"Track 19: The Glory of God Revealed (Psalm 19)", Todd Gienke | 7/28/24
Psalm 19 | 7/28/24 | Todd Gienke
Good morning. My name is Todd Gienke and I am one of your elders here at West Hills. It is my privilege to speak this morning while Pastor Will continues his sabbatical. I’d like to welcome everyone, especially those visiting with us this morning – thank you so much for joining us.
If you would indulge me, please close your eyes for a moment. Picture with me a night sky full of stars, with a bright full moon in the foreground, imagine following the predictable and reliable patterns of the heavenly bodies. Think of the beauty of a sunrise, a sunset, the artistry of a sky full of puffy clouds. Consider the changes in the sun’s journey as it moves through the sky during the day, feel it’s warmth on your face. Picture the majesty and awesomeness of a huge thunderhead appearing in the evening sky. Imagine the sight of a rainbow revealed in a burst of sunlight. Picture yourself on Mt. Sinai, when the thunder is clapping, when you suddenly hear the voice of God Himself, speaking to you. You can open your eyes now. What did you feel when you pictured the night sky?, or the sun’s movement and qualities?, or the daily changes to our atmosphere?, or hearing the power and feeling the force of a thunderclap? Were you moved by at least some of these things? Of course you were. I know you were, because I didn’t show them to you, you have all experienced them over and over again. Do you know who else knows. God knows – because He has revealed them to us and for us, along with His plan for meaning and purpose in our lives. I invite you to stand if your able for the reading of God’s Word in Psalm 19. You can read along on the screen or in your own Bibles. If you need a Bible, you can pick one up from the Info Bar outside. Hear the Word of the Lord:
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To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts 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 rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they then gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. 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. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
This is the Word of God. Please be seated.
Willem Van Gemeren, professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, said of Psalm 19, “This Psalm reflects, more than any other, the beauty and splendor of the Hebrew poetry found in the Psalter”. C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.’” Among the Psalms, Psalm 19 is nearly matchless in its poetic power and theological depth.
I have been a science teacher, specifically a biology teacher, for over thirty years. It’s one of the reasons why I am so excited to speak on this Psalm. I get to speak about the amazing glory of God, but I can also get “sciencey” with you as well.
In this Psalm, God shows himself to be a revealing God, a disclosing God, a divulging God. He wants to make himself known and to be known. He does this in the first 6 verses by referring to his general revelation to us. General revelation is the clear display of God’s glory and power in the works of creation and providence.
Romans 1:19-20 states: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
As I have told some of you previously, at one point in my life, I tried to be an atheist. Even though I had been exposed to God, believed in God, knew of Jesus, I thought the world would make more sense without God – meaning, I wanted to be in control. I wanted to be able to live my life how I wanted to – without following rules and having to make excuses for my beliefs and behavior, and above all, to not feel guilty for them. But try as I might my experience as an atheist didn’t last all that long. When I espoused atheistic beliefs or claimed, “there is no God,” there was a cognitive dissonance, it didn’t sound right – I knew it wasn’t true. In my science classes in college, the more I learned, the more order and design was revealed in the natural world. When we see order and evidence of design in science, we have a word for it: elegant. “Look at how elegant the structure of the DNA molecule is”. “The solar system is elegant”. “The blood clotting cascade has an elegant nature to it”. God’s presence and power was being displayed to me, and I could no longer say He wasn’t there. There’s a saying, “Atheists get up every morning and have to convince themselves every day that they are atheists.” I just couldn’t do it anymore – it was just too hard. Because as Psalm 19 makes clear in verse 1, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. The New Living Translation translates “handiwork” as “craftsmanship”. Something created with precision and purpose. Bear in mind, it is the created heavens we’re referencing here, not the spiritual heaven where God lives. They are the night sky and the blue sky. Psa 148:3-5 – Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created. God created all the heavens and everything in them for our wonderment and above all for His glory.
Before our modern times, an evening’s entertainment may have very well consisted of gazing into the night sky. They not only lacked the technological distractions we have at our disposal today to occupy our time; they did not have the “light pollution” that comes from modern population centers to obstruct their view of the show. Here in West St. Louis County, we would have to go to a “star show” at the planetarium to replicate their view of our solar system and the galaxies beyond. Through observation we get a small understanding of immenseness and awesome nature of just the small part of the universe we can see with just the eyes God gave us. The sky gives us a sense of transcendence, that there is something above us, over us. David spent a lot of time under the sky. He was an outdoorsman, a shepherd. Imagine David, looking up to the same sky and seeing the stars, and the moon, and the clouds of faraway galaxies. Imagine him seeing the sun, the clouds, the sunrises and sunsets – and him proclaiming that in them he saw the glory of God. David knew God was speaking through His creation. God’s glory is seen in his artistry in creating something so beautiful. His glory is seen in His goodness and kindness, in His creating it for us to marvel and wonder at.
