Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – PSALM 19

The general revelation of God shown in the heavens, verses 1-6, and then verses 10-14 show the appropriate response on the part of man to the two words of God.

Let’s pray as we begin to consider these things. Almighty and merciful Father, we thank you for this Psalm. We pray, Lord God, that you would open our hearts that we would hear the things from your word. That you’d open our minds to accept those things intellectually, to understand them, and open our hands to do them. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

I’m probably going a little fast. I hope you don’t mind. Last week, Howard L. reminded me after the talk of what Judge Beers always used to tell me—that I should speak slower. Howard said, “Of course, if you speak slower, you can’t say as much.” So, I guess that shows a bias of mine on content as opposed to delivery. And maybe with some exhortation from the rest of you, that’ll cure itself. But for now, that’s what we’ll be doing. So we’ll speed along.

There’s a lot of things in Psalm 19 we want to cover. First of all, verses 1-6—the general revelation of God in the heavens. Just first of all, a couple of points to be made about that. It says in verse one, “the heavens declare the glory of God.” And that’s the only place in these first six verses the name of God is used. The name used there for God is the Hebrew word El, which is the most common word for God, a shortened form of Elohim, or “strong one.”

Every time I talk about the names of God, one way good way for me to remember some of those names is my own son’s name, Elijah. It’s a contraction between Eli—or shortened form of Elohim, the word for God being a strong one—and Yah, shortened form of Yahweh or Jehovah, talking about the covenant God of Israel. And we’ll see that covenant name for God used in other portions of the Psalm. But notice in verses 1 through 6, we’re talking about general revelation. The name of God is only used once, and it’s used in its most general form, El.

Also, there are a couple of parallel passages that are good for further study. If you’re going to study this passage out this week, Psalm 8—which we’ve talked about before—”Oh Lord, oh Lord, how excellent thy name is in all the earth.” It talks about the created order and then the importance of man in relationship to the rest of that created order. That’s a good Psalm to read. And as I mentioned earlier, Psalm 104, which we sang actually during the Geneva Jigs Friday night, also sheds a lot of light on these passages of scripture.

But in any event, we’ll go on. It’s important to recognize that although the King James Version says “the heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament showeth his handiwork,” it’s important to recognize that those verb tenses really should be present action. The heavens are declaring the glory of God continually. The firmament is showing his handiwork day and today, uttering speech and night and tonight showing knowledge.

It’s continual, ongoing action—not once for all happening in the past sometime to the present tense.

Also in verses 2 and 3, the translation there is a little hard to understand. “There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” The thrust of that sentence is that although the general revelation does not speak in specific words or speech or verbal sounds, yet the message comes through in general revelation very clearly—enough to call it a word of God or a voice or an utterance from God.

It’s an important part of that. Also, by way of explanation of a word in verse 1—where the word “firmament” is used—that word is only used 17 times in the scriptures and it’s only used in five passages of scripture. Genesis 1, of course, where the firmament is created by God. Ezekiel 1, where the firmament—where the vision of Ezekiel—portions of it have the appearance of the firmament, and they gleam or shine like crystal or like ice. So it’s an analogy, so to speak, of the brightness of the part of the visioning.

Daniel 12—there’s a relationship of the saints who are honoring God that they shine forth as the firmament. So again, it’s used in a descriptive sense. And then Psalm 150—in terms of praise coming forth to God from the firmament.

The base word for the Hebrew word for “firmament” has the idea to pound or to hammer something. And it talks about pounding forth, so to speak, the canopy or the firmament of the skies. And it’s interesting that this Psalm, Psalm 19, is one of the very few occurrences of the word in the Bible. “The firmament showeth his handiwork.” And you see the relationship there to God pounding out the firmament, as it were. We know it’s not an actual tin covering, but there is a visible appearance to the arc of the sky. And we see that it should speak to us. It’s showing forth God’s handiwork in his creation of that firmament.

It’s not really the sky—the heavens are the sky. And the firmament is more the general arc beyond the sky, so to speak, that we see with our eyes, the appearance to us, anyway.

Well, that’s all well and good, but what is it important from these first six verses to recognize? God is evident to all men. God is clearly seen. The passage that Roy read from the book of Romans tells us that man is without excuse because God is clearly manifested in scripture.

Does that mean that we should then use proofs for God that take their form in proving God from the creation? In other words, you say, “Well, there’s a creator, there’s a creation, there must be somebody who made the creation, and therefore there is a creator, there is a God.” Is it saying we should develop proofs from that?

