2551. God’s Knowledge Of Sin

No. 2551-44:13. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, October 19, 1884, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, January 9, 1898.

Oh God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from you. {Ps 69:5}

1. It seems, then, that the best of men have a measure of foolishness in them, and that, sometimes, that foolishness shows itself. How gentle and tender ought we to be with others who are foolish when we remember how foolish we are ourselves! How sincerely ought we to rejoice in Christ as made wisdom by God to us, when we see the folly that is bound up in our hearts, and which too often shows itself in our talk and in our actions! Yet while the best of men have folly in them, it is one of the marks of a good man that he knows it to be folly, and that he is willing to confess his sin before God. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If we stand as the Pharisee stood in the temple, and cry, “God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are,” we shall go home, as the Pharisee did, without the justification which comes from God. It is the truly good man who stands afar off with the tax collector, and cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and he also shall go to his house “justified rather than the other.”

2. There is one solemn thought which deeply impresses the man who is right at heart, but who sees his own foolishness and sin, and mourns it; and that thought is, that God sees it, and sees it more perfectly than he sees it himself. His own sight of it makes him repent, and humble himself; and his knowledge of God’s sight of it helps him to that repentance and humiliation. God sees everything concerning every man; but most of men do not care about God seeing them, they do not give it so much as a passing thought. It is the gracious man, the child of God who, from a broken heart, cries out, “Oh God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from you.” And it is this that makes a Christian man so greatly value the precious blood of Christ, and the perfect righteousness which Jesus Christ has worked out; albeit that omniscience still perceives sin, yet justice does not perceive it. God knows we are sinners, but he imputes to all believers the righteousness of Christ, and looks on them as they are in him. He cleanses us in the precious blood of Jesus, so that we are clean in his sight, and “accepted in the Beloved.” What a wonderful atonement is what hides from God what cannot be hidden, so that God does not see what, in another sense, he must always see, and forgets what it is impossible for him, in another sense, ever to forget! In a just and judicial way, God casts our sin behind his back, and ceases to see iniquity in his people because they are entirely clean through washing in the —

    Fountain filled with blood,
    Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.

3. Now, looking at our text, I am going to call attention to the great truth of the omniscience of God, desiring that each one of us may say from our heart, “Oh God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from you.”

4. I. First, concerning God’s knowledge of man’s sin, I remark that IT MUST BE SO. I am not going to argue, but just to talk a little to set this truth before you with greater assurance of certainty.

5. God must know our foolishness, for, first, he is infinite in knowledge. We cannot conceive of a God whose knowledge is bounded. That condition belongs to the finite, the creature, but not to the Infinite, the Greater, the great First Cause of everything. God knows all the past, and all the present, and all the future. He knows all the things that might have been, and are not. He knows what might have come out of certain germs, and what yet may come, which at the present seems to be far remote. All knowable things must be known to the Most High; the very nature of God implies it; and, hence, he must know my foolishness, for I know something of it myself; he must know much more than I know; and my sins are not hidden from him, for they are not altogether hidden from myself. God must know perfectly what I only perceive in part, though that partial perception is terrible to my own heart. Yes, the infinite knowledge of God is an absolute certainty; and, consequently, his knowledge of the folly and sin of every heart is beyond all question.

6. Moreover, God is everywhere present. At all times, he is in every place; and, hence, our foolishness and sin must be known to him. It is not merely that you committed a folly or a sin, and that it was reported to God. No, but he was there during the doing of it. What even though the blinds were drawn, and the doors were tightly closed? Yet HE was there; and all through the sin, he stood by you, and observed your every thought and every movement. There is no darkness that hides from him, nor any other form of screen that can be used to shut out the glances of the eye of the Eternal. He does not see from a distance, but he is on the spot. You cannot conceive of a place where God is not, for he fills all space. There could no more be a boundary to his existence than to his knowledge; and, hence, we are sure that our text is true, “Oh God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from you.”

