1/6/2012 5:13:30 AM
SPIRITIUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus:
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 19
Message of the verses: “1 ¶ «For the choir director. A Psalm of David.» The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. 6 Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
“7 ¶ The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. 10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward. 12 Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. 13 Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression. 14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
Psalm 19 is one of the favorite psalms in the entire book of Psalms. I suppose that Psalm 23 is the favorite of most people, but Psalm 19 is also a favorite of many. We see two names of God that are used in this psalm and this makes some believe that it was not all written at the same time by the same author, however the Bible has had many critics in different eras of man and it is still here for us to read so we must believe that this psalm was written by David just as the beginning verse says. John MacArthur writes in his study Bible these words to help us understand why this is only one psalm by one writer: “Because of its two distinct parts and two different names for God, some have tried to argue that Ps. 19 was really two compositions, one ancient and one more recent. However, the shorter form of the name ‘God’ (cf. the longer form in Ge. 1:1) speaks of His power, especially power exhibited as Creator, while ‘Lord’ fits the relational focus. Consequently, David depicted the Lord God as author of both His world and Word in a unified hymn. God has revealed Himself to mankind through these two avenues. The human race stands accountable to Him because of His non-verbal and verbal communications. In the light of these intentions, Ps. 19 eloquently summarizes two prominent vehicles of God’s self-disclosure.”
C. S. Lewis writes the following about Psalm 19: “I take this [Ps. 19] to be the greatest poem in the Psalms and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.”
John MacArthur gives the following outline for Psalm 19:
I. “ God’s General Self-Disclosure in the World (19:1-6)
A. The Publication of the Skies (19:1-4b)
B. The Prominence of the Sun (19:4c-6)
II. God’s Special Self-Disclosure in the Word (19:7-14)
A. The Attributes of the Word (19:7-14)
B. An Appreciation for the Word (19:10,11)
C. The Application of the Word (19:12-14)”
Warren Wiersbe writes the following in his introduction to this psalm: “The emphasis in the
Psalm is on God’s revelations of Himself in creation, Scripture, and the human heart.”
There is one more thing that I want to write before moving on to the first point in Dr. Wiersbe’s outline and that is something that came up in an earlier SD which speaks of how some of the authors of the Bible describe God. We know that God is Spirit and therefore does not have a body like the one He has created for humans, but there are times in the Scriptures that God is seeing as having hands, feet, eyes, ears in order to help us understand God better. We see in verse one of Psalm 19 these words, “their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” We see in Psalm 8:3 these words “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers.” These are called anthropomorphisms and whenever you are reading the Scriptures and see this type of description of God that is what it is called.
The World Around Us—God the Creator (vv. 1-6): “1 ¶ «For the choir director. A Psalm of David.» The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. 6 Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.”
I mentioned in an earlier SD that I am involved in a Bible Study about creation and we see in the first part of Psalm 19 an answer to the question as to why the Lord created so much in the universe and I believe we get the answer in verse one of this psalm: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God.” God is glorified in His creation, and not only is He glorified in His creation, but His creation is a witness to everyone that there is a God who created all we see. Dr. Wiersbe writes: “So complex a universe demands a Creator who can do anything, who knows everything, and who is present everywhere. But even more, David knew that God was speaking to the inhabitants of the earth by means of His creation. Creation is a ‘wordless book’ that everybody can read because it needs no translation. God speaks through creation day after day and night after night; His speech ‘pours out’ silently, abundantly, universally.” The evolutionists are trying to rob people of this by stating that all we see was just some kind of a cosmic accident and therefore they are robbing God of His glory and will have to answer to that someday when they stand before God, for they too can look and see what God created and therefore are accountable to God. Evolutionists are causing mankind to “be off the hook” when it comes to God for if creation was all an accident then we are accountable to no One. I have stated before and will state again here “Evolution is impossible!”
I want to talk about verses two and three in that we see in verse two that the heavens pours forth speech and then in verse three we see “there is no speech, nor are there words, their voice is not heard.” John MacArthur writes: “This is not a contradiction, but shows that the constant communication of the heavens is not words of a literal nature.”
I found an interesting story in Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary that states that “Philips Brooks gave the first instructions about God to Helen Keller, who was blind and deaf, and she replied that she had always known there was a God but didn’t know what His name was.” Acts 4:12 says, “’And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.’” Of course that name is Jesus Christ and it is up to believers to tell others about Him.
We know that many so called religions worship the creation, like the sun and the stars, but the Bible teaches us that we are not to worship anything but God. Part of the Ten Commandments states this: “4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” “13 "You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who prophesy by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save you from what will come upon you. 14 "Behold, they have become like stubble, Fire burns them; They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame; There will be no coal to warm by Nor a fire to sit before!” (Isaiah 47:13-14)
Before we move into the next section I want to look at verses 4c-6 where David writes about the sun and how it is like a bridegroom, but it is also like a vigorous athlete that is running a race. This picture of the sun as a bridegroom shows that the bridegroom was in a hurry to leave the marriage pavilion in order to claim his bride. Dr. Wiersbe has an endnote that gives another possible interpretation to this: “Some interpret the picture as the bridegroom leaving the marriage pavilion after consummating the marriage, rejoicing that no ‘two had become one.’ Either way David saw the sunrise as a time of joy as he faced the day, and also as a time of determination to reach the goals set for the day.”
I think that Psalm 19 will answer a question that many have asked and that is “Are people lost who have never heard about Jesus?” Dr. Wiersbe writes that there are two answers to this question: “1. Yes, they are lost, because God speaks to them all day long, and they refuse to listen; 2. What are you doing about getting the message to these people?”
Lord willing I will continue with the rest of Psalm 19 tomorrow as there is still much to cover in the last portion of this wonderful psalm.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I see a constant need to be ready to tell others of the hope that I have through my relationship with Jesus Christ. The heavens declare the glory of God as verse one says, and perhaps that will be the way to open up a conversation to someone that the Holy Spirit will make a divine appointment with sometime soon.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Be ready at all times to be led by the Spirit of God to talk to some poor soul who needs to hear the Word of Truth in order to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
2. Continue to learn contentment in my life knowing that God is in control of all things even though at times it is hard to see. I must remember that “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God,” and the more I read and study the Word the more faith I can get, the more contentment I can learn.
1/6/2012 7:03:27 AM
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