didn't want it in there.
In fact, when you read it, you don't
like reading that part at all.
In fact, you hope that when anyone preaches
on it, as they likely have, they'll miss
that part out altogether.
We cannot do that with any of Scripture.
And if that's the way we feel about
verses 19, 20, 21, and 22, we have
not the knowledge to understand why they're there.
This man, when he uses language like that,
doesn't, in fact, have any personal venom or
vindictiveness against anybody.
Take this man, David, when he said about
Absalom, he wished that the foxes, that the
jackals, would eat them in the desert.
David knew he was God's anointed, and even
Absalom, his beloved son, shouldn't try and usurp
that place.
And so he speaks against him, and counts
him as an enemy, and cries out against
him, and wishes him dead.
But when Absalom dies, Oh, my son, Absalom,
Absalom, my son, how I wish I had
been that one, not you.
Because there was nothing personal about it.
It was his way of expressing to God
that whoever were God's enemies were his enemies,
because he loved God so much.
Now, you won't understand it until we get
to it, maybe.
But I want you to know we're very
much going to look at that, because it's
an important part of the psalm.
But I know you like the other parts.
You like the nice parts.
And we've got three lovely parts for three
lovely evenings, and we're going to come on
the fourth evening to that part.
Let me give you an outline of the
psalm.
The first six verses, and if you want
to draw a line under the six, and
then draw a line under 12, and draw
a line under 18, then you'll have a
line already under 24.
So there's 24 verses divided into four parts
of six.
That's the way it's divided up.
The first part, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
and 6, is about God being all-knowing.
He knows everything.
Everything there is to know, God knows.
The second part, verses 7 through 12, says
God is everywhere.
There's no place I can ever go that
I can get away from God.
Thankfully, Lord, there's no place I can go
that I'm not going to be able to
be in your presence.
The third part, which is verses 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, is God is all
-creating, and it shows us how he creates
in the womb.
From the moment of inception, God is there
supervising.
God is there as the architect of your
body and mine.
He puts it together in the womb.
I suppose we could say, if the first
section is all-knowing, is his omniscience, we
could say that the second section, his being
ever-present, is his omnipresence, which just means
he's always present.
We would like to say the third part
is his omnipotence, but I'm not too sure
I would likely put it that way because
as I study it, it isn't quite in
that line, but it's very near there.
So for your own sake, if you like,
you can say his omniscience, omni all science
knowledge, omniscience, having all knowledge.
His omnipresence, verses 7 to 12, he's present
everywhere.
And his omnipotency, he's potent, he's powerful, he
has all omnipower.
So he's all-powerful, but really it's limited
to the creation of the human body there.
But nevertheless, it's there.
The last part is David's response to all
that.
And so he comes to the last few
verses from 19 to 24.
What I'm going to do actually on the
last night is on Thursday night, I'm only
going to take four of our six verses.
13, 14, 15, and 16, I'm going to
take those.
And you notice there's a space because there
is indeed a different thought.
From verse 17 to 24, I'm going to
take it all together on the last night
because this is his response.
Verse 17 and 18, his response, his thoughts
about God as he looks above.
Verses 19, 20, 21, and 22, his response
or his thoughts about others as he looks
around.
And finally, verses 23 and 24, his response
or his thoughts about himself as he looks
within.
So we're going to see all those last
three things together on Friday night.
But let's have a look.
Let's start off in the first six verses
here.
I realize I'm, this is, I don't know,
I love the Psalms.
I suppose if I had to pick one
book that I could just preach from all
the time and no other book, I've got
to declare the whole counsel of God.
But I'd love, I'd love to immerse myself
in the Psalms.
I've had the joy of preaching my way
through the Psalms a number of times.
There's still six or seven that I can't
understand.
And I guess I'm going to have to
preach those somewhere in the back corner in
heaven.
But frankly, I don't understand them all, but
I read them and do my best.
But most of the Psalms are marvelous.
And as you get into the feel of
the Psalms and you get to know a
little about marvelous poetry of the Jewish people,
then it's wonderful to see the devotion and
the worship.
In my own quiet times, as I call
out to God, I use the Psalms so
much.
