Assurance in the Darkest of Times

Nathan Klahsen   -  

Have you ever been walking around in our home or just outside and had that feeling like someone is watching you? It can be an unsettling feeling.  The feeling comes, and you start to look around, and you don’t see anyone.  However, if you’ve watched enough movies as I have, the fear is that you look around, and you lock eyes with someone who is watching you.  It can be unsettling to have someone watching you.  But we do live in a world that is always watching.  Even at my home, I have a camera outside that records around our house.  If it is the street corner or the store you walk into, some people are watching all over.  It’s like the world is trying to see everything.  The reality is, though, that they can’t see everything.  Even with cameras at every corner, you will not be able to catch everything.  In Psalm 139, King David writes a beautiful song that comes out of the attributes of who God is.  It’s a reflection on specific attributes, which guides his worship.  In verses 1 to 6, David reflects on the all-knowing God.

Psalm 139:1–6 ESV

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

David comes out of the gate with a statement of God’s amazing all-knowing attribute.  He is the Lord who has searched me and known me!” Everything that could be known about you he knows.  He knows everything: when you sit down or lie down.  He knows the thought you will think, not just the ones you have thought.  He knows the words you will say and are about to say.  Our God is omniscient.  He is all-knowing.  God knows everything as 1 John 3:20 says, “for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” He just doesn’t know the little details of your life, but those of everything around us.  We get that from Matthew 10:29 because God even knows when a sparrow falls or when we lose a single hair (Matthew 10:29-30). Not only does God know everything that will occur until the end of history itself (Isaiah 46:9-10), but look at verse 4, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether”: Let that sit in you for a bit, our God also knows our very thoughts, even before we speak them. He knows our hearts from afar; He even saw us in the womb (Psalm 139:1-3, 15-16). In 1 King, Solomon expresses this truth perfectly when he says, “For you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind” (1 Kings 8:39).

So what do I do with this? David breaks into praise, as he says in Psalm 139:6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” David’s worship comes out of the reflection of who God is.  For you and me, the outcomes of growing in our understanding of God is more worship, more awe, more wonder.   

Think about this.  I mean, deeply think about this.  If God is all-knowing, there is nothing too hard for him, and it’s because of the faith we have in such a God that we can rest secure in Him, knowing that He promises never to fail us as long as we continue in Him. He has known us from eternity, even before creation. God knew you and me. He knew where we would appear in time.  He knew who we would interact with.

As I think about this, I am hit even harder with that he even foresaw our sin in all its ugliness and depravity. But it doesn’t stop there, because, in love, He set His seal upon us and drew us to that love in Jesus Christ.  It is because God so perfectly know you, that he can perfectly save you.  From the darkest of sins and deepest secrets, he knows them.  And because he knows them, he can perfectly save you.  You just need to look to Ephesians 1:

Ephesians 1:3–6 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

If you are in Christ, you will see Him face to face, but our knowledge of Him will never be complete. Our wonder, love and praise of Him shall go on for eternity as we bask in the rays of His heavenly love, learning and appreciating more and more of our omniscient, all-knowing, God. What an amazing God we serve.  Let us praise our God in light of how he has shown himself to us.  May we let out a joyful sound, proclaiming, “How precious to me are your thoughts, or God! How vast is the sum of them!” Even in the darkest of times, this passage assures me as I hope it does for you too.