Prayer Challenges
Meditations on Psalm 139 from Doug Knox.
May 2024 - July 2024
Meditations on Psalm 139, Part 1
Psalm 139:1-6
THE MEANING OF BEING KNOWN BY GOD
An Interjected Thought in a Narrative
Around 47 – 48 AD, the Apostle Paul teamed with Barnabas, the man who had discipled him, to embark on the first of what would become the most celebrated missionary journeys in church history. The book of Acts, chapters 13 – 14, records what happened. The two set off from the church at Antioch in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea and traveled northwest into the area then known as Galatia to proclaim Jesus Christ to those who had never heard of him. Acts records a successful journey. Yes, they encountered opposition, but the two missionaries knew that they would. To their joy, many responded to the message of free grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Sadly, though, the work eroded under subversion. After Paul and Barnabas left the area, Jewish apologists infiltrated the churches with a discouraging message for non-Jewish believers. They declared that Jesus’s gospel was an ethnic rather than cross-cultural and demanded that Gentile believers become proselyte Jews to complete their faith journey. Such a teaching was a grave error because it would have required them to Jewish law-keeping where God clearly said that grace was to be received by faith alone.
An Interjected Thought in a Narrative
Historically, we have little information on who exactly these subversive agents were. Virtually everything we know about them comes from the book of Galatians, Paul’s fiery defense of free grace for Jew and Gentile alike. Part of the message in Galatians was that if the believers were to submit to the demand to become cultural Jews, they would face no end of the demands under the Law of Moses. For the purposes of this series, I want to look at a single point from Paul’s letter to them. He writes with some sarcasm,
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
--Galatians 4:8-9, English Standard Version
The pivot point revolves around two historical markers. The first is “formerly, when you did not know God,” before they had heard the gospel message. The second is “now that you have come to know God.” Paul is specific about the past. Before they came to faith, his audience lived in a superstitious world of slavery to principles and demands that “by nature are not gods.” Over against this, he affirms their present liberation from that slavery, “now that you have come to know God.” Unfortunately, Paul finds little hope to be optimistic. His converts are ready to stumble. He says in effect, “Knowing what you know about Christ’s grace, how can you hamstring yourselves again?” Within this appeal, he inserts an interjection. “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again…?” The phrase, “or rather to be known by God,” serves as an emphatic punch line. It forces his readers to shift from the perspective of what they must do to survive spiritually and focus instead on the grace that they have received. In other words, it wrenches their point of view from being slaves to the system to becoming recipients of God’s favor. To be known by God is to be touched by God’s redeeming hand.
To be Known or not to be Known
So, what does it mean to be known by God, and how does that truth affect our living?
To think about the question, let us ask its reverse. What does it mean not to be known by God? We have a clear answer to that question in Matthew 7. In context, Matthew 5-7 contains Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, a portrayal of what genuine righteousness before God means. Toward the end of the end of the sermon, Jesus declares the loss that many will face at the end of the age:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day [of judgment,] many will say to me. ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
--Matthew 7:21-23 emphasis added
Jesus’s point is that a man’s profession of his name alone is not enough to guarantee life with him, even if flashy signs accompany it. Flashy signs can be counterfeited. If God does not know us, condemnation awaits us. Genuine salvation involves a change of heart, and a change of heart manifests itself in a love for his commands.
In another passage with a contrasting message, Jesus describes his own with these words:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
--John 10:27-28 emphasis added
When Jesus knows us, a whole array of blessings belongs to us. According to John,
- We hear his voice.
- He involves us in personal, intimate relationship with him, the kind that exists in family.
- He gives us eternal life.
- We will never perish.
- No one will be able to wrest us from his hand.
A Meditation on Intimacy
These things tell us the facts about being known by God. But facts alone miss the story. Over the next four segments, we will explore Psalm 139, David’s meditation on his experience of being known by God.
Meditations on Psalm 139, Part 2
Psalm 139:1-6
A MEDITATION ON GOD’S KNOWLEDGE OF HIS OWN
Is it Me, or What?