Oh, there's so much material there.
We pray back to God and realize it
in our own lives.
So let's look at the first six verses,
then, that God is all-knowing.
He is omniscient.
The first verse in the Hebrew scriptures, which
is the top of our psalm and doesn't
have a verse number, we won't take, but
you can see what it says.
It's for the director of music, whether it
was Asaph or whatever it was, or later,
perhaps earlier than that.
And it's of or from David usually.
And it's obviously a psalm, a song.
This was the hymn book of the early
church, of course.
And no wonder it's in five books.
Don't we get hymn books, we put them
together and somebody else writes some more and
then we get another hymn book and in
the end somebody says, why don't we put
them all together in one?
Well, that's what they've got.
And these were the hymns that the early
Christians sang.
So let's start at verse one and we're
just going to look for the first little
while and maybe that will have to be
it tonight.
And verses one to four, I'll pick up
five and six.
You know, I do tend to get behind
sometimes, but don't worry, we'll catch up.
But look at verses one to four.
They're packed with truth.
There's so much here.
I don't know we could spend all week
on these verses.
But look what it says.
I want you to notice the expressions, the
two words, you know, you know.
That's provided you're looking at the NIV and
they occur three times in the first four
verses.
Verse one, oh Lord, you've searched me and
you know me.
Verse two, the second time, you know when
I sit and when I rise.
Verse four, before words are my tongue, you
know it completely, oh Lord.
Those three you knows will divide it up
nicely for us and we'll just have three
little points here because it will bring this
whole matter, put it in a way that
we can understand.
The first you know that I want to
talk about, and frankly, this is, you know,
period.
That would be the heading, you know, period.
Don't just put a full stop, write the
word period.
You know, period, and you know what I
mean.
It's because in actual fact, the word me
that's got there anyway, some versions don't put
that in, but it isn't actually in the
original text at all.
It's put in to make up the sense.
But sometimes I think they put in words
to make up the sense and they destroy
other possible meanings of that.
So here in actual fact, what it says
here, oh Lord, you have searched me and
yeah, you know, you know.
And some good versions will have that too,
although they're bad in other parts, those versions
are.
But this is good.
I like to use different ones.
But you know, that's what it says.
And in actual fact, the word search there
isn't the word just for search.
It's the word investigated.
It's like a police investigation, but more than
that.
Oh Lord, you have investigated me and oh,
you know.
Not just you know me, that's true.
He does, and we'll get much more into
detail in a few minutes than the other
verses.
But frankly, you know, all there is to
know, you know.
There is nothing that you do not know.
So God knows everything there is to know.
Everything that we will know later.
Everything that we did know or past generations
did know and we don't know now, forgotten.
Everything that's to do with time.
But as I said this morning or last
night, that's just a dot on the circle
of eternity.
And he knows everything about eternity and everything
about things we don't even have words for.
God knows every single thing.
He's fully knowledgeable.
He is omniscience.
He has all knowledge.
There is nobody that comes near that.
You know.
Now when he said that generally, he now
comes on to the specifics.
And let me move on to the next
two sections because of time.
The second you know, which is in verse
two, is now linked with another verse.
Let me show you.
If you want to know the two sections,
the two headings from here on, here they
are.
You know when I sit and when I
rise.
And if you want to know more about
that, you'd have to look in all of
verse three because it's tied in with the
first line of verse two.
So you know when I sit and when
I rise because you discern my going out
and my lying down.
You're familiar with all my ways.
God knows, or you know, my every movement.
That would be the second heading.
Not only you know, period, but you know
my every movement.
For verse 2a, you know when I sit,
when I rise.
And then all verse three, you discern my
going out and my lying down.
You're familiar with all my ways.
And the third you know, by the way,
is in the end of verse four, but
it's tied in with...
I don't want to confuse you.
But you see, the way that the Hebrew
poet does it is that he makes the
general statement in verse one.
Then he says, all right, now in verse
two, I'm going to give you one line
to sum up what I'm going to say
in the rest of the paragraph.
So the first line, you know when I
sit and when I rise.
He says, you want to know more about
that?
Okay, read all of verse three and you'll
find out more about my movements.