I don’t think so. What it’s clearly saying, I think, is that God declares himself in creation. It’s not like you have to take somebody and lead them through a set of proofs. God says it shows clearly forth that there is a creator and his holy attributes are made manifest through that creation. It’s clear to man. It’s discerned. No need to prove it. It is declaratory as opposed to having to be proved.

That infers then that man is capable of receiving that declaration, doesn’t it? You don’t have to be of a certain IQ to receive that declaration from the scriptures. Otherwise, Romans 1 is wrong when it tells us that all men know, can see in the creation, that God is and should be worshiped. No, you don’t have to have a certain IQ. It doesn’t excuse the natives in Africa who aren’t schooled in intellectual thought. It doesn’t excuse them. It doesn’t excuse the lame or the mentally handicapped—the lame of mind, so to speak. It doesn’t excuse those people because it says that God is clearly seen in the creation.

Man apparently has built into him a receptor, some ability to discern from the creation that God is. And that’s certainly understandable because we’re creations ourselves. We’re creatures, creations of God.

But anyway, it’s important to recognize in terms of apologetics there the importance of declaring forth that God is known—that there’s nobody who is really an atheist in the sense of not understanding or knowing from creation that God is. That again, the book of Romans tells us clearly the man is suppressing or holding back the truth of God and unrighteousness. That should lead us to understand something very basic about man and his fallen state.

It’s not enough to show that intellectually from the scriptures that he should repent. If intellect was his problem, the scripture—the heavens would be declare forth the glory of God and he’d bow and give thanks to God, wouldn’t he? His problem isn’t intellect. His problem is moral in basis. He has rejected the teaching of God in the general revelation. He’ll reject the specific revelation as well, lest it engenders him to faith and causes a change in his presuppositions—the way he looks at the world.

Okay, man’s basic problem is not intellectual. It’s moral.

How much of God is revealed in the heavens? Well, that would take a long time to talk about. I’m not sure I understand all the answers to that question, but we know this much: it’s enough. The book of Romans tells us that man should thank God, should give worship to him, and honor him with what they do. But instead, we know that man rejects even that much knowledge of God and turns instead to worship the created things as opposed to the creator.

Another aspect that’s real important to understand from the created order being a declaration of God to man is that the result of that is we have certainty of the world around us. The world around us isn’t a disordered mess. It’s not a chaotic sequence of events. The scriptures say it declares forth God. Is God random? Well, God is not random. God is sure. He is consistent with himself. He has created laws for the universe to operate on, and the universe acts in obedience to those laws.

It’s important then to understand that certainty is the result of the declaration of God in general revelation. It’s interesting that fallen man rejects the only source of certainty, which is God, on the basis of total certainty that he doesn’t exist—supposedly. And the book that Howard’s going to be leading a study for—through by Pratt, *Every Thought Captive*—drives this point home real well. And I’d encourage as many of you as possible to try to join that Saturday study that’ll start in February at Howard’s home. It’s a real easy book to read through and understand some of these principles that we glean from the general revelation.

He points out there that fallen man rejects with a certainty the fact that God is, and therefore is totally uncertain—you know, he rejects the only source of certainty. And yet he claims to know it certainly that God is not there. So he talks about how fallen man is Janus-faced. On one hand, he is totally certain of the rejection of God. On the other hand, he’s totally uncertain because he has rejected the source of certainty.

So, that’s fallen man. And again, I’d encourage you to take part in Howard’s study on that.

As I was thinking through this, the certainty of God is revealed in the general revelation. I thought of a term that Judge Beers always used to use. He defined probability as being the statistical regularity of the providence of God. The statistical regularity of the providence of God. And I think that’s a pretty good definition. There’s no chance in the sense of a random chance of events in the universe.

We know of a certainty that if you flip a coin enough times, 50% will be heads, 50% of the time will be tails. What is that chance? Well, if it was chance, you wouldn’t know from flipping to flipping when it would come up, do you? You wouldn’t know for certain that the sun would come up in the morning, would you? If it was a random set of events—and there was no fixed laws put forth by the hand of the creator—you wouldn’t even know with certainty that the sun came up today. All you’d know is that you had an appearance—there was some sort of bright thing up in the sky. You don’t know if it’s real or not, though, do you?

Do you ever think about it? That when you accept the reality of the universe that God has put into place, you’re affirming a certain faith in God by accepting that reality. When you sit in a chair, you’re in a sense affirming a belief that God has made that physical substance and that physical substance will hold you up—not because it held you up before, but because God has created it. And you know it has certain properties because God has created it.

