I think we might properly call this the “Searching Psalm”, for you will notice it starts,
“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me” and it ends,
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.”
That is, God is as it were, just reaching right inside and turning us inside out. God is going inside here. Now man does not do much of that. The whole world around us is running on the principle of what man sees on the outside. It is a world of extremes. Man is satisfied to have it so, but God isn't. God desires truth in the inward parts. The outside means very little to Him. Our Lord Jesus when He was here pointed out some people who were very proud of their exterior, but oh, what He said of them!
“They are like whited sepulchers, but inside they are full of dead men's bones.”
What a contrast between a nice whitewashed exterior, and those corrupting bones on the inside. Our Lord wants reality. So the Psalmist begins here, verse 1,
“Thou hast searched me, and known me.”
I wonder if you have had this experience? Have you been searched? Have you been in God's presence? The one who wrote this Psalm was a man who had been in the presence of God. He had felt that awful searching power, that which reveals everything that lies hidden. Have you ever been through that?
If you and I are going to have the companionship of our blessed Lord in heaven, we will have to pass through the experience of God's searching power turned right in on our soul, and have Him see what is there.
“Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me.”
If it were not for Christ, that would be a terrible thing. If you and I had to have that divine searchlight turned on us, that reveals every secret thing, and brings it out into the white light of His presence, if we had to pass through that experience and had not Christ, it would be nothing but despair. It would be a terrible thing to be searched and have no refuge; to be exposed, and brought into the light, and have no answer to it. But, thank God, in Christ that is all taken care of, and that is how the Psalmist here can say,
“Search me, and know me.” Otherwise it would be unmitigated terror to your soul.
There is coming a time when men are going to stand before that Presence; those who know nothing about the merits of the work of Christ, and so awful is going to be that experience that they are going to cry to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from the face of His presence. They cannot bear that searching; that gaze from which nothing is hidden. What an awful thing when men would rather be buried between tons of rock and mountain, than stand before the presence of God. But that is what we would all feel if it were not for Christ.
This Psalm divides itself naturally into 4 groups.
The first 6 verses, second 6, third 6, and the last 6. The first brings before us the omniscience of God. The all-knowing wisdom and intelligence.
The second division we might call His omnipresence. Nowhere can we go to get away from Him.
The third is his Omnipotence. That power which was in creation. The One who made the heavens, the One who formed us—Omnipotent.
The last section is the reaction of the Psalmist to all this knowledge. The reaction in his soul to God's omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. See how intimate that knowledge is in the first section-verse 2:
“Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.”
There is someone sitting down here, but he is in bad company. The Lord knows all about it, too. Sitting down, but in bad company. Our Psalm says,
“Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising.”
Young folks, where do you like to sit down? What kind of companions do you choose? Remember the Lord knows all about you. What kind of folks do you like to chat with? Where do you feel most at home? With the enemies of our Lord, or with those who love Him? You can come to the meeting and be very pious, but what about those other times when you are not in the meeting, when you are just where you want to be without the knowledge of your brethren? What kind of companions do you enjoy? It is a wholesome thing for the soul to know,
“Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.”
God knows what we think about, and we are responsible for our thought-life. We are responsible for that part of our thought-life that is the fruit of our will. Your thought-life will have more to do with your spiritual development, your spiritual character, more power in forming it than your very acts. The thought-life is the basis of your whole character, and it is a dangerous thing for any of us to allow, to encourage, or to cherish wrong thoughts.
The Lord knows all about our thoughts. He doesn't judge us just by the words that fall from our lips, He knows what we think about, every imagination of the heart is known to Him.
That sounds strenuous, doesn't it? That is God's recipe for wholesome thinking. It is the only standard. Christ must be the standard of our thinking as well as our acting.
(To be continued)