The eye of God!
(James Smith, "God's Knowledge of Us" 1865) Play Audio! Download Audio
"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account!" Hebrews 4:13
"The Lord searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought!" 1 Chronicles 28:9
"I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person!" Revelation 2:23
"O Lord, You know!" Jeremiah 15:15
God's perfect knowledge is like the pillar-cloud which led Israel out of Egypt, and through the wilderness: it is dark and a cause of terror to His enemies, but it is light and a source of comfort to His children.
"O Lord, You know" my SINS and FOLLIES! No one else does. No one else ever will. How could I look anyone in the face—if I thought he knew what was passing in my heart, or what is transacted in the chambers of my imagination within!
The Lord alone can search the heart. He alone knows the worst of us, and He alone knows the best; for the best and the worst, are both concealed in the same heart. The eye of God sees . . .
every motive,
every thought,
every lust,
every action!
His eye is on that mysterious portion of our nature called the imagination, on which such strange pictures are often painted, in which such fearful scenes are sometimes transacted. "You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from You!" Psalm 69:5
What streams of moral filthiness sometimes flow from the heart into the imagination! How difficult sometimes to keep it back.
What a depth of pollution there is within us!
What billows of corruption sometimes roll and swell!
Little does the young Christian think what the pure and holy eye of God sees within him; and what his own eye will one day discover, filling him with alarm, if not with horror, with shame and self-loathing! Then he will enter into poor Job's confession, "Behold, I am vile!" and into Isaiah's exclamation, "Woe is me! I am undone!"
"What more can I say unto You? For You know Your servant, O Sovereign Lord!" 2 Samuel 7:20
But blessed be God, the righteousness of Jesus covers all, and conceals all; and the grace and Spirit of God will ultimately purge away the whole foul heap from us!
Now our iniquities are forgiven, and our sins are covered.
But then our natures will be perfectly purified, and be as white as the falling snow!
"Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is!" 1 John 3:2