As mankind’s technology improved, God revealed new and more detailed discoveries about our solar system. Using scientific processes and reasoning, we try to describe in a tangible way how the physical world works. We tend to look at the “small” or the “big” for these answers – and as we have the technology to see smaller and smaller, or bigger and bigger – things don’t get simpler, they get more complex and organized. Verse 2 states that, Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. Astronomer Tycho Brahe sat every night in an observatory on a secluded island for 3 years charting star patterns and planetary movements with instruments he developed – but without the aid of magnification – the telescope had not been invented until later in his life. His student, Johannes Kepler, used Brahe’s detailed measurements to develop the laws of planetary motion astronomers and star gazers use today. Charles Darwin was unable to peer deeply into the structure of the cell, and guessed it was very simple – like a puddle of goo. He couldn’t have been more wrong. With the invention of ever more powerful microscopes, the more we learned about the innerworkings of the cell, the more fascinating and miraculous it became – more complex than any machine conceived by man. Check out this little guy, it’s a motor protein that carries and distributes bags of materials used in the cell by “walking” along pathways to their destination. Again, the more we know, simplicity is not the rule; things get more complex. The same is true for what David witnessed in the heavens. The more we’re able to peer into the universe, the more God reveals of his “handiwork”, and of Himself. God’s glory is seen in his “bigness” and witnessed in Him creating something so very, very large.
To gain even a small grasp of the immense distances were dealing with in the heavens requires us to work with numbers that are very, very large – so large that we have no real frame of reference to understand them – so we have to put them in a context that make them somewhat relatable. For example, the sun is 93 million miles away from earth. If we drove at 70mph, it would take 152 years to reach the sun. If you travelled at the speed of a bullet fired from an M16 rifle, 3000 ft/sec, it would STILL take you 4.5 years to reach the sun. If the distance between the sun and the earth is reduced the thickness of a piece of paper, the distance between the earth and the nearest star from the sun would be a stack of paper 70 feet high. The diameter of our galaxy would be a stack of paper 310 MILES high, and our galaxy is nothing but a speck in the whole universe. My frame of reference gets a little fuzzy here, I can’t really imagine a stack of paper 310 miles high, but I know that were talking about something that is really, really, really, big. My little mind just can’t comprehend how big that actually is. These are the pillars of creation, one small segment of the Eagle nebula, a collection of gases and dust that spawn new stars. These pillars are 4 to 5 light-years from one end to the other. Still, a very small portion of the universe.
God’s glory is also seen in his precise engineering of the universe, everything working together to accomplish His purpose for creation. We now know scientifically the universe had a beginning because we have evidence that it is expanding, originating from a single point and continuing to move outward. All the matter in the universe seemingly coming from nothing. And then, there is the Anthropic principle. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross explains is this way: The anthropic principle says that the universe appears “designed” for the sake of human life. “More than a century of research yields this observation: the emergence of humans and human civilization requires physical constants, laws, and properties that fall within certain narrow ranges—and this truth applies not only to the cosmos as a whole but also to the galaxy, planetary system, and planet humans occupy. We have now identified over 150 characteristics, that must be finely-tuned individually and with each other to support intelligent life. Imagine 150 knobs that all have to be turned to a specific position for life to be possible. Change the positioning of any of them enough – and life, human life is not possible. The odds that any given planet in the universe would possess the necessary conditions to support intelligent physical life as we know it is a number so large – 10 to the 173rd power – it might as well be infinity. The size of this number is inconceivable to us. For a little reference, the estimated number of subatomic particles in the universe (protons, electrons, and neutrons) is 10 to the 80th power. The universe was made for us.
Verse 4 declares, Their voice (that of the heavens, proclaiming God’s glory; it) goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. No place or person is without some knowledge of God. Some missionaries have claimed that when they make contact with tribal groups, they confess they were waiting for someone to bring a book about the creator God. God has prepared the way for these people to have a desire to learn about Him through His general revelation – through his continued speech that is poured out for us.
