“'Too Wonderful for Me': Hope in God's Omni^3-ness (Psalm 139)” | 11/15/2020
Psalm 139 | 11/15/20 | Will DuVal
This morning is gonna be our penultimate Sunday in our “Psalms of Hope” series, and we’re examining Psalm 139 together in a sermon I’ve entitled “'Too Wonderful for Me': Hope in God's Omni-Cubed-ness”. I couldn’t help myself: I miss math class so much, I try and sneak it in wherever I can: God is “omni-” to the 3rd power. Specifically, let me go ahead and give you some additional fill-in-the-blanks for the morning, in your bulletins: God is #1 - omniscient; He is #2 - omnipresent; and He is #3 - omnipotent. Those are fancy, technical ways of saying that God #1 - knows every THING; He is every WHERE; and He can DO everything.
We love theology here at West Hills. Theology is the study - logos - of God - theos. And we love it not merely out of a curious fascination, not because it makes us feel smart or “holier than thou” to use big fancy words; you can use the technical terminology or not, take it or leave it; what matters is that you understand the concepts. In last week’s sermon on Psalm 121 and our hope in God’s KEEPING, I referenced God’s “Sovereignty”, the “perseverance of the saints”, Calvinism, justification, sanctification, glorification - whether you can define them or not, you need to understand the truths about God that each of these POINT us to. We love theology because we love GOD. And when you love someone, you want to get to know them in as much depth as possible. So as believers, we love to study about, think about, talk about, worship God.
But there’s another reason we love theology, and that’s because what a person believes about God is the most important about them. Not just for eternity; yes, your theology determines your eternal destiny; “whosoever BELIEVES in Him will not perish but have everlasting life”. But it’s the most important thing about you in THIS life as well.
-For example, if you don’t have a proper understanding of God’s Sovereignty, God’s ultimate, authoritative control over everything that comes to pass here on earth, you’ll likely be prone to get very anxious, fearful, and pessimistic about the latest news on the coronavirus - the spikes, the heightened restrictions: “God, are you asleep up there? Did you forget about us?” I posted this reminder from the OT prophet Ezekiel to FB last week: ““If I send a pestilence into the land and pour out my wrath upon it... I have not done without cause all that I have done, declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 15:19-23)” God’s not asleep; he’s got a REASON for sending this virus; now, we may not LIKE it. We shouldn’t like it; God’s wrath isn’t very FUN. But it’s a vitally important component of a robust biblical theology, that ought to drive us to REPENTANCE instead of despair.
Likewise, if you don’t have a proper understanding of God’s Kingship - Psalm 47 - you were likely either unhealthily elated or deflated by last week’s election results. Theology helps us keep our tendency toward idolatry, elevating a human politician to a place of supremacy, in check.
One more example from last Sunday: if you don’t have a proper understanding of God’s KEEPING, the perseverance of the saints, then practically, as a Christian, you should not be able to fall asleep at night. If you honestly think that your remaining in Christ, in the faith, on the straight and narrow, is ultimately up to you - that you are the one who ultimately decides whether you will endure ‘til the end or you will lose your salvation, then if you have even the faintest inkling of just how sinful you really are, you shouldn’t be able to sleep at night. But... if you’ve got a biblical theology for God, as your Good and Omni-Competent, All-CAPABLE Shepherd, as Jesus said, “No one snatches my sheep out of my hand” - Jn 10:28 - then you’ll sleep soundly at night.
So theology is practical. And it is massively consequential.
If you believe God listens, you will pray.
If you believe God still speaks through His word, you will study it.
Conversely, if you believe God exists to help YOU out, you’ll get frustrated and begin to DOUBT when things don’t go your way.
If you believe God doesn’t exist at ALL, you’ll live for yourself instead of for Him.
Whether we realize it or not, our theology determines everything else about us: how we think, how we live, our priorities, everything. So as we walk through these 3 massively important doctrines, the 3 “omnis” this morning, we need to remember: this is NOT some dry, theological lecture; it certainly isn’t for King David, the author: David’s not interested in abstract, impersonal theology; this is what we might call “applied theology”, “practical theology”, PERSONAL theology. His concern, and ours as well, isn’t simply that God knows everything, but that God knows everything ABOUT ME! It’s not just that God is everywhere, but that God goes everywhere WITH ME. And it’s not enough to say that God can do everything; David recognizes that God HAS done everything FOR ME. And on the BASIS of those 3 observations, David ENDS in vv17-24 with 3 specific directives for us, the RESPONSES that a proper view of God ought to invoke from us.
