Fearfully & Wonderfully Made - Psalm 139:13-16 Series

For free audio or video download of this message, visit https://www.treasuringgod.com/sermons-by-scripture or my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DarrellFerguson.

Psalm 139:1 O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, behold, you! 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 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, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Craftsman

The last two weeks in our study of this psalm we have examined five attributes of God. Today in verse 13 we come to a sixth wonderful life-sustaining, joy-giving truth about God. We could title this one Creator, since it is all about God’s work of creation, but I think it is more specific than that. It is not just God as Creator, but it is about God’s work of creating me in particular, and the amazing craftsmanship involved.

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

Known through Creation

This is still part of the discussion of God’s amazing knowledge of each of us. You are deeply and thoroughly known by God - and not just through observation. He knows you by His penetrating, omniscient gaze that can search and discern all your thoughts and motives and feelings and desires. But even beyond that, He knows you at an even deeper level. He pieced you together in the womb. If you got a new smart phone, it is one thing to learn everything about what that phone does by examining it and using it. But it is another level altogether if you were the one who wrote every line of the code in the software programs, and you designed and personally built every component in that phone and then put it all together. Every component of your being was designed and built by God.

Glorious Craftsmanship

You do not have to travel to Niagara Falls or look up at the stars to be awed by God's mighty power. All you have to do is look in the mirror.

Your Body

One of my commentaries on this verse said it would have been natural for the pre-scientific mind like David's to wonder about the development of an embryo. I just had to shake my head when I read that. It was written in the 1800's - right after the Enlightenment when they thought they knew everything. A couple hundred more years of scientific advancement has gotten us to the point where we are more baffled than ever at the development of an embryo. How do you start with a single cell, and it starts dividing, and in a matter of weeks it has a brain? And a skeleton? Most cells, when they divide, they just duplicate themselves. How does this one cell divide into 300 different kinds of cells (brain cells, skin cells, fat cells, bone cells...)? And how come those cells all just divide and create only new forms of their own cell? Skin cells only create more skin cells, never brain cells or anything else.