The Undeniable Existence Of God In The Life Changing Word - part 1

At some point in his life, David declared the teaching of general revelation when he wrote in verse 1,!

In fact, Romans 1, as we looked at in conjunction with those verses, says, This is natural revelation.

This is general revelation. It is for all people in all places, for all time, to reveal the undeniable existence of God.

And Psalm 19, David uses the sun as the example that every bit of creation, every person on this planet, experiences the sun.

Now, there are places on the planet that they don't see the sun for some time. And in those same places, they don't see anything but the sun for some time, right?

You understand how that works if you've been through your earth science classes. If not, I would love to explain it to you. It is very easy to understand. But the reality is the sun is something that is experienced by all people everywhere.

Everyone benefits from the warmth of the sun. We are benefiting even now as we are in this room from the warmth of the sun and the effect of greenhouse and all that stuff.

Right? And it is only 78 degrees in here. Margaret is happy and has finally reached the tolerable temperature of 78.

Oh, man. One way or the other. It is hard. Oh, okay. But natural revelation renders all men without excuse at the judgment seat of God.

You cannot plead ignorance. You cannot say, I did not know there was a God. I did not know you existed. No, no. We are told that everybody knows.

Romans 1 says that the unrighteous suppress the truth. They know it's true. They recognize that this is the fact that there is a creator that created this.

But they will suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. They will deny it. They will make up any other excuse and any other story so long as they don't have to confess the truth of a creator.

Deep down, you know God. You see evidences of his existence all around you. And yet have deliberately suppressed the knowledge of God. People do not know God because they do not want to know God.

And while this natural revelation is enough to condemn people, it is not enough to save them. And that brings us to the second section of Psalm 19 verses 7 through 11.

Where we are exposed to what is referred to in theological circles as special revelation. So Psalm 19 verse 7. 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. Father, more to be desired are they than 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.

These five verses in this psalm are a profound testimony of Scripture. And it's really a smaller version of Psalm 119.

You may be familiar with Psalm 119, if at the very least recognizing it is the longest chapter in the Bible. Psalm 119 is 176 verses in length.

There are 22 sections of Psalm 119. With eight verses in each section. And it relates to the Hebrew alphabet. Of which there are 22 letters.

Or characters. And Psalm 119 is largely a collection of prayers and meditations on the Word of God.

And in these five verses in Psalm 119, you have six synonyms used for the Word of God. In Psalm 119, you have ten that are repeated many times.

In fact, I did not double-check this, but every verse in Psalm 119, I think maybe except for two or three, every verse mentions the Word of God.

So Psalm 19 verses 7 through 11 is Psalm 119 on a smaller scale. It emphasizes the Word of God.

And exalts it to its appropriate position of being the authority over us. God's authority given to us.

And so Psalm 19 verses 7 through 11, we see that David shows the undeniable existence of God in the life-changing Word of God.

And as I mentioned, there are six synonyms. There are actually six statements that expound on the life-changing Word of God.

These six statements are found in verses 7 through 9 with two statements in each verse. We are going to cover the first three today.

And the next week, we will cover the next three and the couple verses to follow. In each of these six statements, there's a title for Scripture, there's a characteristic of Scripture, and there is a function of Scripture.

And as I've already mentioned, the titles given are synonyms referring to the same thing, the Word of God. And they are to be understood together, giving a comprehensive emphasis of all the words of the Lord, that all the words of the Lord are beneficial, that all the words of the Lord are good and right and pure.

2 Timothy 3 verses 16 and 17 tells us that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I'll reemphasize the first few words there. All Scripture is breathed by God. All of it is profitable for us.

Every last bit. Even those that you like to skip over, specifically Genesis 5 and 10 and some of the chronicles where they're listing the genealogies of certain individuals.

And it's like, oh my word, why? You would almost rather just pull out the Webster Dictionary and start reading in the A section. But the reality is even the genealogies are important.

Even the genealogies are tremendously important and profitable for us. But the scope of this sermon is not to dig into that. I would love to go over that sometime because it is quite fascinating as you seek to understand and know the Word of God even more in depth.

Well, without any further ado, let's jump back into Psalm 19, verse 7. And the first statement there says, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

So you're given the first synonym for the Word of God is the law. The law of the Lord. This alludes to the legal direction and instruction that we find in Scripture.

The Word of God is God's law for man's conduct on earth. It's the binding standard by which we are to live. It is given by God, the Creator, to His creation, man.

He is the Creator. We are the creation. He is the rule setter. We are to be the rule followers. It is the extent of authority.

That is how the hierarchical system breaks down. There's God overall. We are His creation. We listen to Him. He sets the rules.

We follow what He says. What He says goes. And we do not get the privilege to argue with that. We may not like it. And that happens a lot.

And especially in our culture, there are a lot of things that our culture hates about the Word of God. But it is His law nonetheless.

