This past week, I began thinking
and praying about the last verse in this psalm. Let the words
of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in
thy sight, O Lord, my strength, my rock, and redeemer. And I know there is enough in
that one verse of scripture for a complete message. But I want
us to look at the psalm in its entirety tonight, the Lord willing. There are three divisions, three
divisions in this psalm. First, we have God's glorious
revelation in creation in the first six verses. And then second,
God's more glorious revelation in his law in verses seven through
10. And then thirdly, we have, in
the last few verses, David's confession and prayer. His prayer
is, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. First, and think about this,
this word glorious, glorious. God's glorious revelation in
creation. Let's read these first six verses. The heavens declare the glory
of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto night
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There's
no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their
line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to
the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle
for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and
rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is
from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of
it, And there's nothing hid from the heat thereof. God's glorious
revelation in creation. You notice the title of the Psalm. We're told it is a Psalm of David. We're not told its date, which
is true of most all of the Psalms. We're not given the date. And
those Psalms which do have a date, we're not sure that that is inspired,
or if that's just something the translators have added. But as
I look at these first verses, God's glorious revelation, being
a Psalm of David, I think that we see how David spent his time
as a shepherd. You know, when God sent Samuel,
to the house of Jesse to anoint David to be the king over Israel,
over God's people. Where was he? He was out tending
the sheep. And I think as I look at these
verses, we can see how David spent much of his time as he
was out in nature, as we would call it, out in nature. He spent
time in the daytime watching over the sheep of his father
and he slept out at night watching over the sheep. And the time
that he spent tending his father's sheep gave him time during the
daylight as well as the darkness of night to observe God's glory,
God's glory which is revealed in creation. And I think it's
a shame that you and I live in a time in which we do, knowing,
of course, that God put us in this time. I know it's God's
time. But back when there was no electricity,
no electric lights, and for a man to live out like David did in
Palestine, like Abraham did, when God took him out and said,
look up in the stars, there was no light. to hinder him seeing
the multitude, the multiplicity of stars in the heavens. And
God promising him, making a covenant with him, telling him so his
descendants would be. And I see David as a young lad
observing nature, observing nature. And he saw in the heavens, the
sun, the moon, the stars and the planets. All announcing to
him God's infinite wisdom. God's infinite wisdom. And not
only God's infinite wisdom. And that word infinite, you recognize
it just means without any bounds. Unlimited. His unlimited wisdom. His infinite wisdom. But not
only that, he had to recognize as well God's infinite power
to bring this creation into being. He saw that each day, each day
imparted lessons about God and his creation. And every night
he observed the heavenly bodies as they revealed more and more
knowledge to him was imparted. One of the writers pointed this
out to me. He said, just as there may be
as many lessons conveyed to the soul about God in the dark night
of affliction and adversity as there are when the sun of prosperity
shines upon us. Let me break that down. Lessons
about God when everything is going well, that we're walking
on the sunny side of the street, as you please, if you will. We're
on the sunny side of the street. Everything's going well. And
we learn lessons about God there. We learn God's goodness and God's
mercy and God's help to us and his grace. But then adversity
comes and we call this the dark side. Everything seems to be
against us. Maybe it's sickness. Maybe it's
poverty. Maybe it's persecution of some
way. The dark side. But we learn about
God in the darkness as well as in the light. And David, as he
observed creation day by day, when the sun was shining, he
could see the handiwork of God. And in the nighttime, he saw
also the handiwork of God. And we see that David also acknowledged
that no matter where a person might be in God's world, no matter
what language, and there are many languages that men speak,
but no matter what language people speak, no matter where they live
in God's creation, God speaks with a universal language. a
universal language. There's no nation and there's
no language of men to whom the heavens do not speak, that God
does not speak. The heavens declare to all men
the wisdom and the power of God. I've been asked many times over
the years by people that are rebellious, rebellious to the
truth about God. And they say, well, what about
a person that is born in the Amazon jungle of South America? What about a person like that?
Are you saying that if he or she doesn't trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that they're not going to enjoy God forever in
heaven? But listen, there's no one. I don't care where a person lives.
