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Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 139:15

The Treasury of David. Browse this work.

Psalms139:15

My substance was not hid from thee, etc. What deeper solitude, what state of concealment more complete, than that of the babe as yet unborn Yet the Psalmist represents the Almighty as present even there. "My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth." The whole image and train of thought is one of striking beauty. We see the wonderful work of the human body, with all its complex tissue of bones, and joints, and nerves, and veins, and arteries growing up, and fashioned, as it had been a piece of rich and curious embroidery under the hand of the manufacturer. But it is not the work itself that we are now called on to admire. The contexture is indeed fearful and wonderful; but how much more when we reflect that the divine Artificer wrought within the dark and narrow confines of the womb. Surely the darkness is no darkness with him who could thus work. Surely the blackest night, the closest and most artificial recess, the most subtle disguises and hypocrisies are all seen through, are all naked and bare before him whose "eyes did see our substance yet being imperfect." The night is as clear as the day; and secret sins are set in the light of his countenance, no less than those which are open and scandalous, committed before the sun or on the house top. And if "in his book all our members are written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them", surely the actions of these members, now that they are grown, or growing, to maturity, and called upon to fulfil the functions for which they were created, shall be all noted down; and none be contrived so secretly, but that when the books are opened at the last day, it shall be found written therein to justify or to condemn us. Such is the main lesson which David himself would teach us in this Psalm, —the omnipresence and omniscience of Almighty God. My brethren, let us reflect for a little upon this deep mystery; that he, "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" is about our path and about our bed, and spies out all our ways; that go whither we will he is there; that say what we will, there is not a word on our tongue but he knoweth it altogether. The reflection is, indeed, mysterious, but it is also most profitable. —Charles Wordsworth, in "Christian Boyhood," 1846.

Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Psalms 139:15. Public domain.

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