And He has set the standard. And despite what the current culture wants to claim, God's law is, as we're told here, perfect. The law of the Lord is perfect.

Yes, that means without defect or blameless. But it also gives the sense of completeness and comprehensiveness, that Hebrew word for perfect. So it leaves nothing out that we must know or be aware of.

There is nothing lacking in the Word of God. There is nothing missing. There is nothing that we know that God should have included in His Word.

There is nothing we can tell God that He messed up on, that He didn't give us enough of. In fact, James 1.25 tells us that it is the perfect law, the law of liberty.

And the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in His doing. So even James, hundreds of years after David penned Psalm 19, James is saying, this is the perfect law.

It is complete. It is comprehensive. It is everything we need. And being perfect, it produces the result of reviving the soul.

That word, the Hebrew word for revive, literally means to turn back. Your version of Scripture, depending on what you have, may say something other than reviving.

It might have converting. It might have restoring. It might have renewing. But the idea is that the word of God is so perfectly complete and comprehensive that it is sufficient to totally transform the whole inner person.

Hebrews 4.12 tells us that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And 2 Peter 1.3 and 4 says, His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Folks, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. It is what we need to be made complete in Christ.

It is what we need to be saved from our condemnation of rejecting God and sinning against our Creator.

the second statement in verse 7, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. So the testimony, when you think of testimony, that should call to your attention or bring to your mind an idea of a legal nature, a legal proceeding.

A testimony is given by a witness, right, in the court of law. It's a person's witness to their own experience. That's what people call, when the lawyers call witnesses, they're in their testimony.

They're getting their account of what they observed and seen. When we have in our prayer and praise time, people who give testimony about how God is working in their lives, how He has blessed them, or how He is bringing about challenges and hardships to draw them closer to Himself.

That is a testimony. It is a personal experience. So the Word of God, the testimony of the Lord, it's God's own testimony about Himself as it's His revelation of Himself to His creation.

When we read the Bible, these are God's words for us. And if we receive, 1 John 5, 9, if we receive the testimony of men, which we do in the court of law, when we converse with them, we take their word for what they have seen.

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God that He is born concerning His Son. So the whole idea there in 1 John 5 is that if we are willing to listen to the testimony of man in order to come to a conclusion of whether somebody's innocent or guilty, as we determine the truthfulness of somebody's statement, God's testimony is far greater.

He's the Creator. He's perfect. He's holy. He's righteous. He's just. We should take His word for it. And we have His word.

His testimony written down for us to observe and to see and hear and understand better. And we're told that His testimony is sure. That word sure can be faithful, reliable, trustworthy.

God's testimony is as solid as you can get. He's the greatest eyewitness account ever. That's why Genesis 1 is so important.

Why Origins is so important. Why the whole evolution and creation, I don't call it, I don't know, I guess it's a debate. The argument is so important. Because Genesis 1 is God's testimony testimony to how all things came to be.

And He is the Creator. And He was there to witness it. And His testimony is sure. When that gets called into question, you then have to ask, who is the authority that I'm going to give my attention to?

Is it God, who has created all things and is eternally existent and good and righteous and just? Or is it man? And I don't think I need to go on a prove it rant as to the corruption of man.

God's testimony is so good that it makes wise the simple. Simple basically means ignorant. It comes from a Hebrew word root that means an open door.

So the idea of being simple-minded is the idea of being an open door. Everything goes in and everything comes out.

So when someone says, well, I'm an open-minded person, that's basically a public statement of ignorance. It doesn't make them intelligent.

In fact, it actually puts them lower on the totem pole because they're not willing to close that door to be discerning and wise. God does not want us to be open-minded.

He wants us to be knowledgeable. He wants us to be discerning of the truth. In Matthew 7, verse 24, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

That's Jesus at the end of his sermon on the mount. He says, if you've heard my words and you've done them, you're a wise man. You're a wise person. He doesn't say, those who've heard my words and are considering them and thinking about them against the words of Confucius and Muhammad and Buddha and whomever you want to put out there.

No, he said, if you hear my words and do them, you are a wise individual. 2 Timothy 3.15, Paul commending his protege, his young pastor friend, Timothy, saying how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

The sacred writings, the word of God, the testimony of the Lord will make one wise for salvation through faith in Christ. So the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

Third, and finally for today, Psalm 19.8a, the precepts, excuse me, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. Precepts are general principles or rules. They're doctrines of truth in the word of God.

There are people in churches who they hear the word doctrine and they tense up and they get shy and nervous and maybe even faint because they want to stay away from that word because they equate the word doctrine with dogma and that's fine with me.

But they don't want to be about doctrine, right? Because for the last hundred years in evangelical Christianity, it's not about religion, it's about a relationship. Right?

Well, partly true. It is about a relationship. But that relationship has dictates to be followed.

That relationship is with a creator who has given us his law, who has given us his testimony, who has given us his precepts to know and to apply in our lives.