So would you stand with me as you’re able, and turn in your Bibles... Psalm 139
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.[b]
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts![c]
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting![d]
This is the word of the Lord... (LET’S PRAY…)
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OUTLINE: 3 Attributes of God, inspire 3 responses from us:
#1 - God is Omniscient (-ce) (vv1-6)
God knows everything! He knows everything… about ME! He knows:
V1: my heart - “you have searched me and known me”; the Hebrew word that David uses 6 times in this chapter is yada; it refers to intimate, personal knowledge. This isn’t like, “Do you know Will DuVal? Yeah, I think I know him…” as in, “know OF him”. This is KNOW know. Like in middle school when you “LIKE liked” someone. This is KNOW know - really know. David’s gonna affirm in v13: “you formed my innermost parts”, the CORE of me, my HEART, my SOUL, the very essence of my personhood. That’s the depth at which God knows us. So the rest of what he acknowledges here is pretty straightforward, by comparison:
V2a: God knows my actions -“You know when I sit down and when I rise up”; David employs a common literary device here - called a merism - used frequently in Hebrew, we’re gonna find all OVER this chapter; but it’s when a writer uses a pair of opposites to represent the full spectrum in between. Here: if God knows when I get up in the morning and when I lay down at night, the implication is that He knows everything that happens in between as well. All day long. As he’ll say in v3, some of your translations read: “You know my going out and my lying down”; my entire DAY. Another way to interpret that, is to say that God knows my PUBLIC life - my “going out” - but he also knows my PRIVATE life as well - my “lying down”... who I am behind closed doors, when no one ELSE is watching. God knows.
But on top of THAT, v2b: God knows my thoughts too - “you discern my thoughts from afar.”
-Ps 94:11 “The Lord—knows the thoughts of man”
-There’s another implied merism here with the word “afar”; David’s gonna emphasize in v7 how NEAR God is. But here in v2 he juxtaposes that with God’s FAR-ness. The theological terminology here is God’s transcendence - he is above, beyond, independent of, even outside of everything else in the universe. God transcends time and space; He cannot be contained even by the vast scope of the Created order that He Himself brought into existence. And YET, God is simultaneously IMMINENT - he is Imma-nuel, God WITH us, He is available, He’s around; he’s not the deadbeat, absent father god portrayed by Deism, a God who cares enough to create us, but that’s about it.
-So God knows our hearts, our actions, our thoughts, and v3: He knows our FUTURES as well: “You search out my path… and are acquainted with all my ways.” Not just my previous ways; ALL my ways. God knows which path you’re gonna take before you choose it. Now, we can have the philosophical debate over whether or not you can truly have free will in any meaningful sense of the term, or whether God’s pre-knowledge necessarily implies His predetermination, and if so, how can we still be held morally responsible and culpable for our actions. We can get our coffee refills and try and hash that one out after the business meeting. But what IS clear is that God knows our past, present, AND future. Jeremiah 29:11 - every Christian’s favorite promise of God for Israel to steal for ourselves, right: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans… to give you a future and a hope.” God knows our future, because they are HIS plans FOR us in the first place.
-We could spend all day, just on God’s omniscience! V4: God knows my WORDS - “Even before a word is on my tongue… you know it altogether.”
-v5: He knows my LIMITS - “You hem me in, behind and before”; and because He knows how limited I really am, God “lays His hand [of protection] upon me.”
In summary, v6: God knows ALL! “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”
-As Paul puts it in his doxology at the end of Romans 11: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”” (vv33-34)
Paul and David both come to kind of the same conclusion about God’s omniscience: don’t think about it SO hard that you hurt yourself, trying to wrap your brain around it; but ponder it hard enough to be REALLY blown away by just how wonderful God’s knowledge is.
And here’s the most wonderful part of ALL about it, friends: that God knows everything about you, He knows you to your very CORE, the deepest, darkest parts of you that you don’t let ANYONE else into, that NO ONE else sees; not your spouse, not your best friend - not even YOURSELF; the parts of you that you’re scared to even admit to yourself and explore for yourself, because they’re too hard, too dark, too scary. God knows it all…
AND… He still loves you. Think about that for a minute: there is NOTHING that you have done, said, thought or felt, and nothing that you WILL do, say, think, or feel, that your omniscient God does not already KNOW; God cannot be surprised. And STILL, He loves you. He desires relationship with you.