I don't care what language they speak. There's no place where
God does not speak and God does not reveal himself as creator. And if a person recognizes that
and began to seek after this Lord, this God, which is his
responsibility, her responsibility to do, don't you just know God
somehow would send the gospel to that person. It's not like
men and women are seeking after God. The scripture says there's
none that seek after God. You know, we've had over my lifetime
at least, we've had missionaries and we've heard missionaries
and they would come and they would tell us that wherever they
were on the field, that people were just hungry for the gospel. They're just hungry for the gospel. And you know that cannot be true. They're not any different there. Men are not any different there
than they are here, unless God has sent a great awakening to
that place and men begin to seek after God. But man by nature,
yes, God reveals Himself in creation, His glorious creation. But men
don't take that knowledge and begin to seek after this God. Not at all. Notice this word line in verse
four. Their line is gone out through all the earth. Through
all the earth. This word which is translated
line is a word that is used to signify a string on the guitar,
I'll say. They say the lyre are one of
those instruments that David played. But the picture is, in
God's creation, this beautiful sound of music goes out into
all the world, into all of his creatures, into all the parts
of the world. The heavens And he doesn't think
about this. He's speaking about especially
the heavens, how the heavens declare the glory of God. He
doesn't even get to the earth and the things of this earth.
But you know, everything declares the glory of God. If men just
had eyes to see, if they just open up an anatomy book, and
began to look at man's anatomy and how we are fearfully and
wonderfully made. God's glory is manifested in
His creation, His glorious, glorious creation. The heavens declare
the glory of God and He singles out the sun, and I assume because
the sun was the greatest light that he was familiar with or
he knew anything about, like myself, he singles it out as
especially declaring the glory of God. And he said, it's like
a bridegroom. Here's a bridegroom, here's a
man. Many men never owned a suit of clothes in their life until
they had their wedding day set. And they buy themselves a nice
suit. They dress up fine. They get
up on the morning of their wedding day and they're rejoicing. They're happy. Why? Because the
day has finally arrived when they shall have their love as
their own bride. He said, it's like a bridegroom.
gets up on his wedding day, every day is the same, every day with
the sun. He rises with joy, the bridegroom
does, with joy that the day has finally come, the day he's been
looking forward to with such anticipation. And he also recognized
that there can be no life, no place on God's earth where this
heat doesn't come. And without it, without the heat
of the sun, without its warmth, there would be no vegetable life,
there would be no animal life, there would be no life without
the warmth of the sun, the heat of the sun. And I know you've
heard this and you've read this, that the earth is placed so many
miles, some of you know the distance, I don't, I'll confess. between
the earth and the sun, but if he was just a little bit closer
to the sun, we'd all burn up. You've read that, haven't you?
If he's just a little farther from the sun, we'd all freeze. Who did that? God did. God did. Yes, his glorious creation. But now notice the second part
of the Psalm in the next verses. God's more glorious revelation
in His law. God's glorious revelation and
creation, yes, but God's more glorious revelation in His law. As glorious as God's revelation
creation is, it pales. It pales. in significance to
God's written word, his written revelation. And let me say this, the word
law here, don't understand that to just mean the 10 commandments.
No, he's talking about all the word of God, all the word of
God. And he uses various words. in
these next few verses, but he's speaking about the Word of God. And the thing for us to realize
tonight is David, in comparison to you and I, he had such a small
portion of the written Word of God. When he left, what would
we have? We'd have the Pentateuch, we'd
have Judges, and Joshua, and maybe first and second, maybe
first son, maybe. Ruth? Very small portion of the
Word of God, really. You say, well, how did they hear
about Christ? Because he was revealed in the
law from the very beginning. But let's look through these.
Let's read these verses, 7 through 10. 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. Now, as we look at these, let's
go through them one by one. First of all, the word of God
is perfect. The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul. What does this tell us? This
tells us that the word of God is complete. All that you and
all that I need to know how we may be saved and how we should
live in this world, we have it here in God's word. It's perfect,
it's perfect. He says, converting the soul.