7. Moreover, God is also everywhere perceiving. He is never a blind God, nor a blindfolded God. His knowledge is never, even for a moment, suspended, and rendered intermittent; but, just as his presence is on the highest hill and in the deepest cavern, far away on the wild sea or in the plain where the foot of man has scarcely made a track, so, in that presence, there is a constant sight, an unfailing observation at all times. You would not, I hope, reduce God to the level of one who has eyes, and does not see. “He who planted the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not see?” The fact that eyesight and hearing come from him proves how abundantly he possesses those faculties himself. He sees and he hears in every place, and there was never anything done by man without his knowledge. The secret murder, the silent plot where everyone had sworn an oath of secrecy, all was known to God. There was never a thought in a human mind, although the man had not uttered it in words even to himself, yet the Lord perceived it. Does this not make the fact certain that he knows my foolishness, and that my sins are not hidden from him? Infinite in knowledge, everywhere present, and everywhere perceiving everything, he must know my foolishness and my sin. Dr. Watts forcibly expresses this idea in his hymn on God’s omnipresence, —

    In all my vast concerns with thee,
       In vain my soul would try
    To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee
       The notice of thine eye.
    Thy all-surrounding sight surveys
       My rising and my rest;
    My public walks, my private ways,
       And secrets of my breast.
    If wing’d with beams of morning light,
       I fly beyond the west;
    Thy hand, which must support my flight,
       Would soon betray my rest.
    If o’er my sins I think to draw
       The curtains of the night;
    Those flaming eyes that guard thy law
       Would turn the shades to light.
    The beams of noon, the midnight hour,
       Are both alike to thee:
    Oh, may I ne’er provoke that power
       From which I cannot flee!

8. Besides that, God is always reading the heart. We have heard a good deal about thought-reading; I hope that most of you will never be gifted in that direction, for such a power would make it very unpleasant for many. One said that he wished that he had a window in his heart, so that everyone might read his thoughts. I think that, if he were at all a sensible man, he would want to pull the blind down before long. There is something which, now and again, crosses the purest mind which he would not wish another to perceive; and he who watches his thoughts with an exemplary vigilance will sometimes be off his guard, and tolerate a thought which he would not wish to pollute any other person’s mind. But though we cannot read each other’s hearts, God can read them. There is no possibility of lying to the Lord so as to deceive him. He reads the hypocrite when he puts on his fine vestments, and prays his prayer in the most devout style, and even when he gets into his prayer closet, and bows before his God only in a formal manner. We may have performed what looked like a holy deed, we may have sung a solemn psalm, we may have appeared to our fellow men to be among the excellent of the earth; but if it is not really so, no one can hide himself in secret, or conceal the deceit of his spirit in the dark place from the eyes of the Most High. Though you should climb to the top of Carmel in the pride of your heart, or go down with Jonah to the bottoms of the mountains in your deceit, yet he shall find you out and strip you, and unmask you, and set you in the sunlight to be despised by men and all intelligent beings, as they also shall see your insincerity. Oh beloved, God must have seen my foolishness, and my sins cannot be hidden from him, since he reads the secrets of the heart, and the tortuous {a} passages of the soul are easily threaded by his unerring wisdom!

9. We are certain that he also knows our foolishness and our sin because he knows what is yet to be. To know what men have already done, is a light matter compared with knowing what men will yet do. There are black crimes which are recorded by Moses in Scripture which Moses never could have known if God had not first seen them and then communicated the knowledge of them to him. There are many incidents mentioned in the Pentateuch which could only have come to the knowledge of Moses through the revelation of the Spirit of God, and therefore God himself knew all about those events; but, throughout the prophecies, there are intimations of the sins of men that would yet be committed, and more especially that sin of sins, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ; that crime of crimes is described in all its dreadful details. Now, if God saw all that, and recorded it by the agency of his servants centuries before it happened, there can be no hope that anything which has ever occurred has escaped the observation of the Most High. You are all books, and every page is open to the eye of the great Reader, who reads you from the first letter to the last. There is nothing which any man here can possibly conceal from God. Men love what they call secrets, yet there are no such things in very truth where God is concerned, for he observes everything. It does not matter what it may be, minute or majestic, malevolent or benevolent, a curse or a blessing, it all passes before that eye which never wearies or sleeps, or allows anything to escape its notice. It is so, it must be so; if God is God, he knows my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from him.