And that’s the thing: each of these 3 attributes should really evoke DUAL, opposite responses within us; this is where we make the theology practical, and PERSONAL this morning. Let me try it this way, I’ll ask you the same question twice, and just change my voice inflection. Tell me how you FEEL, when I remind you that…
[threateningly] God knows EVERYTHING about you... (and I mean EVERYTHING!)
On the one hand, God’s omniscience should spark FEAR within the heart of every self-aware person on the planet.
-God knows what you stayed up late watching last night.
-God knows what you said when you got cut off on the highway on the way over this morning (And on the way to CHURCH, nonetheless! You sinner!)
-God knows what you thought when the alarm went off and you WANTED to hit snooze and choose sleep over worship.
-God knows what you felt when your co-worker got the promotion you wanted. When your sister-in-law announced she was pregnant with the baby you wanted. When your family let you know they’re cancelling their trip for Thanksgiving because of COVID - (You were RELIEVED?! What kind of son, daughter... father, mother are you?!)
God knows it ALL, friends: the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that is and SHOULD be, on the one hand, a very sobering, TERRIFYING realization for us!
And yet, when I say:
[reassuringly] “God knows EVERYTHING about you…”
You ought to ALSO feel incredibly comforted by the reality that unlike every other person in your life, there is absolutely nothing NEW that God could EVER discover about you that could change His mind about or His feelings toward you.
That “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:39)
Because “God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
Unlike everyone else in your life, God knows EXACTLY how sinful you really are, and He Really. Does. Still. LOVE you.
THAT, friends, is “knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.” I can’t even BEGIN to comprehend it. God’s FULLY-informed love of THIS wretched sinner. Praise God.
#2 - He’s also Omnipresent (-ce) (vv7-12)
It’s a bit telling, isn’t it, that after his initial amazement, the very next thought that David has, when he considers God’s omniscience is: “How can I run away?!” I gotta get up outta here, away from this God who knows EVERYTHING about me. God knows about the whole Bathsheeba thing?! And then the whole “killing her husband Uriah to steal her for myself” thing?! Moreover, God knows I’m still tempted to pull the very same stunt all over again, even after God’s punishment of my sin, even after Bathsheeba joined my harem, every time I see another attractive neighbor bathing on her roof - you think David learned his lesson? Never had another lustful thought, the rest of his life? If you honestly believe that, no offense, but I’m looking around this sanctuary - I see about [40] guys; I’m guessing you don’t know a SINGLE ONE of us! Not a lot of men in your life if you believe that about King David. But Ladies - how about y’all; you telling me if Channing Tatum was showering up on the roof you wouldn’t take a second look? No, there’s a REASON that when David meditates on God’s omniscience - He knows every thought, every impulse, every deed, every desire of my heart - there’s a reason David considers RUNNING.
“Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?”
As the NT author of Hebrews declares: “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (4:13)
And David once again emphasizes God’s omnipresence with two more merisms, pairs of opposites to highlight comprehensiveness: he says in
V8: “If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”
Now, speaking of having to perhaps REVISE our theology! Sure, the basic point here is simple enough: God is everywhere - from the highest heights (heaven), to the lowest depths (Sheol), and everywhere in between: you can’t escape God’s presence. Good.
But some of you are having trouble getting past the second half of that verse: “If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” Sheol was in some ways the OT equivalent of Hell; in fact, some of your Bible translations may even translate it as “Hell” there in v8. And perhaps you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, I thought God couldn’t be IN the presence of sin… God certainly can’t be in HELL! I know he’s supposed to be omnipresent, but surely even GOD has his limits on this one.”
But the fact is, the biblical vision of Hell is: Revelation 14:10 - a place where unrepentant sinners “will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” As J.M. Boice put it: “Hell is not ruled by the devil in spite of popular descriptions; the thing that makes hell so terrible is that it is run by God” (Boice, p?).
So the short answer to THAT “Ask the Pastor” question is: “Yes; God is even present in Hell. His justice and wrath exist there eternally.”
But remember, David isn’t merely concerned with God’s being everywhere; he cares that God is everywhere WITH HIM. “If I ascend to heaven… if I descend to Sheol…”
V9: “If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea” →
-“the wings of the morning” is a Hebrew idiom for the sunrise, which of course happens as far EAST as the eye can see
-and “the uttermost parts of the sea” David references would have been the Mediterranean, as far WEST as he can see from Jerusalem. So he’s reiterating again: “up… down… east… west…”; God is EVERYWHERE! And again, most importantly, he’s everywhere… with ME!