I must confess to a personal abhorrence toward the self-obsession that saturates our current culture. This attitude has been a thing with me for as long as I have been a Christian. Self-obsession is a poison. I hate the way it blinds people to others’ needs and suffocates their ability to empathize. My knee-jerk reaction is to react in loathing. I must force myself to dial my prejudice back and show pity toward such people instead. I say this as a confession because ground zero for Psalm 139 lies in the middle of “me.” Look at how it begins: “O LORD, you have searched me and known me.” If we stop here, we might assume that the psalm will come off like yet another you-make-me-feel-so-good-about-myself meditation—sappy and dripping with self-adoration. Except that it isn’t. Yes, David mentions himself throughout. But his meditation is not about himself. It is about God and God’s knowledge of him. The prayer is a statement of wonder toward the LORD, who knows him completely, who keeps him faithfully, and who loves him intimately.
The Structure of the Psalm
The psalm falls into four roughly equal sections. The first three explore the deepening layers of God’s knowledge, while the fourth records David’s reactions to what he realizes. The four parts of the psalm are:
- The first dimension: God’s factual knowledge concerning David
- The second dimension: God’s inescapable presence
- The third dimension: God’s wisdom in crafting his frame before birth
- Conclusion: David’s response in worship
The First Dimension: God’s Factual Knowledge Concerning David
The psalm begins,
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
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.
--Psalm 139:1-6
The first thing to notice is that God’s factual knowledge of David is more than a mere passive byproduct of God’s omniscience, or his knowing everything. It is purposeful. It exists because God has searched him, and in searching has come to know him. It is also detailed knowledge. It covers David’s actions and thoughts (verse 2). It covers his habits (verse 3). It is deeper than even David’s own self-knowledge (verse 4). Finally, God’s knowledge extends beyond his awareness about David. It protects him from both self-destruction and outside harm (verse 5).
God’s knowledge leaves David in a state of wonder (verse 6).
The Second Dimension: God’s Inescapable Presence
If the first stanza of the psalm grows out of God’s omniscience, his knowledge of all things, the second stanza moves to his omnipresence. In simple terms, God is inescapable.
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.
--Psalm 139:7-12
This section of the psalm connects God’s Spirit with presence. “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence.” When David speaks of the Spirit’s presence, however, the language moves beyond the concept of physical place. It moves to realms—heaven; Sheol; the sea; darkness. If David wanted to flee from God, where could he go? Assuming that David could flee to these places, God would still know him. Notice how David ticks off the options one at a time. Verse 8 eliminates both heaven and Sheol. Heaven is God’s abode, unapproachable by human effort. Likewise, Sheol, or the Grave, is the place of the silent dead, where human thought and activity cease (see Psalm 6:5). Though they are inaccessible by mortal men, God’s Spirit is present throughout. In a similar manner, verses 9-10 speak of the sea. In the Hebrew mind, the sea was a source of chaos. For example, in another Psalm, Asaph writes these words concerning Israel’s Red Sea crossing:
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
--Psalm 77:19-20
The book of Jonah gives us a literal example of the futility of taking our flight to the sea. In chapter 2, after he tells the sailors on board the ship bound for Tarshish to throw him into the sea for their own sakes, Jonah prays to the LORD from the belly of the fish.
“I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
--Jonah 2:2-3
Part of the irony in Jonah is that his seafaring trip to Tarshish, “away from the presence of the LORD” (Jonah 1:3), is futile. Jonah learns in real time what David understands intimately. God’s Spirit is everywhere. He catches up to him, not only on the seas but under the sea. In the end, he drives him back to the calling that he put on him in the first place, to warn Nineveh about his coming judgment. Jonah’s descriptive terms suggest that he may have died by drowning, only to be raised back to life through the fish’s intervention. Regardless of whether we interpret Johah’s language literally or figuratively, the resemblance to Psalm 139 is evident. But back to the psalm. Verses 11-12 moves to the realm of darkness. The Bible speaks both of physical and spiritual darkness. The first shrouds deeds in secrecy, while the second speaks in absolute terms. When Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, he appears to have both dimensions:
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”
--John 3:19-20
David writes that darkness is futile because before God, darkness is as bright daylight. Physically and spiritually, God is inescapable.