10. II. Now let us just turn the current of our thought while I ask, concerning God’s knowledge of man’s sin, IN WHAT WAY IS IT? If God knows, in what particular way does he know?

11. The answer is, that it is complete knowledge; the Lord knows us altogether. I must confess that I cower down beneath that thought. That the Lord should know my public service, is sufficiently awe-striking; but that he should know my private thoughts, ah! this sinks me into the very dust! The Lord knows not only the action, but the motive for the action; all the thoughts that went with my action, all the pride and self-seeking that came after it, and spoiled it, when otherwise it might have been praiseworthy. “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord ponders the hearts.” The word “ponders” means that he weighs us, he takes the specific gravity of our actions. They may cover a great surface, yet there may be no real substance in them at all; but the Lord weighs them as goldsmiths weigh the metal that is subjected to their test. He takes care not to be deceived by anything that is apparent to our fellow men. “The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the Lord tries the hearts.” There is nothing hidden from God’s eye, every individual part of us is open to his perpetual inspection; think of that. God’s knowledge is complete, and baffles all evasion.

12. It is also the knowledge of a holy Being. You perhaps know some people who see all they can, yet do not see all that can be seen. It is with them as it was with the lady who said to Turner, as she looked at one of his notable paintings, “Mr. Turner, I have never seen anything like that.” “No,” replied the artist, “I do not suppose that you have seen it; do you not wish that you could?” So, when God looks at a man’s life, he sees infinitely more in it than the man ever saw in it himself, or than all his fellow creatures have seen. The keen eye of envy and of malice will detect a fault, if there is fault; but keener is the eye of perfect holiness. The Lord’s eyes are as a flame of fire; being himself essential truth, he truly discovers everything that is within us, and makes no mistakes. When we are dealing with God, mistakes on his part are quite out of the question. He knows us according to the way of a perfectly holy Being; and many a thing, that looked white to us, is absolutely black to God. His eyes can see according to the clear white light of heaven; but you and I can only see in some one ray of faint light; we do not see as God sees. We shall one day be holy as he is holy, and we shall then look on the affairs of this life in a strangely different light from how we look on them now; and when we once get to heaven, we shall realize how foolish we were to form the judgments that we did form while we were here. “Now we see through a mirror dimly; but then face-to-face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.” Think of this, dear friends; the eyes that see you are the eyes of a perfectly holy God, who therefore more readily discovers your shortcomings and your sins than all the eyes of men could do.

13. Reflect, again, that God knows us with an enduring knowledge. It is a great mercy that time brings with it an assuagement of our sorrows by the oblivion in which it steeps us. You lost your mother, and you could not have lived a month suffering the pangs that you felt in the moment that you experienced your loss. All your losses are the same as they were when they first befell you; but they do not eat into your spirit with that terrible force which was in them at the first, for time has taken off their edge. It is so with sin; the first time that the youth told a lie, he could not sleep; but that first lie was forty years ago, and he is almost sorry that I have brought it to his memory now. After a while, time covers up the memory of sin, and we think that God has covered it up; but every sin, even of fifty years ago, is present to God’s eye just as if you were committing it at this moment; and your whole life does not stand out to him as the dim past and the bright present, it is all present to him. Just as when a man looks on a map, and the entire country is before him, so God looks down on our life as it is spread out for his inspection, and he sees it all at once. Up from the graves of forgetfulness where you have buried them, your sins perpetually rise, and confront the judgment seat of God. Think seriously of this matter, for it is in this way that God knows our foolishness, and that our sins are not hidden from him.

