1 O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. 5 You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. 7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” 12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. 13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You. 19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. 20 For they speak against You wickedly, And Your enemies take Your name in vain. 21 Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22 I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:1–24, NASB)
Who is God? That seems like an important question, now, doesn’t it? It sounds like a question important enough that people would want to get a real glimpse of who God is.
Alas, too many people don’t accept God for who He is. They try to turn God on His head by creating Him in their image (even though the reverse is actually the truth!).
Too many people want a god in a box who they can pull out anytime they need Him. They want a god who will give them anything they want. They want a god who smiles at their foolishness like some cosmic grandparent. They want a god who acts, speaks and thinks like them. They want a god who looks just like them.
But that isn’t the real God at all. He’s a whole lot better than that. We sacrifice the greatness of God when we try to humanize Him. God isn’t human. He’s God, unique in all respects, the greatest Being in the universe.
To get a real glimpse of the real God, we must turn to the way He describes Himself. After all, no one knows God better than God, of course! Let’s look at God’s revelation of Himself in Psalm 139 to get the real view of who God is.
God is omnicient. verses 1-6
Don’t get scared away by large words like “omniscient.” This word is pretty simple. “Omni” means all. The suffix “scient” refers to “knowing” and looks very much like our word “science” which refers to “pursuing knowledge.” So this means God is “all-knowing” or “able to know everything knowable.”
That means He knows everything about us. But how extensive is God’s knowledge of us?
Psalm 139 first tells us that God knows our habits. He knows when we sit and stand, go and stay, lie down and get up. And as if that weren’t enough, we’re told He’s “intimately acquainted with all my ways.”
In other words, God knows everything about us. Whether we do it behind closed doors or broadcast it for all the world to see, God knows all about it.
This psalm also explains that God knows our thoughts. He even understands them “afar off” which is just another way of saying no matter where we are, God knows what we’re thinking. We have no way of dodging God’s omniscience.
He also knows what we say. He’s so adept at this that He even knows what we say before we say it. Now, imagine that! God knows the stupid things we say before we do. Oh, to have that ability. We would certainly sound a whole lot smarter!
God can already do that. He already knows our speech before we utter it. That’s how great He is. It should blow us away just as it did the psalmist. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,” he wrote. “It is too high; I cannot attain it.”
The point is that God really does know everything. He is the definition of a “know-it-all.” The difference is He really does know it all because He’s omniscient.
God is omnipresent. verses 7-10
God is everywhere. That’s what the second section of Psalm 139 proclaims and what omnipresent means. Just like His omniscience states He knows eveyrthing that is knowable, God’s omnipresence allows Him to be anywhere that exists. Earth, heaven, hell — it doesn’t matter. God’s presence is there because God is everywhere.
He is spirit, and, because of this, He doesn’t have to worry about being confined to any one particular place. This allows His presence to fill the universe. He truly is everywhere at the same time.
But there are many spiritual beings in the universe who aren’t omnipresent. It’s because the nature of God is such that He is “naturally” everywhere at the same time. Created beings are just that. They are created. God isn’t created but creates everything. This allows Him to live outside everything else and be everywhere.
We find the most comforting fact in all this in verse 10. If God is truly everywhere, we don’t have to worry about anything, no matter where we are. The fact that His “hand will lay hold” of us is great comfort when it seems like we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. God’s got us no matter where we are.
But be careful with this one. God being omnipresent doesn’t mean that God is “everything” or “in everything.” God is separate from His universe. That’s why He is able to be everywhere because He isn’t a part of it. He is separate from it. He is simply in all places at all times. He is omnipresent.
God is omnipotent. verses 11-16
The last of our “omnis” brings us to God’s omnipotence mentioned in the third section of this psalm. This means God is all-powerful. There is nothing that can be done that He can’t do.
God has the ability to bring to pass anything He desires. For example, Paul makes it clear in Ephesians 1 that God’s plan is what brought about Christ’s death and our salvation all so that God could glorify Himself.
How is this possible? God is omnipotent. He not only can do anything doable, He will do whatever is necessary to bring about the result He desires. He’s that powerful.
Darkness doesn’t affect Him. Light doesn’t aid Him. Why? Because He created them both. He’s above them. He controls them. He’s omnipotent over them.
He even created our very bodies. The way a human being forms in the womb is mostly a mystery to us. The way a few cells become a breathing, thinking, spiritual creation is beyond any science.