In His creation, God has also revealed to us His Special Star. It’s no wonder that ancient civilizations revered the sun and held it in awe – most elevating it to a god-like status. Listen to David’s description of the sun: In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The night sky is like a tent (or home) for the sun, but then it burst forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding. David describes the sun as a strong man, or some translations say “great athlete”, eager to run its race to the other side of the heavens. The strength of the sun comes from the light and heat it produces. I have always been amazed by the heat that can be generated from an object that’s 93 million miles away. As verse 6 says, nothing is hidden from its heat. The sun is powerful and awesome, and obviously should be treated cautiously: it can cause heatstroke, can cause serious burns, and you can’t look at it, except for the odd glance, without seriously damaging your eyes. But as dangerous as it can be, the sun is the physical source of life on Earth. The sun is just the right distance from the Earth to provide a suitable temperature range for life. Also, our atmosphere absorbs excess heat from the sun during the day and holds heat in at night to avoid huge temperature swings, which would be unsuitable for life. The sun just the right size to support the planetary orbits in our solar system. The sun is the source of the energy used by all organisms. Plants absorb light energy from the sun, just the right wavelengths of light, and use that energy to make sugars – the chemicals cells use for energy. Only plants can make these compounds that are necessary for life.
At this point in the Psalm, there is a change that appears to be abrupt. But as our sermon title states, Psalm 19 is really all about the revelation of God’s glory. So, the shift here isn’t all that abrupt when we realize that God has revelated himself to us through two primary means: in his WORLD (His general revelation to all) and in his WORD (His special revelation to his people). Creation is limited in showing the attributes of God and His purpose for creation. His voice of power in creation prepares the way for His voice of grace in the gospel. The word of God more clearly reveals the character of God. In the first section of the Psalm, the creation section, the Hebrew name for God used is Elohim, the God of creation, the God of power. The God we’ve witnessed so far in this sermon. As the psalm transitions to the law section, the word used for God changes to Jehovah, His covenant name, the God of personal, relational, intimate revelation. The heavens declare the glory of God, but the Scriptures tell us what God did so we can share in His glory.
In verses 7 through 9, several words are used for law – including testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, and rules. In each stanza, there is an attribute of the law and a benefit stemming from that attribute. First, the law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The word for perfect means complete, full, whole, or flawless. The function of the law is to reveal God’s holiness and our sin, which leads to our need for redemption. Martin Luther said of God’s Law, “it drives us to despair so we may be driven to Christ”. Romans 10:4 says, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. A soul is revived when it is redeemed by Jesus. Next, the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. When God testifies about Himself, He tells the truth. Sure, here means steadfast or faithful – God’s Word will hold up to scrutiny. Simple means open-minded or open to instruction. Proverbs 1:2-4 tells us, to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth. Being open to instruction from the God’s Word makes the simple wise, one of the purposes of God’s special revelation to us. Another word for precepts is statutes, and God’s statutes are right, correct, straight. We can count on them, and trusting and following God’s Word will bring joy and gratitude. It is the knowledge of God, for the worship of God. His commandments are pure, given to us by a Holy God, and they are clear, clean – morally and theologically right. They bring light and freedom; through them God’s will becomes our joy. Fear of the Lord, means a deep respect for God’s revealed will through His Word. His revealed will is awesome – fearful. After Moses received the ten commandments on Mt. Siani, the people implored him to speak to them for God. Ex 20:18 – Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” The people were afraid and trembled, they stood far off, they feared for their lives. But Moses told them that God was testing them that their fear should be used to keep them from sinning. God’s Word reveals our sin. Isaiah said, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” God’s law is clean, morally pure, separate. Psalm 12:6 says, the words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground. And it endures forever. Matt 24:35 – Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. The rules, or judgements of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. God’s law establishes justice, it reveals what is true and right. It says we will all be accountable on the day of judgement. He gives us truth and righteousness when we abandon our untruths and unrighteousness and run to Him.
