I invite you to turn then to Psalm 139, Psalm 139. This is a Psalm of David and it is so very, very relevant. It's a beautiful Psalm that speaks about who God is and who we are. As you look, as you follow it, as I read it, notice it is divided into four parts. The first part is verses 1 through 6 and speaks of God as all-seeing. The second part is 7 through 12 that speaks of God as all-surrounding. And verses 13 through 18 speaks of God as all-sustaining. And 19 through 24 speaks of God as all searching, seeing, surrounding, sustaining, and searching. So as I read this, you will follow that. Listen, this is the word of the Lord. O Lord, you have searched me, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before. You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there. If I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me and Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to You. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body all the days for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. The grass withers and the flowers fail, but the word of our God abides forever. This is the word of the Lord. Before we open this marvelous psalm, let us seek his guidance in prayer. Our Father in heaven, as we look at this psalm that declares your glory, Lord, we pray that we may understand it and that we may see how important it is to understand the greatness of God in order for us to understand who man is. O Lord, we pray that you will open our hearts and minds to this truth. In Jesus' name, Amen. Dear friends, in Jesus Christ our Lord, when I was a youngster, I had no idea what the word abortion even meant. I didn't know what it meant. It was never discussed. It was just not an issue at all. If it were done, it would have been considered a terrible crime. Today, our boys and girls all know what it is. It's very common. And it is a terrible tragedy. It is an abomination in our land. And we grieve about it. And you grieve about it. And tomorrow is the anniversary, for it was on January 22, 1973, that the Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, struck down all of the existing laws which forbade abortion throughout the country. And it opened a floodgate of abortion on demand from all areas of the country. It was a terrible thing. It's unbelievable how many young lives were just killed between that day and today. Far more than have been killed in all the wars put together. It's a terrible thing. And God's people must, must pray. we must work and as I prayed for a change of heart on the part of the legislators and the judiciary but it is so important that the minds of people be changed so let us look at this psalm tonight the first point I'd like to look at with you is the psalmist's view of God The psalmist's conception of God. He speaks in the first section about God's omniscience, that he knows everything. The second part, he speaks about God's omnipresence, that God is everywhere present. And the third part, he speaks about God's omnipotence, his power. and as an example of the power of God and the presence of God and the knowledge of God, he uses what he does in the very first manufacturing plant. Manufacture, you know, is a word that comes from Latin. Manu, M-A-N-U, is the Latin word for hand. Like a manual shift is a hand shift. Manu is hand, and facture, the second part of that word, comes from the Latin word facio, which means to make. And so you put those together. Manufacture means to make with your hands. And of course, manufacturing plants are places where people make things with their hands. Now, in Psalm 119, verse 73, it says, Your hands made me and formed me. The first manufacturing plant ever was the mother's womb. That is where God goes to work. He forms us, makes us, weaves us. And we'll get to that presently. But the psalmist first begins to talk about and speak about the knowledge of God. His omniscience, that He knows everything. And in the first verses 1 through 6, He speaks about God's knowing our character in verse 1. He knows our contemplation in verse 2. He knows our conduct, verse 3. And He knows our conversation, in verse 4. Our character, our contemplation, our conduct, and our conversation. Listen, Lord, You have searched me and You know me. That word know is full of rich, rich meaning. It doesn't just mean a casual acquaintance. It means a thorough, intimate understanding and knowledge and also a care and a love. There is an intimacy and a love in this knowledge that God knows us and He loves us. We are His creatures. We are made with His intimate, tender, loving care. The psalmist says, O Lord, and the word Lord is the word Jehovah. Now we all know what that word means. When Moses at the burning bush said, and whom shall I say sent me? God said, tell them that I am that I am sent you. He is the I am that I am. He's our covenant keeping God. He is the one who searches us and knows us intimately. And He now lays out what He knows. First, He knows our character. He knows what kind of people we are. He knows when we sit and when we rise. Notice the psalmist doesn't just say He knows the big things in our life, Like our wedding day, when our child was born, or what we do, those big things. No, He talks about the common, ordinary things that everyone experiences. Sitting down and standing up. The Lord, our covenant God, knows when I sit down, and He knows when I rise. I mean, He knows that. And the psalmist says He knows me. But it is not only true that He knows me. He knows everyone. Can you imagine that? There are four billion people on earth right now. Do you think that God knows all of them? Do you think that any person on this earth who reads the Psalm 139 can say, Me, to that