The understanding of God in general revelation gives us certainty. And our certainty should be responded to by bowed knee in accepting the physical reality of the world around us, and not in questioning, “Does this thing have really have substance? Is there an ideal chair somewhere of which all other chairs are a type or something?” No, you accept the created order and you have certainty on the basis of that.

From Psalm 104, which we won’t deal a lot with right now, but if you look at Psalm 104, there are many parallels to the Psalm we’re looking at. And it focuses specifically on the general revelation of God in creation. And one of the important things that Psalm 104 continues to drive home is that God’s care is evident from the created order.

And it talks, for instance, about—oh, in Psalm 104—the springs that God creates give drink to every beast of the field. In verse 11, “the wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation which sing among the branches.” He, God, waters the hills from his chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth. And on and on and on.

And also the next verse: “wine that maketh the heart of man glad—maketh glad the heart of man—and oil to make his face to shine.”

We know from the created order then that God is providential in his care for his creation, and that should be a great assurance to us of his providence for us as his creatures as well. So there’s a lot of things we can understand from verses 1-6. However, it’s limited in its scope. It can’t tell us certain things about God.

In the song “How Great Thou Art,” one of the verses says: “Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee, how great thou art. How great thou art.”

And that’s true, isn’t it? We agree with the expression of emotion portrayed by the writer of that song. And yet we know that God is the savior God—my savior God to thee—because we’ve been exposed to the specific revelation of the word of God, which has restored our soul and brought us to salvation. The general revelation is insufficient to bring men to salvation.

Therefore, if a man looks at the thunder and hears the thunder and sees the skies, he won’t declare, “my savior God to be.” He won’t understand that without the specific revelation that God gives in his word. Therefore, the Westminster Confession puts it this way in section one of the Westminster Confession:

“Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal himself and to declare that his will unto his church. And afterward, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan in the world, to commit the same unto writing.”

The general revelation of God is insufficient unto salvation and to bring man to a truer knowledge of God than is exposed in the general revelation. That’s why we need the specific revelation of the written word of God.

So let’s move on to verses 7-9. Understanding, however, that well—let’s just read 7-9 first. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

There’s a shift here from general to specific revelation. And there’s a shift to the law of God in evidence in these passages. But you’ve got to keep in mind that the general revelation also operates on the basis of the law of the creator—the law of the covenant establisher. So it’s not a shift from no law to law. In fact, it’s taking the general laws exposed in the creation—that the sun with regularity rises, goes forth as a bridegroom, sets with regularity—according to God’s law. And now he talks about the specific law of God as written in the scriptures.

Okay. So we have verses 7-9—an expanding of the principle of law, the law of the Lord. It’s interesting also to note in verses 7 to 9 that each of these phrases in seven through nine—”the law of the Lord is perfect,” “converting the soul”—that’s a phrase. Each of those phrases, apparently, and I take this from the research I’ve done, not from reading the Hebrew, consists of 10 Hebrew words. And there’s a deliberate mechanism used there to indicate that each of these things has a reference to the Decalogue—to the ten commandments of God, the 10 words of God.

We know they have reference beyond the Decalogue, beyond the ten commandments of God, to include all of scripture. We’ll talk about that. But it is important to recognize the literary device that David chose to write this in—emphasizing the 10 words, the ten commandments of God. My source for that is Henry Ainsworth.

Here we see God’s covenant name Yahweh or Jehovah utilized, and we also see that name utilized seven times. So when we go from the general revelation to specific revelation, the name of God changes from El—the generalized form for God—to Yahweh or Jehovah, the covenant name of God for his people. And we understand that the law that he’s talking about is a covenant declaration from the mouth of the covenant God who’s faithful to his covenant people. And it’s repeated a number of times here—seven times.

I suppose we could talk about the perfection of the number of seven. But in any event, the point is it’s reinforced continually. This is covenant law. It’s not some abstract principle. God’s law isn’t an abstract principle abstracted from the giver of the law, Yahweh. God’s law is the commandments of a person—a personal God who judges personally as well.

So what we’re talking about in verses 7-9 then is the canon or the laws of the covenant. And what we have here is—for each one of these phrases—we’ve got a description of God’s word and some specificity given to that. We have an adjective describing that noun and then we have the result of that in the believer—a verb, as it were. For instance, “God’s law of the Lord is perfect, restoring or converting the soul.” Okay, you see that form? Law of perfect, restoring. And for each of the six words here used, you have that same basic literary device.