Now he doesn't say, you know, it's easy to read this and to
think, well, God is the one who converts the soul. Absolutely.
Apart from God, the Holy Spirit, there'd be no conversion. But
he doesn't say that the word of God apart from the Holy Spirit
converts the soul, but What we recognize is, and we know from
the word of God, is God, the Holy Spirit, uses the word of
God. He uses the written word of God
in saving his people. Look with me in 1 Peter, just
a moment. 1 Peter chapter one. 1 Peter one and verse 23. The apostle said, being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Being born again by
the word of God. Now, when David here says the
law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul, what we understand
is God uses his word. He uses the gospel, uses the
preaching of the gospel. And I like that word converting.
I like to look at that. The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul. The word converting, of course,
means turning, turning. The apostle Paul writing to the
church at Thessalonica, to whom he had preached the gospel, He
said the result was that they had turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God. When we come into this world,
if I could maybe try to illustrate it like this, when we are born
in this world, we are turned away from God. We're turned in
the opposite direction. And God uses his word in converting
in turning us from our sin to God, from our idols to God, converting
the soul. Where would we be tonight without
God's holy word? Where would you be without God's
word? We'd be like a blind man in this world with no one to
lead him, no one to guide him, no one to direct him. Just turn
loose. That's how we would be without
the word of God. The word of God, the law of God
is perfect. It's perfect. We don't need to
add anything to it. And we sure don't want to be
guilty of subtracting anything from the word of God. It's God's
word. I've told you this before, but
one time I was taking a trip and I was on a plane with a bishop,
Methodist bishop was sitting right next to me. And we started
to talk, very nice man. He was a bishop over all Southeast
Texas, Methodist bishop. And in our conversation, I brought
up the fact that they did not believe that all the word of
God is inspired. He said, that's true. That's
true. And I asked him this question, I said, well, You do believe
in the virgin birth, don't you? Oh, yes, yes. And I asked him,
what if you had a preacher, one of your preachers in one of your
churches, and he denied the virgin birth? Oh, no. No, he couldn't
do that. Couldn't do that and be a preacher.
One of our preachers, he couldn't do that. I said, well, what if
he just picked out that part of the scripture and said, I
don't believe that's inspired. You see? What men do, they make
them, they set themselves up as judges on the word of God
and they decide what is inspired and what is not inspired, what
is of God and what is of man. No, the word of God is perfect. I think about in Job, he talks
about those ostriches and I don't know if this is, so that all
ostriches do this, but they put their head in the sand and think
they're hidden. People who deny the inspiration
of the scriptures, the word of God, are like those ostriches.
They're just blind to the truth, my friend. Word of God is perfect,
perfect. I'd hate to I'd hate to be a
preacher if I didn't believe this Bible was the word of God.
I'd hate to go into a home or into a hospital room or into
a funeral home and sit down with a family whose loved one had
died or who was sick or something like that if I didn't believe
that I could take this word and speak to them the truth, the
truth. The Word of God is perfect, converting
the soul. The testimony of the Lord is
sure. Notice this is the second thing
he says, verse seven. The testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise the simple. When you are called upon in a
court of law to give testimony, You raise your hand, or you put
your hand on the Bible, and you swear that all your testimony
is going to be truthful. Well, the testimony of the Lord,
this is what he says, this is God's testimony here in his book,
the word of God. It's sure. What God testifies
here about creation is sure. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. And he did this in six days. People sometimes find fault.