Now then let me tell you the other
thing I'm going to talk about.
Verse 2b, you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You want to know more about my thoughts?
Okay, read verse four.
Before a word's on my tongue, you know
it completely, O Lord.
So he's saying, all right, I want you
to know that these are the three areas.
God knows, period.
Secondly, God knows my every movement.
And thirdly, God knows my every thought.
Those are the three things.
So let's have a look at God knows
my every movement.
Notice what it says in verse two.
You know when I sit and when I
rise.
So God is fully aware when I'm sitting
and what I'm doing when I'm sitting.
I'm sitting to contemplate God or to meditate
or to mend something or whatever it is.
He knows what I'm doing.
I'm sitting.
When I rise, he knows when I go
off to work or what activity I have
to go out to weed the garden or
whatever it is.
God is fully aware of every activity.
Every single activity.
There is nothing that he doesn't know about
me because it says, doesn't it, in the
end of verse three, you're familiar with all
my ways.
So, you know, when I sit and when
I rise.
So, you know, when I'm active and when
I'm quiet, you know, in fact, in verse
three, now to sum it up more, you
discern my going out and my lying down.
It's parallel to sitting and rising, as it
were.
You know, when I go out, you know,
the social part of my life.
You know, my lying down, you know, the
secret part of my life.
You know, my going out, the daytime part
of my life.
You know, my lying down, the nighttime part
of my life, unless you're on shift work.
And that's the way it goes.
So, you're saying, God, you understand everything.
The private parts and the public parts, the
secret parts and the social parts.
You know, my lying down and you know,
my going out.
You know, my sitting and you know, my
rising.
You're familiar with all my ways.
Now, he couldn't say it more completely and
more comprehensively than that.
I want us to think about this because
when we think about God being all-knowing,
it will either comfort us or it will
terrify us.
If tonight already, before I've said anything, your
reaction is not really wonderfully comforted and not
really absolutely terrifying, and you're somewhere in the
middle, dare I suggest we need to examine
our lives to see if we've got used
to scripture, if we've got used to knowing
all the word of God, or if we
don't care so much about God, although it's
unlikely, we probably wouldn't come out on a
Monday night if we didn't.
But it's very likely that we get so
familiar with scripture that these truths don't come
with tremendous force to us anymore.
But as I read the scriptures and ponder
them and meditate over them, oh God, I'm
so thankful I'm a Christian.
I'm so thankful for that cross.
I'm so thankful that although there's a place
between the cross and heaven and there's a
lot of living to do, that when I'm
doing that living, you in actual fact know
everything about me.
So Lord, even when I blow it, and
I do often, Lord, you knew my intentions
and you know I was trying, I was
taking two steps forward, one step back, two
steps forward, one step back.
Lord, you know all that.
Thank you.
It's so comforting for me to know that.
But if you don't know Jesus tonight or
if your life is being lived as if
you're not a Christian, then it must be
a terrifying thing for you to understand tonight
that God knows every little thing, every movement
in your life, every movement.
My next door neighbor is Larry.
I know Larry.
You say you know Larry?
Yeah, I know Larry.
I know his name.
So I know Larry.
Is that all you know about Larry?
Oh, well, I know a little more about
Larry.
I mean, I know him.
That's after all something I know.
So I know him.
It says God knows me and I know
Larry.
But I know a little more about Larry.
I know a little bit about Larry's habits.
You see, we live in the same road
and Harry lives in Heritage House.
I live in Heritage Lane.
Heritage House had a lane about twice as
long as this aisleway here, I suppose, and
it led up to Heritage House.
And then they decided to build two houses
on either side some years ago.
And I live in one of those next
to Larry's house.
He lives in the big house.
I live in the small house.
But I know Larry.
Oh, yes, I not only know Larry, I
know his habits.
I know when he goes out and I
know when he comes home.
I can see Larry because our house is
high up looking down on the road there.
And I can see how Larry and I
know if I call him Harry, I mean,
Larry.
Anyway, and I know Larry and I can
see him going out and I know when
he goes out, I can see what he's
wearing.
He's going to be back 25 minutes, almost
on the dot.
How do I know?