It’s so—let’s start with “the law of the lord is perfect, restoring or converting the soul.” The word here used is Torah, which has reference to the Decalogue, it has reference to the Pentateuch. It is described as the way of righteousness, the way of God, the way of his covenant people. The word uses Torah. So although we have in mind again specifically the ten commandments and then the Pentateuch, we now can see that the whole of God’s word is addressed by that term. Okay? It’s not specified just to a particular portion of the scriptures. Rather, these different terms are used to talk about ways—they’re used kind of, you know what I mean?—specific portions of it, not strict delineations between these terms that God uses, but rather general manifestations of those terms.

So the law of God, the Torah, the way, the scriptures are perfect, restoring the soul. And “perfect” has the sense of being complete, being full, being blameless—that kind of thing. It’s interesting in Romans 12:2, for instance, that we read about the perfect will of God. Let’s just look at that briefly. Romans 12:2: “Be not conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

The scripture goes back to the Psalms and goes back to the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. The will of God is revealed in his scriptures, the specific revelation. Jesus Christ, of course, said that he was “the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus Christ is the Torah. Okay? All the scriptures speak to Christ, and he is the manifestation of that law. In fact, he’s more than the manifestation. He is the law. The law is a manifestation of Christ. All these terms are a manifestation of God himself.

What’s the effect of the law and its perfectness? The effect is restoring the soul. That could be translated—actually it says “converting the soul” in our translation. It’s in other translations it’s called “restoring the soul.” In any event, it has the idea primarily of spiritual restoration or spiritual conversion. The scriptures, the specific revelation of God, is the mechanism whereby faith is engendered in the hearer, and it is the necessary device in evangelism because it is what God chooses to use to restore or convert men. And that’s the primary reference.

And in Psalm 23 it talks about how God restores the soul, for instance. However, also in Proverbs 25:13 we see the same expression used in a slightly different sense: “the cold of snow in the time of harvest so is a faithful messenger to them that send him for he refresheth the soul of his masters.”

So there’s a physical sense of refreshing there also that’s talked about. And in Lamentations, the first chapter of Lamentations, verses 11, 16 and 19—there’s talk about, for instance, “food. people sell their precious things for food to restore their soul.” So the soul doesn’t just speak to spiritual conversion. It also talks to the fact that the law of God is good for us physically. It has a restorative effect upon people who are downcast physically as well and gives us the mechanism whereby we can gain physical goods and services.

It has primary reference, however, to converting. It’s important then to just recognize that what we said—that the general revelation couldn’t do. It’s not efficacious unto salvation. It can’t lead a person to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The specific revelation can. And what David had—the Old Testament and all its teachings taught about Jesus Christ and taught about substitutionary atonement, taught about justification by faith, and the basis of a righteousness of God himself apart from us that God provides—the sacrifice.

So the scriptures are important. To recognize that in our apologetic, again, we start with the presupposition that man is morally downtrodden—or fallen, rather. He’s rejected the specific revelation. He sees the general revelation of God in creation. He suppresses it. And it’s the preaching of the word of God that’ll restore that man to a proper position before God in Christ’s righteousness.

It’s important then to recognize that this law of God—the ten commandments, the Pentateuch, the 66 books of God’s word—are all part of the law of God. All those things are effective in producing salvation in people. That’s what we need to preach to people. We need to preach people the law. The law will drive people to salvation.

I heard it said by a man once that, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. However, if you drive him hard enough, by the time he gets there, he’s thirsty. The same thing can be said true of the law of God. You drive a man with the law of God and convict and use God’s Holy Spirit through the preaching of that word to convict a man—he’ll be thirsty when he gets to the lake when you present the gospel to him, and he’ll respond. Not mechanicalistically, of course, but that’s the method, the means that God has chosen to use in his providence.

The next portion talks about “the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” The word testimony there is the same word that’s used many times in the Pentateuch to talk about the ark of testimony, the ark of witness. Inside that ark was deposited the tablets of testimony—the stone tablets in which God had put his law. It was like the actual obligation. It was like a form of the contract, if you will. And that was deposited in the ark of the covenant, the ark of testimony. And it was like assurance or a witness to God’s covenant faithfulness to his covenant people.