Well, what about what the geologists have discovered? And what about
the scientists have discovered? What about it? What about what
God has said? And I tell you, when this is
all over, this whole creation, when it's all wound up in God's
time, we're going to find, you're going to find for sure, There's
nothing revealed in the word of God that was not so. I don't
care what men claim, they have discovered or know about God's
creation. In six days, God created the
earth and rested, not because he was tired, not because he
was tired, rested on that seventh day, a day of rest. a Sabbath,
and it pictures to us, doesn't it? Salvation, how that we come
to the Lord Jesus Christ and we rest. We rest in Him. We rest in His work. It's accomplished. It's finished. The testimony of the Lord concerning
creation, concerning the fall of man, how did we get in this
mess? God's way of reconciliation,
it's all revealed here in the word of God and it's sure. And
it makes wise the simple. Simple. Third, the statutes of
the Lord are right. The word right means they're
just. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Absolutely. The word of God is just. And
because of this, we rejoice. The statutes of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart. How our heart rejoices, how it
leaps within us when we hear the gospel. Gospel never grows
old to me, does it, Hugh? It just thrills my soul when
I read and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, how he saves sinners. That makes my heart rejoice.
We sang that hymn a little while ago. Christ receiveth sinful
men. Does not just cause your heart
to leap within you. He receives sinful men. Even me, with all my sin. It rejoices the heart, the gospel,
the word of God. Number four, the commandment
of the Lord is pure. The word of God is free from
all imperfection. When I was a child, there used
to be a soap, a bar soap, and it was 99.9% pure. I believe
that's the way it was. 99.9% pure, ivory soap. Well, here's the word of God,
it's not 99.9% pure, it's 100% pure, 100%. It's free from all imperfection
and everything that would tend to corruption, not found here. Number five, the fear of the
Lord is given by God. The fear of the Lord, that is
reverencing Him. We don't fear him like some children
are born into a home where the father is mean and abusive and
the children just fear him when he comes in the house. They run
somewhere to hide. That's not our father. That's
not the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not at all. He's a loving father. He knows
our needs and he supplies our needs day by day. Yes, but we
reverence him. An affair of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom. And how does that, how does God
produce that in a person's heart? The word from the word of God,
hearing the word of God. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. That's the reason it's so important
to hear the gospel preached. So important to be faithful in
the services and hear the word of God. Why? Because faith cometh
by hearing. hearing, not just hearing anything
or everything, but hearing the gospel, hearing the word, the
word of God. And number six, the judgments
of the Lord are without exception true. And they're just the judgments
of the Lord. How would you like to be being
tried for whatever reason? And you're there in the courtroom
and and you've got your defense attorney sitting by you and they've
got the prosecuting attorney over here and the case begins
and the prosecuting attorney, he stands up or she stands up
and she brings all these charges against you and how they can
prove that you're guilty of this particular crime. And after she
or he finishes their statement, the judge looks at the jury and
says, now jury, Go back to the jury room and make your decision. Well, wait a minute. Isn't my attorney going to have
an opportunity to speak? Am I not going to be able to
present evidence that will prove my innocence? Listen, when we
read here the judgments of the Lord, and I say without exception,
are true and they're just. People want to judge God by what
we see and what we know today. Let's wait. Let's wait until
all is finished. And then we will see that He
has done everything well. Everything. I mean everything. Nothing escapes His providence. Now let's look for just a minute
or two at David's confession and prayer. David's confession,
first of all, in verse 10 and 11 and the first part of verse
12. More to be desired are they than
gold, yea, than much fine gold. Now I've never owned any gold
except this, I was thinking, this gold band here. That's,
as far as I know, that's the only gold I've ever had. David,
you told me someone, I believe it was you, that had some gold
and let you hold it, right? Is that the only time you've
ever had any gold? Well, this man, David, this man
who wrote this psalm, he had a lot of gold. He's not just
talking, well, maybe if I had gold, I would have stained your
word. Better no, he had gold. But his confession is, His confession
is the Word of God is more to be desired than gold, yea, than
much fine gold, the best of gold. The Word of God is more to be
desired. You see, gold, I know men desire
it, but gold, it can buy a lot of things, but it cannot buy
forgiveness of sins. by a place in heaven. Gold cannot tell you about your
sins and your need of Christ, and it sure cannot tell you about
the Savior. He confessed that for him, the
written word of God was sweeter than honey, not just greater
than gold, but also than honey. Now, honey to the Israelites
was a A delicacy. It was a delicacy. And it's still
one of the sweetest substances, isn't it? Honey. But David said
he confessed that the word of God was sweeter to him than honey,
and even the best of the honey, the honey that drips out of the
honeycomb. And he confessed that it was
by the written word that he was warned. Moreover, by them is our servant
warned. And we need warning. We need
to be warned, and the word of God warns us. Warn us of the pitfalls and the
dangers that we face as we go through this world. You know,
he confessed that in being a doer of the word, not just to hear,
but a doer of the word, that he found great reward. As our Lord told his disciples,
happy are you, not if you know these things, but if you do these
things. In the first part of verse 12,
who can understand his errors? I believe that what David means
here is this. In dealing, in dealing, With
our thoughts, the word of God, and dealing with our thoughts,
our words, and our actions, we can't even begin to number how
many times we all offend. How many times we offend? Who
can understand his errors? The word of God is so thorough, so thorough, that it deals with our thoughts. You know, you've heard this story
many times, but they cannot put you in jail for desiring, standing
outside a bank and desiring to rob the bank. They can't do that. They can't judge your thoughts.