Well, because you're going for a walk.
Well, how do you know he's going to
go the same place?
Always goes the same way.
How do you know?
Because I know Larry.
He goes down there, down Heritage Lane, along
up Cardee.
He goes up through Marigold Park, walks up
over past where all the dog stuff is
on the park there.
And then he just goes all the way
down to Grange.
He walks all the way down Grange, gets
on to West Burnside, walks all along West
Burnside, comes back to Heritage Lane, walks up
25 minutes.
Yes, I know Larry.
I know his habits.
But you say, wait a minute, is that
all there is to know about Larry?
No, there's more than there to know about
Larry.
In fact, I know something of what Larry
believes.
I really know Larry.
Do you really?
Yeah, I was in my garage not long
ago and, you know, Larry said to me,
you know, I know that Larry, Larry goes
to a church not far away from there.
And it's an Armstrong church, a worldwide church
of God.
And I know that Larry goes there and
we've talked about it and so on, talked
about the Lord and so on.
And in fact, although I know Larry, I
know Larry doesn't really know me because Larry
asked me to come and preach at his
church.
However, maybe I don't know Larry because as
you likely will know, probably about a third
of the worldwide church of God, the Armstrong
movement, has become thoroughly evangelical and has now
become a member of the Evangelical Fellowship of
Canada.
It may be that Larry belongs to one
of those churches and I'm the one that
doesn't know.
But anyway, I know Larry.
Oh, but Sandra, his wife, says to me,
you think you know Larry?
You don't know Larry.
You only see him outside the house looking.
I really know Larry.
I see him inside the house and inside
the house, he may do things that he
wouldn't probably do in public.
And I know Larry very well because I
seem to, in fact, not only that, but
I see Larry, not only when he knows
I'm seeing him, but I see Larry doing
things that he doesn't know I'm seeing him.
Oh, now it's getting a little tough.
Oh, yes, but Larry says, wait a minute,
you've misunderstood here.
You've misunderstood and you've misconstrued that whole thing.
You don't understand me.
But in actual fact, Sandra probably knows Larry
better than Larry knows Larry because Sandra can
see more objectively and Larry's always got some
issues.
But on the other hand, Larry does know
what his intentions were.
But you see, all this knowing and all
this knowing, so Sandra knows Larry better than
I do.
I only know Larry 0.2. Sandra says,
no, maybe you know what he believes.
0.4, not even half of one.
But she says, I know him 0.6,
0.8, I know him.
In fact, I can go right up to
one.
I really know Larry and I know all
kinds of things that Larry does and everything
that happens.
I'm up to one.
Ah, now God says, all right, if you
think that's really knowing somebody, if somebody knew
you like that, you'd probably be a little
concerned too, maybe if they weren't the kind
of person you wanted to know you.
But God says, look, you've only gone from
zero to one.
I want you now to jump from one
right up to 100.
And that's how I know you.
I know every little thing about you.
I know every movement and I know the
reason for every movement.
I know everything that went through your mind
when you actually decided to do something.
That's what God is saying.
I want to ask us, therefore, if during
our activities every day, whether at Elim Lodge
or whether in company or whether in private
or whether with our own family or whether
on our own, whether, in fact, we really
are consistent people who do the same thing
in private as we do in public.
What about work?
At work, what happens if the boss isn't
around?
Do you work in the same way as
you did when the boss is around?
Or maybe you're retired now, many of you
are, but think back on it.
Or what about that business deal you had
the other day when the other person didn't
know something and you did?
Was it a shady deal?
And you're a Christian.
What about at home?
What about the television?
What about sitting down in front of the
television?
Does God say, yes, he sees when I
sit down, not only to meditate, but to
watch television.
And God's right there between you and the
television.
Now then, do you watch the same things
in public with others in the room as
you would watch on your own?
I mean, God's there between you and the
TV, so he knows all of that.
And what about going into that email stuff?
What about all the internet and all the
stuff that you may get on there?
What about that?
What kind of roots or whatever they call
it, I don't know at all, but I
wonder where you're going.
Is he absolutely thrilled with what's filling your
mind?
So many young people get upset.