Meditations on Psalm 139, Part 3
Psalm 139:7-13-16
FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE
The Importance of Understanding Origins
During the time that I did my seminary biblical studies, the school hosted a conference on how the church community should seek to impact the world. The speaker that evening began with the reality that evangelism often becomes bogged down in the question of origins. How did we come into being, and how have we come to be who we are presently? He was right about the question. It comes up all the time when people share the gospel. However, his proposal on what to do with it stunned me. First, he said that the issue is counterproductive. Trying to build a case for creation in our scientific culture only leads to arguments and makes us come off as naïve. After all, he said, evolution has explained so much that it is impossible to build a convincing counterargument for creation. Instead of arguing, he told us to say, “Let me tell you about the love of Jesus.” In other words, surrender to the elitists who hate the Christian world view without firing a shot, and then try to be nice guys to them so they will listen to our message. Brothers, we are not called to be wimps. We are called to the gospel, and the gospel begins with creation. God has made us and calls all men everywhere to repent.
The Heavy Questions
The question about origins—where we ultimately come from—is anything but trivial. To the contrary, it lies at the heart of our understanding who we are and what we need to do. A person who has been told all his life that the world is a purposeless, unconscious, unguided set of physical-chemical reactions in a closed system will not be able to believe in a God who loves him. If the cosmos is all that exists, then there is no moral condemnation from which to be saved, and there is no god is out there to do the saving. A God who sits on the sidelines in an evolutionary world is as awkward as the shy kid at the school dance.
David’s Understanding of his Created Design
Understanding the reality of God’s created world is necessary for bowing before him in worship. Once we understand the reality of God’s created world, he becomes a welcome part of it. The third stanza of Psalm 139 shows us the beauty that emerges from a proper understanding of our origins.
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.
--Psalm 139:13-16
The stanza begins with the Hebrew word Because or For. Therefore, in addition to moving forward toward his conclusion, David also expands on the truth in the previous stanza. The previous section speaks of God’s inescapable ever-presence. There, David recognizes that God is in heaven, he is in Sheol, he is unfazed by the chaos in the depths of the sea, and he navigates the darkness as though it were daylight. These facts stand alongside David’s understanding of his own coming into being in his mother’s womb—a unique human being, created in God’s image. Just as God occupies heaven, Sheol, and the uttermost parts of the sea, he is with him in his mother’s womb to form his inward parts and knit him together, a baby designed to grow to maturity and carry on God’s plan to fill the earth.
Verse 15 continue to praise God for his work. David’s frame was visible to God during the time that he was made in secret, “intricately woven in the depths of the earth.” The term, depths of the earth, is an appropriate picture, seeing that we all come from the dust of the ground.
Verse 16 concludes with another truth. Not only did God prepare David’s physical substance. He determined his moral purpose as well, “the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
Why Creation Matters
This section rests on God’s creation. The God who called all things into being and made them beautiful in Genesis 1 continues to create human beings, generation after generation. David declares that God “formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb… intricately woven in the depths of the earth” (verses 13, 15). Even from his pre-scientific vantage point, he understands that his frame possesses both biological and moral definition. The God who made him took incredible care in forming him. Because God knows who David is, David knows who God is, and he knows where his worship should be directed. Further, he understands that he has a reason for being alive. His comment about “the days that were formed for me” (verse 16) show that he understands that he belongs to God and therefore owes him a life of allegiance. David understands that he has been created purposefully and has received a life of purpose. His response is to worship, and his worship brings a sense of being settled. “I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Meditations on Psalm 139, Part 4
Psalm 139:17-24
WORSHIP IN WONDER
Understanding to Anchor the Soul
Psalm 139 is a meditation by David on God’s intimate knowledge of all his ways. The psalm divides into four sections. The first three answer three fundamental human questions: Verses 1-6 answer the first question: Does anyone truly understand me? Can anyone know me thoroughly enough to explain myself to me? When I am most vulnerable, can someone provide comfort for me without a hidden agenda?