Now, your actions, they can. But you see, God, He even knows
our thoughts, the thoughts that come into our heart and into
our mind. The thoroughness of the word
of God and the impossibility of understanding how often we
fail. Keep back, who can understand
his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Even those things I'm not even
aware of. Those things I'm guilty of, but
I'm not even aware of these things. And that's, you know, in the
law that God gave to Moses, there was a sacrifice for ignorance,
the sin of ignorance. A person could do something and
not be aware of it, but still be guilty. That's what he's praying
for here. Cleanse thou me from secret faults. And then David's prayer, beginning
in the last part of verse 12. 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. Cleanse me from
secret or hidden faults. Hidden to others, yes, even hidden
to myself. Sins of ignorance. Keep back
thy servant from pride. Presumptuous sins, which are
the result of self-reliance. Rather than relying upon Christ,
upon Him, we rely upon ourselves. Presumptuous sins. Our failure to recognize our
need for Christ. He said, without me, you can
do nothing. Nothing. Keep back. Keep back, thou servant
also. Prevent me. Prevent me from presumptuous
sins. Let them not have dominion over
me. The great transgression here
speaks of what he saw would be true if God doesn't cleanse us. If God doesn't cleanse us from
secret sins and restrain us from presumptuous sins, then we would
be guilty of the great transgression. And then he prays that the words
of his mouth, all the words of his mouth might be acceptable
in God's sight. Let me just say these two things
in finishing. We know, now David prayed this,
let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable in thy sight. We know of some words which are
not acceptable in God's sight. No need to pray about these.
There's some words which are not acceptable in God's sight. Lying words, they're not acceptable
in God's sight. Unclean words, slanderous words,
slanderous words of others. And we know of some meditations
that will be, that are acceptable in the Lord's sight. Meditations
upon His word. Meditations upon creation. Meditations
upon salvation. God's saving grace. Look with
me in closing. Turn over to Psalm 28. Psalm 28. I want you to see this,
Psalm 28. Beginning with verse three. Draw
me not away with the wicked, And with the workers of iniquity,
which speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts,
give them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness
of their endeavors. Give them after the work of their
hands, render to them their dessert. Now notice this, because, because, They regard not the
works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands. He shall destroy
them and not build them up. They regard not the works of
the Lord. We should, we should observe
the works of the Lord, his works of creation, his works of providence, and
his works of salvation. We should take the time to observe
because the wicked do not. That's what he says here. The
wicked, those who are guilty of iniquity, they don't observe
God's works. They just live in God's world
like it all just evolved by a big bang or something like that.
Let's not be guilty. of not recognizing the works
of God's hands. His work in creation. You know,
you could just sit down tonight, and I know I'm going long, forgive
me, but just think about God's providence in your life. How
you got to where you are tonight. It's amazing, it's amazing. God's providence and God's salvation is wonderful
grace. It's amazing grace, isn't it? Pity on you, pity on me if we
ever get to the place that we do not see God's grace as amazing
grace. Amazing grace. that God would
save a wretch like me. All right, David, let's sing.