So here the emphasis is upon the scriptures as a testimony to the covenant relationship that God has with his covenant people. The word—the base word for that word to witness—means to repeat. So it’s like a reminder that God is in effect in covenant relationship to his people. It’s a covenant declaration. And some people see that covenant declaration and emphasis of the scriptures is used for doctrine.

In any event, we’re told that “the testimony of the Lord is sure.” In other words, it makes things more sure. It verifies the situation. “Testimony Lord is sure.” It’s positive. It’s really there. And as a result of that, it “makes wise the simple.” The testimony of God makes wise the simple. Again, this is a phrase that is used in some instances to talk about conversion—a person converting from being a heathen to the gospel of Christ or to our relationship to God in the covenant. However, it’s also used in other ways as well.

For instance, in Psalm 119, David elaborates on this and tells us something else about what it means. Psalm 119:97-100: “Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” And you know, in our first communion form, we have that in there after the reading of the ten commandments. The congregation responds, “Oh, how I love thy law. It’s my meditation all the day.” To what end is it my meditation all the day?

Verse 98: “Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me.” We’re wiser than the pagan. We’re wiser than the enemies of God and of the covenant people.”

But more than that, verse 99: “I have more understanding than all my teachers. For thy testimonies are my meditation”—meditating upon the word of God, understanding the scriptures, the relevance to the way you live of your life—”makes you wiser than your teachers.”

David could say he was wiser because he studied the law of God. Verse 100: “I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy precepts.”

So it’s important to recognize that although here we read that “the testimony of God is sure, making wise the simple,” it’s talking primarily about conversion. Yet it also has the aspect of giving us wisdom. Wisdom is, after all, applying the law of God to a specific situation. And we cannot understand how to do that apart from the revealed word of God and apart from studying the revealed word of God. We’ve talked about that some before.

It’s also important to recognize here, of course, that there’s a switch in Romans 1 that Roy read from earlier—again that the pagan who rejects general revelation professes to be wise and yet becomes a fool. The Christian, believing general revelation, believing the specific revelation of God in his scriptures, turns from being a fool to becoming wise. God makes wise the simple or the foolish.

And then goes on from there to instruct them. Some people see here a progression from the last verse that talks primarily about conversion. After a person is converted, he then begins a process of being instructed in the word of God and its relationship to what he does.

For instance, just a couple of examples: Dennis Woods last week gave me a copy of Marketing News, and it’s got an article in here in their viewpoint section that says “true marketing concept is based upon the biblical philosophy of life.” And it goes on for a couple of pages talking about some laws of God in terms of service, in terms of the ten commandments, the summation of those—to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might, to love your neighbor as yourself—and its application to marketing. Okay? And he says that it has moral restraints upon the method you use in marketing because of the word of God.

That man has become wise in terms of marketing from applying the word of God to his specific vocational calling before God. And that’s what we’re called to do. Like David, we should be able to say that we’re wiser than our teachers because we study the scriptures. And we’re also even more wise as we apply them in the specific situation we’re applying it to and obey them. Okay.

This week I have Dennis was good enough to set up an appointment with one of the Multnomah County Commissioners, and I’m going to talk to the person about restitution. Now what do I know about restitution? Have I gone to a college course on criminal justice? No. What I know about restitution and criminal justice is that the word of God clearly teaches that’s his method for criminal justice—that’s his method of penal sanctions. And hopefully I’ll be able to convince the person that we’re speaking with, who also is a believer, that a restitution system should begin to be thought of in terms of an alternative to what’s going on now in terms of the prison system.

You can become wise beyond your own specific educational abilities if you apply the word of God to a specific situation and expose yourself to those writers who have taught and understand the law of God and its application to a specific mechanism. It’s important though, of course, to realize we have to study these things.

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: that each of us should begin to understand how the scriptures relate to our particular vocational calling. And I mentioned before the example of management. I took a course in management. There’s lots of pagan philosophies of management that have evolved throughout the years, and their systems do kind of evolve, if you know what I mean. They don’t stand still. But the scriptures, I’m sure, teach—a situation, some laws relating—how we should manage people. And it’s important to study those things and apply them. And that’s what that marketing man did. And I’m real grateful for Dennis letting me copy that article.

But it’s important to recognize the word of God will make wise the simple if we but study that scripture and apply it as David did.

Next verse: “the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” So here we have a movement from conversion on the part of the man to instruction on the part of the man. And now he rejoices in what God has instructed him in. The scripture should be a source of rejoicing for us.