He knows me too, when I sit and when I rise. God is infinite. There is no limit to His knowledge. There is no limit to His power. No limit to His understanding. That's the kind of God we serve. He's the God who speaks to you every Sunday through His Word. He is the God who has written and given us this Bible. He knows us through and through our character, our contemplation. He perceives my thoughts from afar. Our thoughts, what you're thinking of, He knows it. You discern my going out and my lying down, my conduct. My public conduct, when I'm going out, and my private conduct, when I'm lying down. Is our private conduct our own business and no one else's? No one has any responsibility to look at my private life as my business, nobody else's? Oh no, not at all. It's God's business too. He knows my lying down, my private life. He knows it through and through. And He knows my public life. He knows everything about me. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, He knows our conversation. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in behind and before. You hem me in. We are in God's focus. You know, you take a picture. The modern cameras focus the picture itself. You get the object and all of a sudden it will come to perfect focus. This psalmist says that you and I are in God's perfect focus all the time. You hem me in behind and before. The Lord like has a fence around us and here we're in it. And He knows us completely. His eye is upon us. And there is nothing that escapes His attention. And there is absolutely no surprise. A little later on in this psalm, he says, All the days were ordained for me before one of them came to be. He knows the day of your birth. Well, you know that too. But you don't know the day of your death. He knows the day of your death. He knows the exact circumstances that will take place when you breathe your last. And not only does He know it, He ordained it. He planned it. Now, should this make us shudder? It would certainly make one who is ungodly shudder. Would you want to be under the scrutiny of Almighty God if your life was lived just according to the wildness of the world? Would you want God to know all that? He knows it. How do you think we ought to feel about that? Well, how does the psalmist feel about it? He says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Do you know why the intimate knowledge of God is so wonderful for the psalmist? Because not only does he know God knows him, he knows the Father. He knows God. He says in Psalm 48, the end of Psalm 48, this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even until the very end. He knows God. He knows Jesus. You and I know Him too. And that's why we don't have to be afraid about all of the complete understanding and knowledge that God has of us. Not because we are so good. But because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is His righteousness that covers our sin. The psalmist in the end of 17 says, When I in righteousness at last thy glorious face shall see, And all this weary night is past, and I awake with Thee to view the glories that abide. Then, then will I be satisfied. Only in righteousness, covered with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, with that righteousness of Christ, then we can be scrutinized by God and say, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. But oh, those who are outside of Christ. You know what it says in the book of Revelation chapter 6? And that seal is opened where there's judgment. And the prophet John the Apostle says, and there will be those who will cry for the mountains to cover them from the face not of the judge, it says, but from the face of the Lamb. Their reaction is totally different from the psalmist. The psalmist says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Too lofty for me to attain. Is that your reaction to? Do you love the Lord? Do you know Him? Do you know Him as your personal Savior? Are you reconciled with God? Remember, that is the message that Paul was called to bring. Be ye reconciled to God. That Him who knew no sin, God made Him to be sin for us. That we might receive the righteousness of God through Him. And when that is our experience and our faith and our conviction and our assurance, then we say with the psalmist, Doth that knowledge is too wonderful for me? Well, the psalmist goes on and speaks about God's omnipresence. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn. Oh, I think of that every time we go flying. Every time I get on the airplane. Now, I talked to a man this morning. He said, when I get on an airplane, I just shake. I'm so scared. Until I pray, and then I'm at ease. Now, flying is quite common now, isn't it? Probably all of you have flown here or there. And when that plane takes off down the runway and you feel the thrust, do you pray? Do you pray? I think of this text every single time. If I rise in the wings of the dawn and you look out the window and you see the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. Isn't that a wonderful, wonderful comfort? Riding on a plane. I mean, the psalmist didn't know about airplanes. I mean, it's awesome when you think of that huge airplane just taking off and sailing through the air. But the Lord, the Lord has His hand on us. He is watching over us. Even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. And then the psalmist goes into his work, God's work in that manufacturing plant called the mother's womb. For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You know that word knit. Knit together. Knit together. You older women know how to knit. This is an art that you know. I remember my grandmother. They visited us from the Netherlands. And