V10: “even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.”
The Protestant Reformers used the phrase coram deo - literally, “before the face of God” - to describe our rightful response to the reality of God’s omnipresence. I know many of you are fans of Ligonier ministries, founded by the late, great R.C. Sproul; if you aren’t, you should be; they offer excellent little, power-packed, bite-sized but biblically-rich devotionals. But at the end of every Ligonier devotional, there’s a section entitled “Coram Deo”, intended to give the reader an idea of how to live this truth out, practically, “before the face of God”, each day. Here’s how RC Sproul himself summed up this idea of coram deo; he said, “Coram Deo captures the essence of the Christian life.” ...To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God… To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God… The Christian who compartmentalizes his or her life into two sections of the religious and the nonreligious has failed to grasp the big idea. The big idea is that all of life is religious… To divide life between the religious and the nonreligious is itself a sacrilege.” (Ligonier, “What Does “coram Deo” Mean?”, Nov 13, 2017)
In other words, if God is everywhere… always with me… then all of life is infused with great meaning and purpose, because it holds the potential of bringing God glory. That’s why Paul exhorts us in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” There’s even a way to EAT… to DRINK… that brings glory to God? But there’s a way to eat and drink that dishonors him too. So David’s gonna conclude in v24: “Search me… and see if there be any grievous way in me”; God - I don’t want to bring ANY offense to your name; I want to honor you in all I say, think, feel, and do.
Did any of you grow up with the saying, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do with your grandmother sitting next to you?” Was that just something they told middle school boys where I’m from? Well, God’s being omnipresent is kinda like that, except instead of your grandma, he’s the Almighty God of the UNIVERSE. And he’s with you, all the time. Let’s get practical and personal again: what’s going on in your heart when you I remind you that:
[threateningly:] “God is with you EVERYWHERE you go…”
I could list a bunch of “hypothetical” examples again, like I did with God’s omniscience, and make you blush again. But what about when I say:
[reassuringly] “God is with you EVERYWHERE you go…”
I think that’s the beauty of the imagery David uses there in v11; once again, you can read it in two very different ways. He writes:
“If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,
even the darkness is not dark to you”” → typically in the Bible, ‘darkness’ is a metaphor for 1 of 2 things: either…
1) Sin - like when Jesus said in John 3:19-20 “the light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” So “darkness” can represent our SIN; OR… it can simply symbolize
2) DESPAIR - As in Psalm 23 - “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, you (Lord) are WITH me”.
The SINNER needs to be reminded that “[threateningly] God is with you EVERYWHERE you go…”
Those in DESPAIR need to be reminded that “[lovingly] God is with you EVERYWHERE you go…”
And the good news of God’s omnipresence, is that His LIGHT is available to them BOTH; David declares in v12: “even darkness is as light with you.” - it evokes the image from the end of the Book of Revelation, where there’s no need for a SUN anymore, because the glory of the LORD is gonna light up all of heaven. Spiritually speaking, that is our new reality in Christ already:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
Jesus came to “give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”” (Luke 1:79)
And His omnipresence means His light is ALWAYS available to you. There’s nowhere God isn’t, and there’s nowhere He isn’t WILLING to go, to seek you out. It was vv7-12 of Psalm 139 that prompted Francis Thompson to pen his classic poem “The Hound of Heaven”, in which he describes how he tried unsuccessfully to hide from God”.
-Friends: that’s my testimony! I ran about as fast and as far for as LONG as I possibly could, trying to avoid having to deal with the inconvenient truth of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God who wasn’t ME - I don’t think I made it ALL the way down to Hell, and I certainly didn’t make it up to Heaven! But no matter WHERE I ran - how fast or how far - the “Hound of Heaven” never stopped pursuing me.
Is that YOUR story? Perhaps you’re still trying to hide from him TODAY? He will find you, because he never actually LEFT you to begin with. Trust in JESUS. Come to the LIGHT. Let him overcome the darkness in YOUR life - both your SIN and your DESPAIR, with His overpowering light. You can come out of hiding today, and be set FREE, to walk in the light, with HIM.