They say, oh, I wish I knew whether
God wants me to go to Queen's University
or whether he wants me to go to
Western University, University of Western Ontario.
I don't know where to go, you know,
and so on.
I really want God's will.
Do you know God is, yeah, he's interested
in that.
But God is much more interested in what
passes through your mind and what you're studying
while you're at either one of those places.
He's much more interested in that even than
in the actual place you're going.
And we don't realize that.
What passes through my mind?
What do I feed my mind with?
So, Lord, here we have it.
You know my every activity.
Not only you know, period, but you know
my every activity.
But look at the third part.
You know, period, you know my every activity.
For when I sit and when I rise,
when I go out and when I lie
down and all my ways.
But thirdly, you know my every thought.
Verse two, the last part.
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
Verse four.
Indeed, before a word is on my tongue,
you know it completely, O Lord.
And what do we call a word when
it's not yet on my tongue?
It's obviously a thought.
So again, he's using another expression for thought.
So, God, you know my every thought.
I'm preaching now.
Well, sort of teaching, preaching.
I'm at a microphone and it's being amplified
so God can really hear what I'm saying.
Do you think he can?
He can.
I'm in front of the microphone.
Can God hear what I'm saying?
You're not too sure whether it's because...
Anyway, I'm in front of the microphone.
What if after the meeting I go out
the back there and I'm chatting with one
of you and I say, oh, I haven't
seen you for a little while and I
talk about something that probably I wouldn't say
up here but I'm saying it privately to
you.
Now, do you think God is as aware
of that as he is this?
Well, God is absolutely just as aware of
that as he is of this.
But what if I say, well, now, you
know, Don, I say, Don, other people have
gone.
Other people have gone, Don.
Come here, Don.
Come here a minute, Don.
Don, just, please.
Thank you, Don.
I appreciate this.
Now, God heard that.
He knows the whisper.
In fact, the whisper is just as loud
to God as the microphone.
You can sit back.
It's all right.
God is just as knowledgeable of the whisper
as the microphone.
But what if as I'm talking out there,
I say, oh, I shouldn't be doing that
because if I whisper, it's possibly gossip.
I'm very, very concerned.
It's something that really grips me.
I can't stand it.
Anytime I hear gossip or people talking about
someone else that they wouldn't say directly to
their face.
I don't have the guts to do it
sometimes, but quite often I will say, why
don't we go and tell the person?
Boy, that stops them.
But I can't stand gossip.
But what if the whispering is gossip?
Now, God can hear that just as well
as this because he doesn't care about a
microphone.
He doesn't care whether it's in a microphone
or what.
But wait a minute.
That's if it's only a whisper.
What if it hasn't even reached the stage
of a whisper?
What if it's still something winging its way
across my mind?
And here it goes.
And I'm thinking, should I, shouldn't I, should
I, shouldn't I?
I wish this guy would stop that sentence.
I'm not going to listen to what he
says because I'm determined to say this.
Have you met people like that?
You can see exactly.
They're just waiting to get in there.
So you have to keep on using semicolons
when you're speaking because they'll never listen to
the end of a story.
They know what they want to say and
they don't wait one second.
Sometimes say, now, did you agree with what
I just said?
Oh, sorry.
What was it you just said?
No, but what if I now come in
there?
What if I talk and a thought is
in my mind and I haven't actually said
it, but I think I shouldn't say this.
So I'm not going to say it.
Therefore, I've not sinned.
Oh, no.
Why?
How come the Bible says the thought of
foolishness is sin?
The thought of foolishness is sin.
So God now can see even the word
before it becomes a word.
He can see it as a thought.
This is my thought.
I don't know whether you've thought about how
much God knows your thoughts.
What are your thoughts?
In the New Testament, we're told that the
standards of the Old Testament in committing murder,
committing adultery and things of that nature are
not high enough.
So when we come to the New Testament,
even if a thought of those goes through
your mind to hate somebody or to look
with lust upon somebody or a thought that
passes through your mind as you may be
fantasizing, God sees all of that as if
I was shouting it out in a microphone.
He knows all of that right now.
And if I am like that and I've
got this between me and God, I know
I'd better put that right straight away.