Verse 10 says, more to be desired are they then gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. God’s Word is compared to gold, pure gold – an extremely valuable commodity in biblical times, as it is today. Think of the furnishings the Israelites made for the tabernacle and then the temple. Many of them were made of gold or covered with gold to demonstrate God’s purity and value. A king’s accumulation of gold was the main measure of his wealth. The Bible says David had 5000 tons of gold. For comparison, Fort Knox has 4600 tons of gold. It is estimated that King David held over half the monetary wealth in the world. Using current values, his wealth would be over $125 trillion dollars! He was obviously a very, very, very wealthy man, but he is not primarily known for his riches. He is much more known as a man after God’s heart. David is saying here that God’s Word is much more valuable or desirable than gold. He wanted no amount of money or wealth to come before His affection and attention to the Word of God. It is also better than sensual experiences we have in this world. Honey is sweet and very pleasant to eat, but Scripture is much sweeter. God’s Word is our one true treasure. Matt 6:19-21 – “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. We often spend so much time and energy pursuing treasures here – it may be relationships, or family, or sports, or politics, or wealth and prestige, an almost countless number of things. But the true, lasting treasures of heaven can be found in God’s Word. The law is our delight, to be tasted and enjoyed.
Verse 11 – Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. God warns us through His Word. It warns us of sins we are susceptible to. It warns us of threats we cannot see. It warns us of dangers we cannot anticipate. Warnings that too many times we ignore, diminish, or reject. But there is also great reward in keeping God’s statutes. There is peace of mind and comfort from being in God’s will. There is the satisfaction and fruitfulness of a fulfilled life – there is revival, wisdom, joyfulness, enlightenment, endurance, and righteousness. There is an assurance before the final judgement.
David obviously saw great benefits in keeping God’s law, and he wants God’s glory to be revealed through him. As God’s people, we bring glory to Him to the extent that we OBEY God’s word and therefore live out our calling as His “image-bearers”, living as His ambassadors. In verse 12 and 13, David asks “who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. 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. David realizes he can’t possibly keep hidden sins from occurring, sins that we’re not even aware of. David pleads to be declared innocent of his hidden faults and that his willful sins will not have dominion over him. Why does he do this? He realizes that on his own he does not have the ability to live a sinless life. None of us do. David has no hope of living up to his calling. None of us can. Ecc 7:20 says, Surely, there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. David is asking for help. He knows he can’t do it on his own. James 2:10 says, for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. David realized that for the glory of God to be revealed in us we must be declared innocent, only then would we be blameless.
If you start reading the Bible from the beginning, you only get through two chapters before things start to go wrong in God’s perfect creation, and the problem is identified. Adam and Eve sinned by breaking a command God had given them. They decided they wanted to be like God, they wanted control of their lives. From this point forward, God starts unfolding His plan to redeem His people, people, like you and me, who have the predisposition to want control and live lives outside His plan for our us. And His plan runs through His son, Jesus. He is the crown jewel of God’s glorious reveal. In verse 14, David prays that his thoughts and his words would be acceptable, in line, with God’s will. He also knows that this is only possible through a redeemer, someone that can reclaim what we lost with Adam and Eve, the relationship we were meant to have with the creator God, the relational God. We will only live in the Word by the power of God, and that power is the power to deliver us and redeem us from our sins. David looked to the Lord GOD to be his strength and redemption. He knew that he needed a Redeemer, and that the faithful God would rescue him. In this Psalm, he praised God’s glory in His creation, and in His Word. When meditating on the greatness of the Lord, David knew that he was small and sinful. He knew that if he trusted God, then He would be his strength and his redeemer. In Colossians 1, it says, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Jesus was not only there throughout creation, doing the creating; Creation is for Him. He is actively holding it all together. Remember the fine-tuning of the universe, that’s Jesus adjusting the knobs.
To redeem us from our sins, Jesus left His perfect relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit to make Himself nothing in comparison, to become human, to live a sinless life, to pay the ultimate price by taking our sins on Himself, dying as a payment for those sins, and coming back to life as proof of God’s acceptance of His atoning sacrifice.
Jesus is the reason for God’s Word, the purpose of God’s Word, the fulfillment of God’s Word. Starting in the third chapter of Genesis, God reveals His solution to our problem, it’s all about His unrelenting redemptive story for the people he created and loves, and it’s all about Jesus.
If we just accept and believe that Jesus is our redeemer, He rescues us from our slavery to our sin, the bankruptcy we feel in our souls, and the poverty of a life without true purpose and meaning, so we can be the “image bearers” of Christ, through his redemptive work on the cross.
Jesus revealed God’s glory by becoming the Creator of the world; Jesus revealed God’s glory by becoming our Law-fulfiller, God’s word made flesh; and Jesus reveals God’s glory by now making US God’s adopted sons and daughters, “declaring us innocent” of our “GREAT transgressions”, if we simply turn from them and trust in Him by faith. Let us pray.