We don't follow it because in following his rules and laws, we gain righteousness or we gain salvation. No. We follow and we do what we hear from his word because of our relationship with him.

We can have a right relationship with God, with our creator because of Jesus Christ and because of his death on the cross that paid the penalty of my sin, where I fall short in perfection, where I offend my creator.

Jesus paid the penalty, took the wrath of God on the cross for that shortcoming. And I repent of my sinful life.

I repent of the way that I live that is a disgrace to God. And I put my faith wholly in Christ and his sacrifice. I am saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

There's no doubt about it. But, because I am saved and I am a new creature in Christ and I am a new creation, I desire to please my creator.

I desire to live a life that will honor and glorify him. And that is where the precepts of the Lord becomes so important.

I need to know what he says and I need to understand the truth that he has revealed and I need to seek to live consistent with it. There are many people in the world who claim to believe the Bible and maybe even read the Bible.

You can find them everywhere. They'll come knocking on your door. Hi, I'm a Jehovah's Witness. Hi, I'm a Mormon. They read the Bible.

They claim to believe the Bible. There are even atheists who read the Bible. They think it's a, they think there's some good moral teaching there.

Jesus was a good moral man. We can learn a lot of good morality that we can live in our lives that would make everything better. But the core issue is not that someone affirms the Bible through their belief or reading of it.

The question is whether or not people affirm what the Bible teaches. Thus, the doctrines of the Lord are right, we're told.

They're not, they're not wrong, they're right. They're right as opposed to wrong, but they also point in the right direction. The Hebrew word right means straight. Many churches have chosen to compromise the clear teaching of Scripture on sensitive matters so as not to be offensive to people.

We don't want to be abrasive to people. We want people to feel loved. So we're not going to teach what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. We're not going to teach what the Bible teaches or how it addresses transgenderism.

We're not going to deal with these things. We just want people to feel loved and accepted and warm and fuzzy inside. And they do that.

And people do feel warm and fuzzy inside who attend those churches along those lines. And they get the high five as they drown in their sins and as they die to be separated from God for all eternity because nobody warned them that they needed to repent of their sin and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Churches have taken the straight doctrines of the Word of God and made them crooked. 2 Peter 3 verse 16 Peter writes there are some things in the letters of Paul that are hard to understand.

We can thank God that that statement is in Scripture because I'm sure we've all read some of Paul and like I don't quite get this and Peter was right there too so we have good company.

He says there are some things that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other Scriptures.

Peter says that the ignorant and unstable twist the Word of God to their own destruction as they do other Scriptures.

The Word of God sets you on a straight path that rejoices the heart. Proverbs 14 verse 12 there is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way to death.

Psalm 119 verse 25 my soul clings to the dust give me life according to your Word. Psalm 119 105 your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Ladies and gentlemen Psalm 19 8a the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart. Oh what a great joyful thing we have in the doctrine in the truth of the Word of God.

God. So as we come to the end of our time in these verses today we see that David has left us with only one reasonable conclusion that the Word of God is unlike any other book because it comes from the living God himself.

It is perfect it is sure it is right it revives the soul it makes wise the simple and it fills the heart with true joy. As we have seen general revelation declares that God exists but special revelation tells us who he is what he requires how sinners can be reconciled to him.

We need them both. We have the general revelation through the creation and we have special revelation through the Word of God.

and the question is not whether God's Word is sufficient but it's will you submit to it or as I shared yesterday at Linda's funeral do you believe this?

The same Word that reveals God's holiness also exposes our sin and it tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and that the wages of sin is death and separation from God.

Left to ourselves we stand guilty before God. We will stand before God no doubt but if it's in and of ourselves we will be guilty but the Bible reveals the good news through Jesus Christ that he is the Christ that he is the eternal Son of God that he lived the perfect life we could never live he died the death that we deserved he took the wrath of God on the cross the wrath of God being poured out on him for the sins of the world and he rose again in victory over sin and death three days later.

He is the only Savior of sinners and that is revealed to us in the Word of God. So if you've never come to Christ God's Word calls you today to repent and believe the Gospel turn from your sin turn from your self-righteousness turn from your rebellion against your Creator and trust in Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins and for those who already are in Christ you've already claimed Christ for salvation let this passage in Psalm 19 renew your confidence in the Scriptures it's not a book to admire from a distance it's not a book to leave on your shelf and collect dust for a week or a month before you go back to church it's not a book that you only consult in your time of trouble and hardship it's the very voice of God sufficient for every season of life how do we have a conversation with God?

In prayer we talk to God we let our needs be known our thoughts feelings so on and so forth he knows it all yes but that's how we converse with him that's how we talk to him how does God talk to us?

through the Bible through the word of God only and it is sure it is right it is good so treasure it read it memorize it and obey it father father I thank you for your word I thank you for this time briefly to be in Psalm 19 lord help us to think on these things lord to internalize them lord commit them to memory hide them in our heart that we may not sin against you I pray in Jesus name amen