14. The Lord has an eternal knowledge of our sins; he never will forget them. If they are not washed away by the blood of Christ, he never can forget or cease to be angry because of them. He has written the record of man’s sin in a book; he intends it, therefore, to remain. He says, “Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?” It is as if he had stored men’s sin up, to be called as a damning witness against them in that great day when every action and word and thought shall pass before the judgment seat. I do not know how this thought makes you feel, but it makes me tremble while I speak of it.

15. For, further, all our sins are known to him who is to be our Judge. There will be no need of witnesses in that last dread day, for the Judge knows all about us. There will be no need to call this one and that to bear testimony concerning our sin, for the Judge saw it, and heard it, and he has never forgotten it, nor does his memory fail him concerning any of the details. He will flash that eternal light of his into the conscience of the criminal, and write on the tablet of his heart the revived memory of all that he had forgotten; and there cannot be a more terrible hell for a man than to be in the grasp of his memory and of his conscience in the last great day. Yet it will be so, and I implore each unconverted man to remember that his foolishness and his sin are known to him to whom he must give an account at the day of judgment.

16. One more thought might, perhaps, tend to impress some who have not yet felt the force of this truth; and that is, that this knowledge will be published. If God knows about our sin, it is tantamount to everyone knowing about it. “Oh!” someone says, “I trust it will not be so; I hope that no one knows about that dark deed of mine.” I tell you, sir, everyone shall know about it, “for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hidden, that shall not be known.” There shall come a day, the day for which all other days were made, when the books shall be opened, and every man shall give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they have been good or whether they have been evil; and, further, our Saviour said, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment.” Can we bear to have it all known? Yet it shall be known, written as across the sky, when those we have deceived and deluded shall discover what we were, and we shall wake up to everlasting shame and contempt unless we find shelter in the atoning sacrifice, and be washed in the precious blood of Christ. If I could speak of these solemn truths as I ought to speak of them, they would move your hearts; I pray God that they may.

17. III. And now, thirdly, WHAT THEN? If God sees everything, and sees it in the way I have tried to describe, what then?

18. Why, first, how frivolous must those be who never think about it! A man is about to commit a crime; but his child is present, so he hesitates; or someone looks in at the window, and he cannot do the wrong he intended. How is it that men will tremble under the eye of a child, and almost at the presence of a dog, and yet God’s presence is nothing at all to them? A man, about to steal, had taken his child with him to help him secure the booty. He looked all around, and said, “There is no one here, boy”; but the lad said, “Father, there is one way you did not look; you did not look up. God can see you.” Just so, men do not look up; and if you tell them that God sees them, of what account is he to them? This is practical atheism, yet men say that they would not have crucified Christ. Sirs, as far as you can, you do kill God, for you put him out of your thoughts, you make nothing of him, and what is that but the crucifixion of God? You despise him so much that his presence has no effect on you, though the presence of any mortal man would have stopped you from committing your sin.

19. Next, dear brethren, what care this ought to work in us! How diligently we ought to do our work for God, how earnestly we ought to pray, when we know that we always have the great Taskmaster’s eye on us; or, better still, that dear eye that looks in pity on us, when we were lost and ruined! The eye of the Well-Beloved, who gave himself for us, is always fixed on us. “Fight, my children,” said a Highland chieftain, “fight and conquer; for your chieftain, though he lies here bleeding, has his eye on you.” And they fought like tigers under their leader’s eye; and so should Christians fight against sin when the eye of the beloved Captain, who died for them, is always on them. There must be no sleeping, there must be no “scamping” {rushing} of our work, as bad workmen do when the foreman is away. It must be gold, silver, and precious stones that we build with, and every stone must be well laid on the one great foundation; everything must be done at the very best, because God sees it. You know how the heathen sculptor put it; he was working with his chisel and hammer on the back part of a statue of which only the front was to be seen. The hinder part was to be built into the wall, so someone said to him, “Why are you toiling so elaborately at what will be hidden in the wall?” He answered, “The gods can see inside the wall.” The heathen gods could not see, but our God can, and, hence, the secret part of one’s life is, perhaps, the most important part of it. What is never meant for the eye of man, but entirely for the eye of God, ought to have a double care exercised in the perfecting of it, so that his eye may rest on it with a sacred satisfaction, according to his abounding grace and mercy.

