Does God know our thoughts?

The psalmist felt himself searched out fully in the presence of God — such a searching that he himself had been unable to accomplish. Every movement was known by God, whether sitting or rising. He not only knows, but understands the thoughts passing through every mind. He understands them better than we do (v. 2). Of course, it is staggering to think that this is so in regard to the untold millions of people He has created!

Whether active or whether lying down, we are always subject to God's comprehension (v. 3), and our activities are always under His observation. Every word that issues from our lips is perfectly known by Him who has said, "By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matt. 12:37). For our words are an index to the condition of our hearts, and the great Judge of all takes full account of these as well as our actions. If we keep this in mind, we shall surely be preserved from much evil.

What is brought before us in this psalm is the searching power of the Spirit of Jehovah. It is not merely the omniscience of God, nor His omnipresence, which is felt when the truth of this psalm is realized, but the soul is brought into the presence of God. The very innermost recesses of the heart are pervaded by an all-searching power. "Thou understandest my thought afar off." The conduct, the walk, and the words — indeed, all that flesh is and does — are known, but known in such a way that the soul becomes conscious of the searching power of the Spirit of God.

It is not that anyone might say, "God knows everything; and, of course, He knows all about me." A person might have that consciousness and yet not know what it is to be searched by the Spirit of God. We must come into the sense of it. Until it is so there will not be the full sense of what the salvation of God is.

"O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me." Evidently not for His own information. Why then were we searched? We were searched that we might know ourselves. This is what we have to learn in the beginning of God's dealings with us. We naturally do not desire to be searched, for nothing good morally is found in us. Our Lord says to His disciples "If ye then, being evil" (Luke 11:13). What shall God learn by His searchings? Nothing from us. But we may learn a great deal, and we shall learn very much if we answer to His searchings, and we are glad that we are searched.

He is become unhappily self-conscious. But it is not a feeling that other human beings are reading his secret thoughts, but that God is taking account of his inward being, and that from Him nothing can be hidden. He speaks of God knowing his down-sitting and uprising, and being acquainted with all his ways, for, he says, "There is not a word in my tongue, but, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether." ... It is not only that his movements are all observed, but his thought afar off is understood.

Every human being has been searched by Omniscience, whether he is conscious of it or not. This will be made clear "in the day when God will judge the secrets of men." The searching of "the thoughts and intents of the heart" by the word of God now, is the means of bringing God's knowledge into application to our conscience before "that day." And when this is the case, then are we conscious that our thoughts are understood afar off, and that there is not a word in the tongue, but the Lord knoweth it altogether.

We must recognize then that God knows us, knows us just as we are, knew us from the very outset, as He says to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee" (Jer. 1:5) ... God knows us from the beginning to the end of our course.

It is a wonderful thing that the Lord came into this world and took all our sorrows and trials, but was entirely above them all. He was thus able to take up everything that was of God, and at the same time to show what the state of man really was, just as the word of God divides soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. As the perfect light and mind of God, it comes and dissects our hearts, recognizing everything that is of God, and showing what we are.

God says, "Your heart and Mine want to have a little talk together. I am going to show you what is in your heart, and to show you that I know it." He has brought you to Himself; and do you think that, if all that is in your heart is not brought out to Him, it will be all right between you?

The natural man says, "Whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" But at the end (Ps. 139) he says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart." ... Are you content to have every motive searched out? It must be so if our communion with God and joy in Him is to be full and uninterrupted.

Under the sheltering certainty that God has searched and known us (as expressed in the first verse of this psalm), we can turn this truth into a prayer, and say, in the words of the concluding verses, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." None but he who knows the shelter of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the mercy seat of God, and is conscious that God has already searched him, and known him, could put up such a prayer.