The Word That Won't Be Silenced, Part 1 Series

The Word that Won’t Be Silenced, Part 1 (Psalm 19)

VIDEO INTRO FIRST

Good morning! Please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 19 as we continue our series summer in the Psalms. We talked last week about how Psalms is a book of practical poetry, and how almost all the great moments of life have a soundtrack attached. It could be “Happy Birthday” in front of a cake with candles. Or “Here Comes the Bride” as you are standing at the front of a sanctuary in a rented tux. Or maybe it’s “Sweet Home Alabama” with 100,000 of your closest friends at Bryant-Denny stadium. “God Bless The USA” as you are watching a fireworks display. We are wired to be moved emotionally by music. To remember things with music. So it makes sense that when God wrote to us, he had to include music!

There are 150 Psalms. It is the longest book in the Bible. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to talk about all of them. They were written by people from all walks of life, over a thousand year period. King David wrote half of them (75). Of the other 75, about a third are attributed to a specific author. There was Asaph, a priest, who wrote twelve of them; The Sons of Korah, which were a group of professional temple singers, kind of like Hillsong United, wrote ten of them. King Solomon wrote two. Even Moses wrote one—Psalm 90—which may make it the oldest piece of literature in the Bible.

So the Psalm we are going to look at this morning is a Psalm of David, and it’s classified as a Wisdom Psalm. That means it was specifically written to teach us something. So if you are physically able, let’s stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word, and listen for what God has to teach us this morning.

19 The heavens declare the glory of God,?    and the sky above[a] proclaims his handiwork.

2 Day to day pours out speech,?    and night to night reveals knowledge.

3 There is no speech, nor are there words,?    whose voice is not heard.

4 Their voice[b] goes out through all the earth,?    and their words to the end of the world.?

Skip down to verse 7:

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,[c]?    reviving the soul;?the testimony of the Lord is sure,?    making wise the simple;

8 the precepts of the Lord are right,?    rejoicing the heart;?the commandment of the Lord is pure,?    enlightening the eyes;

9 the fear of the Lord is clean,?    enduring forever;?the rules[d] of the Lord are true,?    and righteous altogether.

10 More to be desired are they than gold,?    even much fine gold;?sweeter also than honey?    and drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;?    in keeping them there is great reward.

12 Who can discern his errors??    Declare me innocent from hidden faults.

13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;?    let them not have dominion over me!?Then I shall be blameless,?    and innocent of great transgression.

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart?    be acceptable in your sight,?    O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

So since this is a Wisdom Psalm, let’s ask God for wisdom together. Let’s pray…

Jesus, teach me from your Word this morning. Amen.

Psalm 19 falls really neatly into two halves. We are going to look at the first half this morning, and the second half next week (so if you were looking at all the blanks on the listening guide and wondering how we were ever going to get through all of them, you can rest easy. We aren’t!)

You can see this on your listening guide: verses 1-6 talk about The World God Created, while verses 7-10 deal with The Word God Communicated. And in both creation and the Scripture, God has revealed Himself to human beings. But he’s done it in two different ways. Theologians call those GENERAL REVELATION and SPECIAL REVELATION. Let’s unpack each of those terms.

General revelation refers to the general truths that can be known about God through nature. [Slide] Some would say God has also revealed himself through philosophy and reason, and I think there’s room for talking about that as well, but for this morning, we’re going to focus on nature, since that is what Psalm 19 focuses on.

Throughout creation, God has given us evidence of His existence [slide]. And it is a constant, ongoing revelation. All the verbs in verses 1-2 are either participles or imperfect. This means continuous, unfinished, ongoing action. The Heavens ARE declaring the Glory of God. The skies ARE PROCLAIMING his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech. Night to night reveals knowledge.

Have you ever stood on the seashore, or the rim of the Grand Canyon, or looked at a mountain range and thought to yourself, “How could anyone say there’s no God?” We all have. And that’s General Revelation. We can look at the perfect design of the Universe and know that there was a designer behind it. If I am walking through the woods and I come across an old wristwatch, I don’t think its the result of a random explosion in a machine shop. Someone had to have designed the watch. And the universe is the same way.