#3 - God is Omnipotent (-ce) (vv13-16)
Now, David COULD have used another merism here, said something like “You created the farthest reaches of the universe... and you created me”, the GRAND in scale, and the small, and everything in between - but he doesn’t do that. And I think it’s because David knows that of ALL of God’s works in creation, the human person is the most amazing, most worthy of celebration and awe, of them all. Neuroscientists tell us that we know more about outer space than we do about the human brain. It’s too wonderful. Knowledge of ourselves escapes us.
That’s the kind of awe stirred in David as he contemplates God’s omnipotence over his conception. He exclaims “You formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance”
V13: VanGemeren (1524): “Lord has formed the individual as a spiritual (“you created [ qānâ , GK 7865; Ge 14:22; Pr 8:22] my inmost being [‘kidneys’],” v.13) and a physical being (“you knit me together”; cf. Job 8-11; Jer 1:5).”
*Most pro-life psalm, indeed passage in the whole Bible. That’s why I preached from these 4 verses in January for Sanctity of Life Sunday. I would refer you back to that sermon, as abortion is without a doubt the most egregious, horrific, social justice issue in our country and really our world today; it is important that being pro-life not just be a “talking point” every four years during an election, or once a year on Sanctity of Life Sunday; in fact, to that end, we are in the beginning stages of exploring what it would mean for us to have a “Life Team” here at West Hills…
*So I refer you back to January’s sermon on these verses, but suffice it to say:
-the issue is not complicated, at all; it all boils down to one question: what is inside a mother’s womb when she’s pregnant? As Platt says: “If it’s a just clump of cells…”
*v16: “in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.” → “all my days” doesn’t just mean there’s a number beside every person’s name in God’s book, how many days you’ll live; the point here is that God has actually pre-ordained every PART of every ONE of those days. Everything you will ever say, do, think, feel - God knows it in advance and is sovereign over it - nothing catches God by surprise. Because he is omnipotent. He controls all.
*Once again, we should have a DUAL reaction to God’s omnipotence…
“I brought you INTO this world, and I can take you out!” (tell funny story of Marketia & Michael & CPS, duct tape….)
inspire our
Infatuation (vv17-18),
*v18: “ I awake, and I am still with you.”
-NT connection to death & life to come (see texts…)
-God’s presence with and power over us extends from birth to death, womb to tomb
Indignation (vv19-22), &
*Ash (243): “Parts of this psalm are great favorites; they appear on devotional calendars and Instagram pics, and we love them. But then… we reach vv19-22, and we wish that that section were not there; these verses seem to break the heartwarming devotional flow”
-I want to suggest to you, as I have in prior sermons, that love itself, rightly understood, implies hatred. Hatred is the equal and opposite reaction every time there is love. (ex: my kids… things that threaten them; “love is love”... things that threaten that)
*vv19-20 : VanGemeren (1526): “The ascription “bloodthirsty men” denotes a lack of respect for life and regard for justice and righteousness (cf. 5:6; Pr 29:10). They also scheme surreptitiously against God’s authority (“speak of you with evil intent,” v.20).” → Christian cannot help but think here (in context of vv13-16) of the pro-abortion industry
Invitation (vv23-24)
*Ash: (transitioning from vv19-22) “In the heart of a believer with a Spirit-guided conscience, such a prayer (vv19-22) boomerangs and causes us to look at our OWN hearts” (248). Turn the mirror back around on OURSELVES, if we’re gonna be praying something as audacious as vv19-22.
*Boice: (1211) “The problem David perceives is that although he wants to keep clear of evil people and their ways, he nevertheless has evil in himself. In fact, his avoidance of evil people is not because he is too good for such people, but because he cannot trust himself in evil company. He is too sinful; he is prone to the very same sins.”
-search me
-Psalm ends (v23) where it began (v1) - with God “searching and knowing”; but this time, psalmist is inviting it. Whereas he formerly marveled that God does search and know, now he welcomes it.
-1 Jn 1:9
-test me
-invites the kind of difficulty that refines and strengthens faith (passage) - wants God to burn away his remaining impurities (Do WE pray this prayer often??)
-lead me
VanGeremen (1527): “He contrasts the two ways—the way of the world (“offensive way,” v.24) and the way of God (“the way everlasting”). The one way leads to destruction and the other to life and fellowship with God (cf. 1:6; 16:11; Pr 12:28).”
CONCLUSION: Danny Akin outlines the passage this way: the Lord knows every thing (vv1-6), is every where (7-12), can do every thing (13-16), and will DEAL with every person (17-24).