20. And what holy trembling this ought to put within us! It is often a joy to think that God knows everything; it was a true comfort for Peter when he could say, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” It is a great joy, when you are slandered and misrepresented, to be able to say, “Well, God knows the way that I take; and when he has tried me, he will bring me out as gold. My true record is on high, so I need not fear what the record may be below.” That is a very delightful thought. At the same time, can any among you look forward to that last great day without some trembling? Does it not take all your faith in the atoning blood and in the Divine Substitute to gird up your loins so that you may face that day without fear, indeed, and even that you may live now in the full conviction that your life is all known to God?

21. Just let us think for a minute or two more about this subject, and then I will close. The Lord knows all about us, so that he knows our omissions. I do not know any subject that so much depresses me, humbles me, and lays me in the dust, as the thought of my omissions. It is not what I have done, about which I think so much as of what I have not done. “You have been very useful,” one says. Yes, but might I not have been ten times more useful? “You have been very diligent,” says another. Yes, but might I not somehow have been more diligent? Might I not have done my work in a better spirit? If I had been better, would not my work have been better? If I had borrowed more of my Master’s strength, which I might have had, might I not have accomplished much more? Do you ever feel satisfied with yourself? If so, I would advise you to fling that satisfaction out of the window, as Jehu said of the painted Jezebel, “Throw her down.” A sense of satisfaction with yourself will be the death of your progress, and it will prevent your sanctification. Many a man might have been sanctified if he had not thought that he was already sanctified; by that thought he clutched the shadow, and so he lost the substance. Watch that such a thing as that does not happen to you.

22. Our Lord knows all the faults of our holy things; — the coldness of our prayers, the wandering of our thoughts, the scantiness of our alms-giving, and the hardness of our hearts, so that they do not go in generous tenderness with the gift we feel bound to bestow. Our sermons, our Bible-readings, our Sunday School teachings, — the Lord sees the faults of them; while our friends often see the excellencies of them. I have had many abusive letters at different times of my life, but especially in the early part of my career in London I think that I had as much abuse as ever fell to the lot of anyone; but, as I read letter after letter, I said to myself, “Oh foolish writers, if you knew me better, you could say sharper things than these, that would sting me much more; but, happily, you have never been able to lay your hands on the truth yet. You have had to tell a lie in order to abuse me, and that does not hurt me a bit. If you had known me as God does, you might have had something to say which would have caused me great sorrow.” If men could read the secrets of your soul, sincere though you have tried to be, they would see such failures, and slips, and errors, that you would not dare to set your holiest things in the light of day; yet the Lord knows the sins even of your holy things.

23. Then the Lord also knows our insincerity. That is a very tender point. “We do not lie,” we say; but is there any man among us who is perfectly true? When you prayed, did you not say a little more than you had ever attained in your own experience? Or you were talking about yourself, and you wished to be very sincere and truthful, but you added just a touch of colour into the picture, did you not? At least, you painted yourself with your finger over your scar; there are not many like Oliver Cromwell, who said, “If you do make a portrait of me, paint me as I am, — warts and all.” You may do that with the warts on your forehead, but I question whether you would like the warts on your character to be seen. “I hate flattery,” one says. Why, you are flattering yourself all the while that you are saying that. “But,” one says, “I do feel that I am humble.” Do you? Then I guess that you are not really so, for he who is humble still laments his pride, and so shows his humility better than in any other way. But, whatever we are, God sees all our insincerity, and there is nothing hidden from him.