In this section, David recognizes that God’s knowledge of his being includes his actions, his intentions, and even his thoughts. Furthermore, God places boundaries around him.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
--Psalm 139:5
Boundaries may not sound important at first, but they are fundamentally profound. We usually picture them as restrictions to our personal freedom. In truth, they act as markers that give definition to our lives. They answer the question, “Where do I go to find meaning for my life?” This is an important question. When trans athletes invade women’s sports, when a Supreme Court nominee and woman’s advocate claims to be unable to answer the question, “What is a woman?”[1] and when school boards place LGBTQ pornography in middle school and high school libraries, our concept of boundaries is broken. Verses 7-12 answer the second question, “Does anyone have my back?” David’s realization that God’s Spirit is inescapable whether he ascends to heaven, or makes his bed in the grave, or retreats to the depths of the sea, or pursues darkness, God is inescapable. The third section, verses 13-15, answer the question, “Am I precious to anyone?” The answer to that question is clear when David realizes that God not only counts him as precious, but that he has made him so— “fearfully and wonderfully.”
The Conclusion of the Psalm—David’s Resolve
When David realizes how deep God’s love for him is, he reacts with three distinct emotions. The first is awe.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you
--Psalm 139:17-18
These words blossom from David’s thoughts on God’s intimacy. His God knows him more intimately than he can know himself, His God’s presence is impossible to escape in life or death. His God has made him unique in all humanity and has set him on an equally unique life journey. We dare not confuse these thoughts with self-esteem. Self-esteem is only a buzz word for unconditional positive self-regard. That is, self-authentication. David’s thoughts drive him to regard God above everything and everyone else. Let me make a brief comment on the last line, “I awake, and I am still with you.” This is speculation, so take it only as a possibility. I believe that he marvels at God’s mercy. Even with everything that God knows about us, he still loves us. He keeps us by his side. David’s second reaction moves to his alignment with God. Given the depth of God’s knowledge about him, where should his thoughts go? He answers in the next few verses:
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
--Psalm 139:19-22
When we read the Psalms, we must understand the writers’ enemies in context. They are not people who happen to harbor personal grievances against David or whoever else might be writing. Under Israel’s theocratic rule, spiritual enemies were political ones. They waged war against God’s people. As king, David had a duty to protect his kingdom. From our New Testament perspective, we understand that national authorities sometimes must wage physical wars. Many have fought for their country. Spiritual war is far more pervasive. We must understand that the current culture’s hatred of the truth has driven many to deny reality itself. We have a duty to understand what the truth is and to practice as a testimony to the lost. David’s third and final reaction is one of subjection to his God. His thoughts turn back to themes expressed in the beginning of the Psalm. The meditation opens with the declaration, “O LORD, you have searched me and known me…,” and it ends with the same thought:
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
--Psalm 139:23-24
Here, David yields to the God whom he trusts. From one perspective, submission is a mark of self-discipline. Even though we belong to God, the craving for rebellion comes naturally to us. But God’s men yield in the end because they know who knows them. “Search me…know my heart…see if there be a grievous way…lead me….”
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[1] YouTube, “Senator Blackburn asks Sxupreme Court nominee to define ‘woman’ | USA Today,” 2022, accessed from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWtGzJxiONU, July 20, 2023.
Meditations on Psalm 139, Part 5
Psalm 139—Afterward
MORE THAN JUST THE LOVE OF CHRIST
Back to the Question of Origins
As we conclude this meditation on Psalm 139, I want to go back to the question of origins that I wrote about earlier. In Part 3, I mentioned a guest speaker at the seminary where I studied. He told his audience that when the subject of evolution emerges during our evangelism—and it almost always does—our best approach is to is to avoid argumentation by saying, “Let me tell you about the love of Jesus.”
He could not have been more wrong. For the Christian to yield on the question of origins is to surrender the gospel itself. The gospel is far more than telling someone, “Believe on Jesus and get a free ride to heaven at the end of your life.”
The biblical gospel is both deep and broad. It includes all the critical life issues—God, history, meaning, morality, sin, judgment, righteousness, redemption, salvation, reconciliation, sanctification, fellowship, hope, glorification. For the Christian, these issues give our lives meaning. In a universe interpreted under evolutionary assumptions, the words themselves lose their meaning. To be more specific, in a universe that consists of only matter, time, and chance, there is nothing to save. Supernatural notions like the ones above cannot exist.
