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.

All is known to the Lord. The unseen world as well as the future; all eternity is known to Him. All is naked and open before Him. He knoweth the hearts of men, yea even our thoughts afar off, before they ever pass through our finite minds.

He is omniscient, all-knowing. He is the only Being able to do so. Solomon says in 1 Kings 8:39, “thou, thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men”. This can only be said of God. He knows the inward thoughts and feelings of every man.

God knows exactly what we are, He knows every thought, every motive, and nothing is or can be hidden from Him. In this assurance the child of God walks; he knows God is looking into his heart, and sees all things. He does not fear the look of God, who is light; nay, he is glad of it. All that he is in himself, his God knows, and he is aware that he can never take God by surprise by what he does, because God knows what he is, though very often he is a wonder of evil to himself. There is not the thinnest gossamer wail between him and God, nor yet a single step which he can ever take away from the eye of God.

Every detail of our lives is known to God; every movement of the body, and the thought of the mind and heart at its inception. Every moment of the day of activity, the time of our rest; yea, all the ways that distinguish us down here are thoroughly known to Him. Before the word that has been conceived has left the tongue it is known to God. He knows it altogether: the motive and spirit of its conception, the object of its transmission. Others may be deceived by its sound; we may deceive ourselves regarding the motive for it, but He knows everything about it perfectly. How good it is to go through life in the consciousness of these things. O that we were constantly conscious that we have to do with God in everything. Sometimes God will not let us go forward; at other times He will not let us go back, for He besets behind and before. In His governmental ways with us He knows how to keep us from ways that would dishonour Him and bring shame and sorrow to our poor hearts; and betimes He puts, His hand upon us, so that we might feel that it is Himself that is dealing with us in wisdom and in love. Do we feel with the Psalmist that the knowledge of these things is too wonderful for us? How great God is! and yet to think He stoops to deal with puny mortals; with such insignificant individuals as we are. It is indeed wonderful that God should be so interested in the creatures of his hand. Yet it is so!

We have read in Psalm 138:8 of the works of God's hands. Now the psalmist considers God's works in the details of his own existence, and because God is Creator, He therefore penetrates those details fully and perfectly. Nothing is hid from Him, including the very thoughts of the heart.

But Jesus was present not only as the One to pardon iniquities and heal diseases (Ps. 103:3), but also as the One who searches the hearts, tries the reins and knows the inmost thoughts (Ps. 94:11; Jer. 17:10). He who saw the faith of the five men perceived the reasonings of the scribes in His own omniscient spirit (cp. John 2:24; John 6:61), and not by a power temporarily imparted to Him, as might have been the case with a prophet. None but God could penetrate the secret workings of man's spirit, as Solomon confessed in his prayer (1 Kings 8:39; 1 Chron. 28:9; 2 Chron. 6:30; Ezek. 11:5), and the Lord gave the Pharisees the proof of the nature of His person by answering their thoughts. Who else could "hear them thinking"?

In Matthew 9:4 the Lord Jesus knew and answered the thoughts of men, as in fact He did in various other cases. Even Satan does not know men's thoughts: only God does. This proves Him to be God: yet immediately after He refers to Himself as "the Son of Man" (v. 6).

We are the work of His hands. Here it is man as man, so that the earth out of which he was fashioned at first is as the womb out of which we were born. God has formed us, be it in the womb of dust or of our mother, the place where we were nothing before we were. The same God has ever thought of us along the road, and here confidence has been acquired; though thus acquired it reaches to all God's creative knowledge and power. If He sees in the dark, He keeps in the dark. When we awake, and so it will be in resurrection too, we are still with Him. He knows our thoughts, but thinks of us when we think not. Thus if God knows all our thoughts, and long before His are precious to us, to such the putting down of evil is the sure expectation, yea the call for judgment on the haters of the Lord, whom we therefore abhor.

All these things afford melancholy proof of how little we live, move and have our being in the presence of God. If we could only bear in mind that God hears us and sees us — hears our every word, and sees our every thought, our every way, how differently we should carry ourselves! What holy watchfulness we should maintain over our thoughts, our tempers, and our tongues! What purity of heart and mind! What truth and uprightness in all our intercourse with our fellows! What reality and simplicity in our deportment! What happy freedom from all affectation, assumption, and pretension! What deliverance from every form of self-occupation! Oh, to live ever in the deep sense of the divine presence! To walk in the fear of the Lord, all the day long!