The word “statutes” there is also translated in other versions as “precepts” and has to do with the precise commandments of God, the specific statements of God in the scriptures and in his law and in the case law as well. They’re morally upright. They’re absolutely correct. And you remember the part of the confessional statement of our church talks about how the law of God as it relates—as it’s found in the Old Testament—regarding civil structures, civil sanctions is right. It’s morally upright. It’s the way. It’s the model for all future civil governments.

It’s important to recognize that the word of God is morally upright. I had a conversation with another professed believer—and I say professed because I’m not anywhere near sure that this person is actually a believer—and they were saying to me, “You know, we don’t like the law and makes, you know, these restrictions upon us and makes us sort of sour-faced and everything. And you know, the Bible says in the New Testament, we don’t have to listen to the law anymore.” You know, as if God was some kind of jerk for making the people in the Old Testament obey the law—as if he was somehow causing those people to be sour and downfaced before him. That’s ridiculous. I don’t care what hermeneutic you’re using. If you would see a change in the law in the New Testament, fine. But that’s no reason to go back and denigrate what God had done in the Old Testament.

We know for instance that Jesus Christ has fulfilled those portions of the sacrificial law. They’ve met their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. They haven’t been abolished in the sense of being wiped out. They’ve been fulfilled in Jesus Christ coming. They pointed to Christ, and when he came, the sacrifices were ended. And we see what God did to the city that continued those sacrifices once the true lamb of Christ—lamb of God—had come. He destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70.

The point I’m trying to make though is we shouldn’t look back at the sacrificial system and say, “Oh, wasn’t that awful? God, a God of blood and killing animals and slitting throats and stuff.” Well, that’s blasphemy to talk about God that way. His scriptures are upright. They’re morally pure altogether in what they are. And as a result of that, we should rejoice before God when we read those scriptures.

Again, though, if we don’t read those scriptures and study through them, we’re not going to rejoice with God in what he’s written there. It’s an indication of how of how we are in our spiritual immaturity, perhaps, to look for enjoyment and rejoicing in other forms of entertainment, reading other types of books or whatever. Those things are good, but we should recognize the source of all joy and rejoicing is found in the study of the word of God and its application to all these other things. That’s not just some pie in the sky. That’s what the scriptures clearly teach.

“The commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes.” And here the commandments—the word for commandments is used as mitzvah. And you’ve heard of people having a bar mitzvah. That means the boy has become a son of the law. Mitzvah, the law, the structure of the law in terms of commandments and their authority over the person is stressed here. And there’s also bat mitzvah—a daughter of the law. When a law daughter reaches the age of accountability in orthodox Judaism, she becomes a daughter of the law—acknowledging that the law has authority over her. And her acknowledging that the law has that authority over her is acknowledging of that should lead to an enlightening of their eyes.

I’m sure there’s talk about discernment here, but it’s also the same sort of term that’s used when Jonathan’s eyes were brightened when he ate honey. Remember, we talked about that a couple months ago. Well, that’s what the scriptures do to us if we’re downcast. It brightens our eyes. It should have that kind of restorative power for our soul and for our mind and for our body as well.

Those commandments of God are pure. And in Psalm 126, we talked about the purity of the word of God, as if David compares it to silver refined seven times in the fire. That’s the sort of purity we’re talking about. As a result of that, our eyes should be enlightened. If we’re exhausted, therefore, if we have spiritually, mentally—whatever—we can find enlightenment and restorative value in going to the word of God, reading it, and studying it and applying it in our lives. The word of God should have that kind of power for us as well.

“The fear of the Lord”—another noun used to describe the scriptures. The scriptures produce a fear including both a reverence and also an actual physical fear that we lest we transgress the commandments of God. The fear of the Lord is clean—altogether cleansing in its ability and power. And should lead—the fear of the Lord should lead to a holy piety in the part of us. We shouldn’t be foolish. We should be paying attention to the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of knowledge, and therefore have true endurance—the way that his own fear endures forever. That’s what our endurance should be like if we bow the knee to the fear of the Lord.

“The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether.” Judgments here have specific relationship to the civil sanctions of the Pentateuch and specifically to the penal sanctions of the Pentateuch. It talks about verdicts, judicial decisions by God, that sort of thing. It’s important to recognize that those specific verdicts or decisions of God—judgments of God—and including the civil statutes that he gave the nation of Israel are true and they are righteous. Righteous. They are just altogether. In other words, they’re of a piece. All of them are righteous. They’re all righteous together. They’re each righteous individually as well. That’s what it means by “altogether” there.