my grandpa had the habit of smoking. But he always would burn out his Lucifer and then put it in his pocket because grandma didn't want ashes and Lucifers laying around. So he was hoeing with my dad in the garden and he lit his pipe and put his Lucifer in his pants. And he said, Chris, I think there is a brunt. I think there is a fire. Oh, my brook, my brook. And he burned a big hole in his brook. He had two of them, two brooks. Two clay brook and a sundacht brook and a dacht brook. For six months from the Netherlands visiting us. So he went into the bedroom and we listened by the door and he was told a thing or two by grandma. but she took his trousers and she looked at the cuff underneath and took threads out of that cuff and she began to weave that hole in his trousers so that you couldn't even tell where that hole was. That weaving. Now this is what God does in the mother's womb. He knits us together. The nerves, the muscles, the arteries, the veins, the bones, every part of us is knit together by the Lord Himself. Do you know something else? This word to knit or weave, because it's found also when I was woven together in verse 16, Or end of 15. That word in the Hebrew is used exclusively for the weaving of temple or tabernacle. Either priest's garments or the curtains. That word, to weave, which is used here, is a word that speaks of sacred weaving, or the weaving of sacred things. And here you have the psalmist using that word to describe what the Lord, the Heavenly Father, is putting together in the mother's womb as that child grows and develops there. That's a sacred work. Did you notice that as we sang from the 113th Psalm, that last verse of the 113th Psalm as we started the service tonight, the barren woman feels his power and comes to sacred motherhood. Comes to sacred motherhood. There's a reason for that word sacred. It's the same reason that that word, to weave, comes from the weaving of those sacred, the holy things of the tabernacle. What is going on in the mother's womb is something holy. Holy. It's not just a blob of protoplasm. It's not just a little thing that a mother has the right to dispose of at her discretion or if she wants to and can be just eliminated from her and destroyed. Can you imagine that that is now okay in our country? Truly, it's an abomination to the Lord. That is a holy thing that the Lord is doing. I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. I've always wondered, what does that mean? The depths of the earth. What does the earth have to do with this? And then, I discovered the answer. The answer is this. God made Adam from the earth. The earth was the womb from which Adam came forth. The earth was the place where God put him together. Don't you read in Genesis 2? And God made man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. That's what the psalmist is talking about. He's talking about the original man and he's talking about all of us because isn't it true? As you recall from the words which the Lord gave in judgment to Adam and Eve, from dust you are and unto dust you shall return. And at the committal service at a cemetery it says, doesn't it? Dust to dust. We too are dust. Adam was woven together in the depths of the earth. The Lord says here, your eyes formed my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. And the reaction of the psalmist is, how precious to me are your thoughts, O God. Precious. That's how we have to look at this. That's how we have to look at our children. That's how we have to look at God's creative masterpiece. And so this psalm lays out for us so graphically and dramatically the awesome way in which He made man and made us, us. Because the psalmist talks about all this very personally. He's searched me, know me, when I sit, when I rise, and you too. and so we look at this tonight we are living in America and the constitution has granted us hasn't it certain inalienable rights among them the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness this is for every human being and the human being begins at the moment of conception when jesus was conceived by the holy spirit and born of the virgin mary was he the son of god and the son of man from that moment of conception when the angel came to mary and said hail you are highly favored the lord is with you you shall conceive in your womb and you shall bring forth a son and you shall call his name jesus and when And she said, how shall this be? The angel said, the power of the Holy One shall overshadow you. And the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon you, so that the holy thing that is born of you shall be called the Son of God. From the moment of conception, that person within her was God and man in one person with two natures right at that moment. And God said to Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. That little being in its mother's womb is a person and must be protected. And you and I as believers in the Lord, we know this. And we believe this, and we praise God for it. That this God is truly our God, and He will be our guide to the end. Oh, may the Lord grant us this today, that we may pray about this, that we may do what we can in our own witness about this. And may God bless you here in Escondido. What a wonderful opportunity you have as believers in a community of being the salt and the light here in this area. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we come into your presence this evening. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you for the power of the gospel. We thank you, Lord, that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Lead us now by your Spirit, O Lord, and bless thy word as it goes forth. In Jesus' name, amen.