24. Lastly, the Lord knows — and this is the best thing that he does know about us — he knows, concerning some of us, that we are clinging to Christ alone. Unless I am utterly deceived, I can truthfully say to the Lord Jesus Christ, —

    Other refuge have I none,
    Hangs my helpless soul on thee.

Can you not say the same, dear friend? If you can, take heart. Do not be afraid of God knowing everything, but rather say, as we read a little while ago, “Search me, oh God, and know my heart: test me, and know my thoughts: and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Pray with David, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Come and cast yourself on the omniscience of God, desiring to be cleansed, — spirit, soul, and body, — and made fit to enter where the redeemed and glorified Church adores the Lord for ever without fault before his throne.

25. May God bless this searching message to every one of you, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

{a} Tortuous: Full of twists, turns, or bends; twisted, winding, crooked, sinuous. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 139}

1. Oh LORD, you have searched me, and known me.

God does not need to “search” us, for that implies a lack of knowledge, a knowledge obtained by search. But the meaning of the text, is, that God knows us as well as if he had examined us through and through, just as a custom officer searches a house to find contraband goods. “Oh Lord, you have searched me, and known me.”

2. You know my sitting down, and my rising up,

“Such commonplace things as these, my sitting down at home, my rising up to go to my business, you, oh Lord, do observe and know even such minor matters as these.”

2. You understand my thought afar off.

“Before the thought has entered my mind, you know what it will be. When I run far away from you in my own apprehension, you are still so near to me that you can hear my mind think, and you know the meaning of my thought when I try to think crookedly.”

3. You surround my path and my lying down,

“You surround me when I go out, or when I rest at home; when I labour, or when I sleep. You set a ring-fence all around my every action and my non-action, too.”

3. And are acquainted with all my ways.

“You know all that I do, as one who is most intimate and familiar with me. You, great God, ‘are acquainted with all my ways.’ ”

4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, oh LORD, you know it altogether.

“Not only the words from my tongue, but the words still on my tongue, are known to you, oh Lord.” As we sang just now,

    My thoughts, before they are my own,
    Are to my God distinctly known;
    He knows the words I mean to speak,
    Ere from my opening lips they break.

5. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid your hand on me.

“I am taken as in an ambush: I am held captive; I cannot get away. ‘You have hedged me behind and before’; — more than that, you have arrested me, ‘laid your hand on me.’ ”

6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain to it.

“You have it, but I cannot reach it. You have it, but ‘I cannot attain to it.’ ”

7, 8. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you there:

For so it runs in the Hebrew. The translators put in the word “are,” as you can see by the italics. “If I ascend up into heaven, you there,” that is all the psalmist says.

8. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you.

Again it is more emphatic without the words supplied by the translators. “You, oh God, are in the depths as well as in the heights, you are everything in every place, you are all in all.”

9, 10. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there your hand shall lead me,

“I cannot go anywhere unless you enable me to go.”

10, 11. And your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me”; even the night shall be light around me.

“There is no escaping that way, for the night shall be transformed into light; and I shall be as clearly perceived in the darkness as in the daylight.”

12. Yes, the darkness does not hide from you;

“It hides from eyes which are only mortal; but you are pure spirit, and you do not discern through the impinging of light on the retina of the eye.”

12. But the night shines as the day: the darkness and the light are both the same to you.

Now the psalmist goes back to the very foundation and origin of his being.

13. For you have possessed my inward parts:

“You are within the secret portions of my bodily frame.”

13, 14. You have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:

Hence Galen, the oldest and the best-known of the ancient surgeons, was accustomed to say that an undevout anatomist must be mad, as another said that an undevout astronomer was mad, for there is such a marvellous display of skill and wisdom, delicacy and force, in the making of a man, that we may each say, “I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

14-16. Marvellous are your works; and that my soul knows very well. My substance was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and skilfully created in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, yet being imperfect; and in your book all my members were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

He still dwells on his birth, and all that went before it, and he did well to speak of those marvels. We are too apt to forget God’s goodness to us in our infant days; but we should remember that we do not come into this world without a Creator, and in that Creator we find a Friend, the best we have ever had, the best we ever can have. Oh, for grace never to wish to stray away from him in whom we live, and move, and have our being!