And again, there we hope to be able to convince the Multnomah County Commissioner that’s true—that the civil sanctions of God, the civil penalties of God are true and they are righteous. They would produce a just society, and we then really have criminal justice if we implement systems of restitution.

In Revelation 16:7, we read basically the same thing. It’s talking about the judgments of God poured out through the angels. And, in Revelation 16:7, we have the following: “And I heard another out of the altar say, ‘Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.’” And again, in our first communion form, we took a lot of these things out of the book of Revelation, and we have that phrase in our communion form—that even though we come to the communion table and recognize that there is danger therein if we come to it, unqualified or as a covenant breaker. Even so, the judgments of God that will manifest in our lives in our physical death, perhaps, or in other mechanisms—those judgments are true and righteous altogether.

Judgments of God in time on earth.

Now, if you look over these various descriptions of the law of God, I just wanted to get back to this one last time. What a difference it makes in the practical applications of these laws to our life. They convert our soul. They’ll make us wise for doing our vocational calling, for all things that we do in life. They’ll cause a rejoicing in our heart. We’ll have we’ll we’ll be able to understand the will of God and rejoice in that. And what a difference that is to the portrayal of the law of God that we commonly hear taught throughout the nation today in Christian meeting places. The law is looked upon as something evil and restrictive and binding.

And yet David says it has all these great positive values to it. And I hope that’s our attitude as well. Okay, we’re theonomic. We know the law applies to us. We know that the law is continually abiding on us as Matthew 5:17 says, but it’s important that we recognize that doesn’t mean that we’re sour-faced as a result of it. It means that we rejoice because of it. It means as we understand these things and apply, we’ll rejoice before God.

It’s also important to recognize that the commandments of God reveal the person of God himself. The law is perfect. God is perfect. God is sure. He is absolutely certain in what he does and absolutely to be counted upon. God is right. God is pure. God is clean. God is true. All these things that describe his law apply to him. Why? Because the law is a manifestation of the character of God. That’s what it is. It’s not something isolated from God or abstracted from God. It’s a declaration of how God is and how he commands us to walk in relationship to him.

How could the law then have this radical change in the New Testament? You’d have to have a different God. It’s important to recognize that the law that we’re talking about—the covenant law of God—is found in all 66 books of the Bible—are manifestation of God himself.

So, we move on to verses 10 through 14. The response to the two words of God. In verse 10: “This is what we’re trying to understand through this. More to be desired are these things we’ve been talking about—the 66 books of God’s Bible to us, the Pentateuch, the Old Testament, the ten commandments, the case laws—all those portions of God’s law. More to be desired are they than gold—yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”

You think about that. What would you do for a bar of gold today? You would do a lot, right? If you could get some gold. But you should approach the word of God the same way. It’s more valuable. God doesn’t say we should count it more. It is more valuable to us. We should line up the way we approach the word of God to what it’s actually is. It is more valuable to us than gold. That means we should be studying this as much as possible in the time that God has allotted for us to do that. He has called us to do other things, of course—vocational callings, families. We can’t do those correctly, though, if we don’t understand the law of God.

I’m trying to encourage you to study your Bible an hour a week, more if you can. An hour would be great though if you could just set it apart—an hour of your week—not to just read it but to study it and to show the interrelationship of all these things. You know, it’s just been a real blessing for me giving these talks through the Psalms. You know, you get to the place where you’ve studied through the whole thing. You’ve cross-referenced all the words you can. You’ve understood their Hebrew meanings and the Greek meanings and the verses they cross-reference to. You understand the continuity of the scriptures. That’s one of the great delights for me of studying the Bible—is to see the continuity of this whole process.

We’ve talked a lot about that in the last couple weeks with some of the words. I was thinking about this morning—we read, when we sang that song talking about the wings of God protecting us. I hope that has more meaning to you now when we realize that it’s a covenant type of statement taken from the song of Moses, the song of witness that Moses gives at the end of Deuteronomy—and talks about God’s taking his people, his covenant people, desire or having a regard to them as for the pupil of his eye, covering with his wings protectively. You know what I mean? It’s not an empty little saying that describes how God relates to us. It talks about his covenant relationship to us.

Well, when you get done with one of those studies, that’s what you feel about the scriptures. You feel it is more valuable than gold. And it’s sweet to study through it and see that interconnectedness of the whole scriptures—that it’s one word really that God has spoken about himself. It’s sweet to our mouths. And I just really urge you to study through your scriptures this week and the weeks to come.