I've got to keep those short accounts.
But what about Satan?
Does Satan know all these things?
Well, some people think he does, but you
know, Satan doesn't.
I was never so helped in my earlier
years in the Christian faith as reading Sidlow
Baxter's Explore the Book many years ago.
Dear Sidlow Baxter.
And he wrote this wonderful book.
And in the book of Job, he shows
us three things about Satan.
And he shows us that Satan is not
omnipotent, that Satan is not omnipresent, and that
Satan is not omniscient.
You see, Satan is a created being.
Satan is an angel.
All angels are created beings.
No created being can do everything.
Only God can do everything.
No created being can be present everywhere.
Any created being can only be in one
place at one time.
So if Satan right now is a created
being as an angel, the angel of light,
the one that wanted to take God's place,
the beautiful one who got thrown out of
heaven, if right now he's thrown out of
heaven, he's in Johannesburg, he certainly isn't in,
where are we?
Peterborough, Ontario.
He certainly isn't here.
He can't be.
Now, don't underestimate him.
He's got all the cohorts of the damned
that serve him day and night.
And so, but in actual fact, he can't.
But he can't be present everywhere.
He's not omnipotent.
He's not omnipresent.
But also he's not omniscient.
Satan does not know what's going through your
mind right now.
Now to some of you, that's a surprise.
But he does not.
You show me anything contrary to that.
Don't underestimate him again.
You read Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
and it'll give you a good idea of
how much he knows.
Because he knows Homo sapiens.
He's been around a little longer than you
think.
He knows the way human beings function and
work and think.
He can see by what they ultimately do.
But he does not know what's going through
your mind right at this moment.
He does not know that at all.
Only God knows that.
There's only one sovereign Lord of heaven and
earth.
And everyone else is a created being.
Therefore, only God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient.
But God, because he is omniscient, he knows
every thought that's going through your mind.
But listen to this.
Listen to this.
Don't be terrified by that.
Live close to the cross.
Live close to the Lord.
Keep those short accounts.
Keep confessing that and putting it right with
the Lord.
And you'll find that the fact that God
knows everything there is to know about you
and knows every thought that ever passes through
your mind, you'll find this can be a
tremendous comfort.
Because now God can know your sighs and
your tears and your emotional struggles.
Now God can know your worries and your
anxieties and your concerned.
No wonder it says, Casting all your care
upon him, for he careth for you.
Or the correct translation, Casting all your care
upon him for it matters to him about
you.
It matters to him about you because he
knows every thought.
So this can be the most encouraging thing,
the most comforting thing.
Tell me, are you comforted tonight to know
that God knows everything there is to know
about you?
Every thought that goes through your mind, are
you comforted or are you terrified?
Oh Lord, when I think about your person
and your greatness, I've got to go fall
on my knees and say, Lord be merciful
to me a sinner.
Because that's the way things go with God's
thoughts.
How do we cope with that day by
day?
I wrote out somewhere, I scribbled out on
a piece of card here, some ways that
I think I would go.
Seven little ways in which I can, in
actual fact, respond myself to what I've learned
from this psalm so far about God's knowledge.
That God knows, period.
God knows my every activity, my every movement.
That God knows my every thought.
And these are the seven ways that I
put down for myself.
Maybe they'll be helping you too, but this
is what I will try to do.
Number one, and they're all imperative verbs.
Acknowledge.
Acknowledge his greatness with thankfulness.
Say, Lord, I want to thank you that
you're my God and you're the greatest there
ever is.
There could be none greater than you.
And I want to give you thanks today
for your greatness.
The second thing, commit.
Each morning, commit your day into his care.
Say, Lord, I'm going to go through this
day.
I don't know what I'm going to meet.
There are going to be activities I'm going
to be involved in, I know, and some
I don't know.
But Lord, you know exactly what movements I'm
going to make today.
I commit them into your hands and I
commit myself into your care that everything I
do will be done according to the way
you want it.
So, Lord, I acknowledge your greatness and I
commit this day to your care.
The third word, remind.
Remind myself frequently, that's during the day, remind
myself frequently that God knows everything.
How do I do that?
Well, many ways.