But God not only knows how everything works, He created it all! He was able to program DNA, formulate complex processes and engineer a perfect design so that we could be who we are. He created you and me. He created everything.
All this should lead us to pray “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
God truly is omnipotent.
God is loving. verses 17-18
What a precious thought this is! God is always thinking about His children. His mind is alway on us. He never sleeps, so nothing will happen to us that He doesn’t already know about which allows Him to always love us.
The difference between this and God’s omniscience is the care God shows. He doesn’t just know about us. He knows us and cares for us accordingly. He’s constantly concerned about our well-being as only a perfect Father could. So much so that His thoughts for us overflow. The ultimate expression of this love promises that God’s presence will always accompany us.
He truly is a loving God to be so concerned about His children.
God is just. verses 19-22
This one may cause some to yell “No. This can’t be true. God is love!”. Some may even ask the question “How can a loving God punish people?” The answer is simple.
The psalmist makes it clear that there are wicked people in this world whose deeds deserve punishment. God doesn’t love what they do. He hates their deeds because their deeds are evil. What they do harms the innocent, and God knows something must be done.
Can you imagine living for all eternity with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or the plethora of other evil men that have lived? A sane person would answer with a resounding “Absolutely not!”
That’s the reason why God is just, why hell exists and why people end up in hell. If God didn’t intervene and separate the wicked from the righteous, they would do the same thing they did on earth, harm the innocent. That would make heaven hell. A loving and righteous God certainly wouldn’t do that!
So the psalmist knew God is loving and also just at the same time. That’s why He has to “slay the wicked.” Otherwise the wicked would harm earth and heaven. They already “speak against” God “wickedly” here on earth. They certainly would make a mess of heaven if allowed to. God must judge them.
We also should look at the actions of the unrighteous this way. Although we don’t wage war against flesh and blood, in many ways we can say God’s enemies are our enemies. Certainly, those who hate God and His righteous ways aren’t our friends. At least they shouldn’t be!
We should pray for those people. We can’t ally with those people. They hate God and show so much through their voices and actions.
God is just and will enact His justice one day, and we should love justice as much as He.
God is holy. verses 23-24
God’s holiness punctuates this psalm. He is perfect, sinless. He is not only above His creation but immune to its faults. God’s flawless nature and actions are His holiness.
But God’s holiness doesn’t simply prove Him flawless. It also means He makes others that way. God’s holiness means He can forgive sinners their sin. In this way, God declares the sinner righteous and holy.
The psalmist knew how unrighteous he was. He knew this because he would look at the way he lived his life and see the flaws. He saw the sin. He knew he was human and needed to be forgiven of that sin.
All humans are sinners. The psalmist knew he too was human and knew he needed cleaning up.
He also knew a righteous, holy God was the only being in the universe that could clean him up. That’s why he prayed “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”
He knew that only God could ferret out sin and deal with it as it should be. He knew His only hope at forgiveness and salvation lay in the hands of a holy God. He knew that to have a right relationship with a holy God, he would have to find something he could never get on his own — holiness.
This is why he prayed “lead me in the everlasting way.” Only God could clean him up and make him right.
God is holy which makes Him the only one who can make us unholy humans holy.
So What?
If God is omniscient, He knows all about you. He knows what you need. He can take care of you.
If God is omnipresent, He always knows where you are. He never loses sight of you. He never forgets where you are. He can take care of you.
If God is omnipotent, He can do whatever needs done. He will do whatever it takes to take care of you.
If God is loving, He has the greatest motivation in the universe to take care of you.
If God is just, He will prevent anyone from harming you in any meaningful way. He will take care of you.
If God is holy, He can forgive you and make you clean no matter how much or little you have sinned. It doesn’t matter. Even if you’ve made one mistake in your life, you need God’s holy cleansing. In this way, He will take care of you if you allow Him.
You see, two-thousand years ago, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to this earth to die on a cruel cross. Think about it. The sinless Son of God, Himself holy, died as a holy sacrifice for unholy sinners, all so that we could find holiness and find God.
Have you believed in God’s Son Jesus Christ? If you haven’t you cannot be holy. Only God can make a person holy. Only His Son can give you entrance into that wonderful gift.
Believe in Jesus Christ today.
Journeys of a Former Firebrand 
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