Notice also that in verses 10 and 11, we see the same thing we’ve talked about. Again, throughout the scriptures, you’ll see this pattern of blessings and cursings. Verse 10 talks about the blessings—more to be desired, sweeter, better than gold and honey. Verse 11: “by keeping of them there is great reward.” There’s blessing in keeping the commandments of God. But on the other hand, “Moreover, by them is thy servant warned.” There’s cursing for ignoring those things. There’s cursing for walking in disobedience to the law. We see that same pattern of blessings and cursings as our response to the word of God.

Verse 12: “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” The question is asked: who can understand all about our sins, all of our sins? The obvious answer is no one. We have many hidden sins that we don’t even know about. The idea of perfectionism then is just shot in the head with this passage. How do you know if you’re going to be perfect before God? You can’t even know all your sins—is what David said here.

“Who can understand his errors?” Nobody. “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.”

There is forgiveness for God regardless of confession—in terms of things that we are not aware of. All men sin and they don’t understand their sin. Particularly, you know, the maturation process of the believer—early on, you may be involved in a lot of sins you’re not even aware of yet. And yet, the atonement, the blood of Jesus Christ covers those sins. And David says that he will be cleansed from hidden faults. It’s not conditioned upon his confession. If it was conditioned upon his confession, you’d have to go to the scriptures continually, trying to figure out “What everything am I doing wrong? What did I do this last day?” Go through all your motions and say which of them were sins, which of them weren’t sins. You’d have a life of total introspection.

And particularly as you understand more and more of the teaching of God’s law and its comprehensiveness. No, we can’t know that. And yet there’s forgiveness of sins on the basis of our attempt to cleanse ourselves from those sins that we do know about in covenant faithfulness to God who has called us. The blood of Jesus Christ covers hidden sins.

Verses 12 and 13 taken together are interesting. “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.”

In Numbers 15, there is this atonement for hidden sins talked about. Numbers 15, verses 27-36: “And if any soul sin through ignorance, okay, then he shall bring in a goat of the first year for a sin offering, and the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly when he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord to make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him. If you have a hidden fault that the word of God reveals to you, then you should confess that and bring forth an offering. That offering is covered.

It’s a different sort of offering, however. There is atonement for it. Each of one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sterneth among them. But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among his people, because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off. His iniquity shall be upon him.

And when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him into Moses and Aaron and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward because it was not declared yet what should be done to him. Orders were present: you hold him in ward until the declaration is made. And the Lord said unto Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death.”

The man who was stoned for gathering sticks is immediately placed in the context of presumptuous sins. We know from the verses before this that this man’s sin was not ignorance of the law of God—the Sabbath law of God—don’t we? But we do know also that what the correlation here given is to presumptuous sin. And that’s what David says: “Guard me from presumptuous sin.” Presumptuous sin is being defiant against God. That’s the clear teaching of what’s going on here. If you look up those words, that’s what it means. It means to sin defiantly.

We can infer from that the man who gathered these sticks did so defiantly of the law of God. He didn’t just do it because he wanted to get warm or something. He did it defiantly of the law of God. And that’s the sort of sin David warns us to entreat God to make him—keep him—his feet from the presumptuous sin.

In Deuteronomy 17:12, there’s specific—in case you’re wondering about being cut off as opposed to being stoned. In Deuteronomy 17:12, there’s specific law that says the man who commits presumptuous sin, he shall be stoned or put to death.

There is an old rabbinical saying that says this: “Do not say I sinned and what happened to me?” Do not be so confident of atonement that you shall add sin to sin. And that’s what it’s talking about. Confident of atonement. So you walk presumptuously before the Lord, defiantly of his law, saying there’s atonement for me and do I care?

Does that sound familiar today? It sounds familiar to some of the people that I’ve been talking to in the last couple of weeks who go to churches that tell them that forgiveness is there, they can do whatever they want to and still receive forgiveness from God. These scriptures say no. These scriptures say the man who acts presumptuously that way is cut off from God’s people.

What does the New Testament? Saint Paul says: “Shall we sin so that grace may abound?” No. And a good translation of that—a friend of mine once said—”It horrors know by no stretch of the imagination because we have grace for sin. Should we add sin to sin?” That’s presumptuousness before God and calls for a heavy penalty. It’s cheap grace is what we’re talking about, isn’t it? And cheap grace is condemned in the scriptures. And David asked to keep himself from that sort of understanding of cheap grace.