I do things by association of ideas.
If I, every time I tie up my
shoelace, I pray for our pastor.
Every time I sneeze, I pray for my
son, Mark.
Because once he said to me, Dad, I
noticed every time you sneeze, you sneeze three
times.
Well, I sneeze, sure enough, three times.
If I sneeze four times, I really pray
for Mark, because now he's wrong, you know.
So I really, but I have association of
ideas.
Well, there's another association of ideas is when
you watch beep, set it to beep as
often as it can.
Every time it beeps, say, yes, God knows
right now.
He can see all I'm doing and he
knows exactly what I'm thinking right at this
moment.
So remind yourself frequently.
The fourth thing, fill, fill your mind with
God's principles.
Learn the principles of scripture so you know
how to act and react in any situation
you find yourself.
Fill your mind with God's principles.
The fifth one, think.
Think before either talking or acting.
Unless you're a preacher, that is, and we
only think after we've talked.
But if you're not a preacher, you think
before.
Now, I hope I do think before, but
sometimes that happens, I'm afraid, particularly with me.
But think before either talking or acting.
Think, Lord, now I'm going to say something.
I'm going to join this conversation.
Lord, I want it to be edifying, not
smart-alecky, please.
I've been cursed with several punny bones in
my body.
Everything somebody says, I can see puns everywhere.
I've got a whole back and I long
to get out, you know, for somebody to
have a laugh at.
No, no, no.
That's just bringing down the standard of the
conversation, which should be edifying to everybody.
But think before acting and talking.
Sixthly, resist.
Resist the devil regarding your invading thoughts.
Now, some of you have never been taught
to do that.
It's in the Bible, by the way, in
case your particular denomination didn't teach you that.
Some people don't like the devil and they
don't want to talk about it.
They don't talk about resisting.
They think it only belongs to one little
group of people.
Well, it's in the Bible, just in case
you didn't know.
You probably haven't read it, if it's not
read in public in some of those churches,
because they don't like talking about that.
But it's there.
You read it in James.
First of all, though, before you resist the
devil, make sure you submit yourself to God.
Then you resist the devil.
Then you come near to God.
That's the order in which we find in
James.
You submit to God.
Say, I'm your child.
Therefore, now, because I belong to you and
Jesus is my Savior, he's the Lord of
my life, he's won the victory on the
cross.
Now I resist you.
You may bring that thought as many times
as you like to my mind, Satan, but
by the power of God and by the
help of the Holy Spirit, I am not
going to act on that thought.
So waste your time.
Carry on.
Resist him.
The third thing is then, draw near to
God and say, now, the resisting is in
the middle.
I want to submit first and draw near
next.
All right, the resisting.
And the last one, strive for integrity.
Strive for integrity.
That means that you're an integrated person, that
you function consistently, that you've got the Mercedes
-Benz symbol.
And here it is, you know, the old
Mercedes-Benz, like that, like that, like that,
right?
The circle with these three spokes on it,
like the old steering wheels used to be,
you know, in the days when the horn
was in the middle, you know.
You now got the steering wheel, can't find
the horn, it's under the seat or on
the roof or somewhere, but you try and
find it.
But that's what the old Mercedes-Benz.
So keep it at that.
And this is it.
This is integrity.
This part is what I say.
This part is what I do.
This part underneath is what I am.
So what I say and what I do
must come from what I am.
If one of those pieces is wrong or
falls out of place, you're not integrated.
Somebody has taken a piece out of your
pie.
Because the old word tag in English, integrity,
tag is the old English word for to
touch.
Sometimes it's tech, sometimes it's tack or tag.
You play tag or something's tacky or somebody's
got a disease that's contagious, you can touch
them, you know.
So if you're in tag, you're intact.
It's the same word.
Nobody's taken a piece out of your pie.
So we need to be people of integrity
like that to say, Lord, today, what I
think and say, what I do in my
movements and activities, I want both of those
to spring from what I am.
I want people to see what I am
by what I think and do.
Don't let me think, speak or do things
that I really don't mean.
I'm only doing it to please others.
I want to be a person of integrity.
So let me conclude this and ask you
then tonight.
Whether indeed.