The Embarrassing Reality of Unbelief
In his 1969 book, Death in the City, the Christian thinker Francis A. Schaeffer used an illustration of two chairs to illustrate the two different ways of understanding the world. Imagine a room with two chairs. One chair represents the Christian view, the view that recognizes the existence of a supernatural God who acts in history. The man who sits in this chair exercises faith to believe in a created, meaningful world. The other chair represents an evolutionary understanding of the world. The man in this chair denies both God’s presence and the supernatural wonder that emerges from God’s creative work in the world. His universe consists only of what he can see. Obviously, the chairs cannot share common moral ground, although many well-meaning Christians try to do just that. Schaeffer explains the situation this way:
[W]hat one must realize is that seeing the world as a Christian does not mean just saying, “I am a Christian. I believe in the supernatural world,” and then stopping. It is possible to be saved through faith in Christ and then spend much of our lives in the materialist’s chair. [In this context, materialism is the belief that only physical reality exists.] We can say that we believe in a supernatural world, and yet live as though there were no supernatural in the universe at all. It is not enough merely to say, “I believe in a supernatural world.” We must ask, “Which char am I sitting in at this given existential moment?”[1]
He goes on to say that the man who sits in the first chair understands that he lacks all the answers. He trusts in the God who knows all things. By contrast, the second chair denies any reality behind what we can see. Unlike the Christian, who interprets truth through his eyes of faith, the materialist insists that he can explain all things by resorting to natural processes. The non-Christian believes that faith in the unseen is only a crutch that must be thrown away. The rub comes when we realize that the one who denies the reality of the supernatural in the world uses the very crutch that he despises. For instance, he insists that Christians ought to believe the same way that he does. Think about what the word ought means in the first place. It stands for the notion of rightness and wrongness. For the materialist to insists that the Christian is intellectually wrong is one thing. But evolutionary intellectuals continue to churn out books that lament the fact that so few people have come to their viewpoint. Further, evolutionists often talk about the universe in moral terms. For example, I often hear them decry how human beings wreak havoc on the environment. Or they will condemn mass murder. When someone asks what makes these things wrong, they answer with the argument for consensus. Most people agree that they are wrong. That, however, is only an opinion. What happens when the opinion sways the other way?
Psalm 139, Beauty, and Rightness
In the final analysis, the man in the second chair has no way to claim value or worth in the world. In a world as defined by the evolutionist, what is, is right. “Ought-ness” and beauty are fictions. We end up in a world opposed to Psalm 139.
- If no God exists, no one is there to care what happens to us.
- Violence and cruelty, fundamental tools for the evolutionary machine, remain a fact of life. No one can say with authority, “This must stop.”
- If the cosmos is all there is, then concepts like beauty, wonder, and awe are figments of our imagination. Sunsets are only light frequencies scattering on dust particles in the atmosphere. Mountain ranges are nothing more than tectonic upheavals. Paintings are pigments smeared on a surface. Music amounts to nothing more than tonal vibrations in the air. Love is a sensation that occurs when my brain produces endorphins.
- And if God is nowhere to be found, then history is only a propaganda tool to fool people into taking one or another ideological side. “History” is only a continuation of what has been taking place from prehistory until now. No one will judge and set things right.
In contrast, Psalm 139 shines like a beacon. Everything in it affirms the gospel. Here are four questions whose answers the psalm affirms:
- Does anyone care?
God is real. He knows me and has set bounds for me, (verses 1-6). - Is there more to the world than what we can see?
God’s limitless is undeniable. His presence is inescapable. Wherever I go, he upholds me and continues to see me, (verses 7-12). - Where does my worth come from?
I am created by God, according to his design and purpose. I possess infinite value because he has made me the way I am, (verses 13-16). - Are my actions important?
God has made values and morality real. What we do also matters. I can come to him in confidence to ask for justice in the world and for God to examine my heart.
The Question of History
Let me close with an observation on history. David’s prayer in verse 19, “Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God,” is deeper than a wish for personal vengeance. He prays with the understanding that God must fulfill his self-appointed plan for history. The Bible is full of great moments in God’s redemptive plan for the ages. David’s prayer in this psalm hands on God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7. There, the LORD promises him, “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” David’s prayer is not limited to immediate history. It is a plea for God’s ultimate and universal peace at the end of the age, and it rests in the personal peace that he experiences in his meditation.
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[1] Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City, (Switzerland: L’Abri Fellowship, 1969; Wheaton Illinois: Crossway Books, 2001), 132.