17. How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them!

How often God has thought of each one of us! Remember that, if you were the only man in all the world, he would not think more of you than he does now that you are only one of myriads of myriads. The infinite mind of God is not divided by the multiplicity of the objects brought before it, but his whole mind is used to contemplate each individual. What deep thoughts, what bright thoughts, what faithful thoughts, God has had concerning us! “How precious also are your thoughts to me, oh God! How great is the sum of them!”

18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awaken, I am still with you.

“Whether I sleep or are awake, you are with me; but, better still, I am with you. Before I fell asleep, I put my soul into your hands; and when I awoke, I found it there.”

19. Surely you will slay the wicked, oh God:

It cannot be that God, who sees everything, will tolerate the wickedness of men for ever. It cannot be that he will permit all crime and villainy and blasphemy to escape with impunity: “Surely you will slay the wicked, oh God.”

19. Depart from me therefore, you bloody men.

“I do not want to be with you, or to have you with me, in the day when God metes out vengeance on the ungodly.”

20-22. For they speak against you wickedly, and your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate them, oh LORD, who hate you? And am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred: I consider them my enemies.

We are bound to love our own enemies, but we are not bound to love God’s enemies. We are to wish them, as enemies, a complete overthrow; but to wish them, as men, a gracious conversion, so that they may obtain God’s pardon, and become his friends, and followers, and servants.

23. Search me, oh God, —

Is it not amazing that what the psalmist started with as a doctrine, now becomes a prayer? Before, he said, “Oh Lord, you have searched me, and known me.” Now he cries, “Search me, oh God,” —

23. And know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Every attribute of God works for the good of those who trust him; if you are a believer, you may ask for his infinite power to protect you, and his infinite knowledge to search you.

24. And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

May God first make that our prayer, and then graciously hear it, for his great name’s sake! Amen.

 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “God the Father, Attributes of God — The Eternal And Infinite” 182}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “God the Father, Attributes of God — Holy, Holy, Holy” 190}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Spirit of the Psalms — Psalm 139” 139 @@ "(Song 1)"}

Now Ready. 384 pages Demy 4to. 29 illustrations. Price 10s. 6d. Also issued in monthly shilling parts.

C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records, By his Wife and his Private Secretary. Vol. I., 1834 — 1854.

Extracts from Early Reviews: —

“We cordially congratulate Mrs. Spurgeon and Mr. J. W. Harrald, as well as the publishers, Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster, that at last they have been able to give to the world the opening volume of an authorised Life of the lamented Prince of Preachers, one actually compiled from his own Diary, Letters, and Records. Indeed, the work before us purports to be, and obviously is, very much in the nature of an Autobiography, which will stir and fully justify a worldwide interest. The quality and style of the printing, paper, and binding are of the best, while there are twenty-nine admirably-drawn portraits and pictures to illustrate the letterpress. … The book deserves a place in every Christian home. Our young people will find in it inspiration for the noblest kind of life and service; while those of us who are more travelled in the pilgrim pathway cannot fail to have our enthusiasm for high and holy things deeply stirred. We are glad that Mrs. Spurgeon and Mr. Harrald have undertaken the task — gigantic though, in more senses than one, it is, — of preparing and publishing a work that, when complete, will stand for some of the grandest Christian history that was ever recorded. The pages needed to be written with heart as well as hand, and their influence for good to be quickened and sealed by a sympathy born of genuine love for the subject, as well as deep devotion to the cause he both lived and died to serve. We rejoice in the rich promise of blessing which the excellence of the work so far accomplished bears, and we earnestly hope that our pastors and churches generally will, by making it known, equally well perform their part in the enterprise of adding permanence to so unique a ministry.” — The Baptist.

“The first and last word criticism has to say about C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography is that it is brimful of human interest. … There is not a dull page in the whole volume. … A quaint saying, a sensible observation, a droll anecdote; these meet the eye constantly. The book will be appreciated by thousands who cannot accept Spurgeon’s theology. … Spurgeon was intensely human. Side by side with the piety and the earnestness so characteristic of him, were the qualities of humour, or sturdy common sense, of a dry, crisp, congenial wit. Therefore he is interesting to the man on the street, and the general reader will find his Autobiography excellent reading. Literary qualities apart, this book is not unworthy to be classed with Carlyle’s ‘Reminiscences,’ Newman’s ‘Apologia,’ the ‘Autobiographies’ of Gibbon and Franklin, or the ‘Confessions’ of Augustine. … The printer has done his share of the work in the most admirable manner, the production of the volume being really exquisite.” — The Nuttingham Daily Express.

London: Passmore and Alabaster, Paternoster Buildings; and from all Booksellers.

God the Father, Attributes of God
182 — The Eternal And Infinite
1 Great God! how infinite art thou!
   What worthless worms are we!
   Let the whole race of creatures bow,
   And pay their praise to thee.
2 Thy throne eternal ages stood,
   Ere seas or stars were made;
   Thou art the Ever living God,
   Were all the nations dead.
3 Eternity, with all its years,
   Stands present in thy view;
   To thee there’s nothing old appears;
   Great God! there’s nothing new.
4 Our lives through various scenes are drawn,
   And vexed with trifling cares,
   While thine eternal thought moves on
   Thine undisturb’d affairs.
5 Great God! how infinite art thou!
   What worthless worms are we!
   Let the whole race of creatures bow,
   And pay their praise to thee.
                        Isaac Watts, 1709.

God the Father, Attributes of God
190 — Holy, Holy, Holy <7s.>
1 Holy, holy, holy, Lord!
   Be thy glorious name adored:
   Lord, thy mercies never fail;
   Hail, celestial Goodness, hail!
2 Though unworthy, Lord, thine ear,
   Deign our humble songs to hear;
   Purer praise we hope to bring,
   When around thy throne we sing.
3 There no tongue shall silent be,
   All shall join in harmony;
   That through heaven’s capacious round
   Praise to thee may ever sound.
4 Lord, thy mercies never fail:
   Hail, celestial Goodness, hail!
   Holy, holy, holy, Lord!
   Be thy glorious name adored.
            Benjamin Williams, 1778, a.

Spirit of the Psalms
Psalm 139 (Song 1)
1 Lord, thou hast search’d and seen me through;
   Thine eye commands with piercing view
   My rising and my resting hours,
   My heart and flesh, with all their powers.
2 My thoughts, before they are my own,
   Are to my God distinctly known;
   He knows the words I mean to speak,
   Ere from my opening lips they break.
3 Within thy circling power I stand;
   On every side I find thy hand;
   Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,
   I am surrounded still with God.
4 Amazing knowledge! vast and great!
   What large extent! what lofty height!
   My soul, with all the powers I boast,
   Is in the boundless prospect lost.
5 Oh may these thoughts possess my breast,
   Where’er I rove, where’er I rest!
   Nor let my weaker passions dare
   Consent to sin, for God is there.
                           Isaac Watts, 1719.

Psalm 139 (Song 2)
1 Lord, when I count thy mercies o’er,
   They strike me with surprise;
   Not all the sands that spread the shore
   To equal numbers rise.
2 My flesh with fear and wonder stands,
   The product of thy skill;
   And hourly blessings from thy hands
   Thy thoughts of love reveal.
3 These on my heart by night I keep;
   How kind, how dear to me!
   Oh may the hour that ends my sleep
   Still find my thoughts with thee!
                        Isaac Watts, 1719.