Turn back to Psalm 19. Psalm 19. Now I have a few messages
that I'm going to preach out of this Psalm. The title of today's
message is Part 1, Two Revelations of God's Glory. Two Revelations
of God's Glory. This Psalm can be divided into
three parts. The first six verses is the revelation
of God's glory in creation. Some of the old theologians called
it God's world book. The heavens declare the glory
of God. He's talking about the creation.
The firmament, he goes on. This is God's creation is a declaration
of the glory of God. That's the first six verses.
The second part begins at verse seven and goes to verse nine.
And it's the revelation of God's glory in his word. And obviously some of them called
that God's word book. So you have God's world book,
the creation, the sun, the sky, the moon, the stars, the earth.
That's the world book. And then you have God's Word
Book, which is the Holy Scriptures. This Bible is God's Word Book. This is the revelation of God's
glory in the salvation of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ, by
God's grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul told Timothy,
that these holy scriptures, the scriptures that they had at that
time, and then what we have today is the completed Word of God,
Revelation 22. That's why we don't add to it
or take away from it. But he says this book, in the
power of the Holy Spirit, is able to make you wise unto salvation. So you have God's world book,
creation, and then you have God's word book, the scriptures. And it says here in verse seven,
the law of the Lord. Now the law there is the word
of God. When you see the law, a lot of
times people when they see the word law, they think of the Ten
Commandments. That's not what that's saying.
Now the Ten Commandments is part of God's word book. It's in the
word. But look here, it says the law
of the Lord is perfect. That means complete. converting
the soul. This is talking about conversion
that comes in the new birth. This is talking about salvation.
So now the heavens declare the glory of God, God's world book,
but it takes God's word book, the revealed word of salvation,
to convert the soul, to bring a sinner to a saving knowledge
of Christ, to bring a sinner to be convicted of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment. In other words, what he's telling
us, and this is not the only passage that states this, he's
telling us that, look, you're not going to be converted to
Christ by looking at the physical son. or by looking at a river
or stream. Now those things are beautiful
and those things do declare something of the glory of God. But it takes
the word of God revealed in his holy scriptures, which is a record
of Christ, the glorious person of Christ, the finished work
of Christ, the record of our sinfulness and our need of a
righteousness we cannot produce, but is freely provided by God
through Christ. It takes the word book in the
hands of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel to
bring a soul to conversion. That's the That's what we'll
call the Shekinah glory, but I'll talk to you about that in
a minute. So that's verses 7 through 9, and then the third section
of this book begins at verse 10 and goes to the end. And what
that talks about is the God-given desire of the person to whom
God reveals His glory. Look at what it says, more to
be desired are they than gold. How much value Do you place,
do I place, on the Word of God? So much religion today, so much
religion that comes in the name of Christ, puts really no value
on the Word of God. And I'm going to tell you about
one I heard this morning on television. And I know people do not like
this. They don't, oh, you ought not name names. Well, the Bible
doesn't say that. Did you know that? Paul named
names. Read the New Testament. Romans
16 says, Mark them that cause division among you contrary to
the doctrine which you have believed. You know what the word mark means?
It means name. And normally, you know, when
I flip around on television on Sunday morning, I'm not looking
for false preachers because it puts me in a bad mood. But anyway,
in thinking about this message, I was flipping around and guess
who I heard? Joe Osteen. Pastor of what they call the
biggest Christian church in the United States, which is not Christian
at all. He's a false prophet. He's a false prophet. How do
I know that? Because according to God's word,
he doesn't preach the gospel. He doesn't preach the word. And
what got my attention, he made this statement. He's talking
about Mary, the human mother of the Messiah. And here's what
he said, he said the reason God chose Mary to be the human mother
of the Messiah is because he could trust Mary. And he knew that Mary was a woman
of such goodness and stamina that she could go through all
the problems that she would face in all of that. Now what's the
problem with that? Well there's so many we could
preach several messages on it. The Bible doesn't say that. You know what Mary was? She was
a woman blessed of God, a sinner saved by grace. Blessed among
women. But not because God could trust
her. And then the whole message that this man preached was how
God, if you're going through a trial or trouble, it's because
God trusts you to get through it. That was his whole message. You know what came to mind? I
had Jim look this verse up. I couldn't figure, I couldn't,
I thought it was in the Psalms, but it was in the book of Job, Job
15, 15. God puts no trust in his saints. God doesn't trust
me. God doesn't trust you. You see,
salvation is not based upon our faithfulness, our worthiness,
our goodness. We trust him. And that's a gift from God. Well, at the end of his message,
here's what he said. He said, I want to give you an
opportunity to accept Jesus in your heart, and you know the
story, how they do it. And he said, if you've prayed this prayer,
then that means the Lord has given you new birth. And he said,
get into a Bible-based church. Well, if they get into a Bible-based
church, they'd wipe out that whole stadium. Because he didn't
preach the Bible. Now, I'm not saying that to be
mean and unkind. Listen, that's a sad thing, isn't
it? The only way the Lord is going
to make a sinner wise unto salvation is through the gospel which is
revealed and recorded in His Word, God's Word Book. It's not through moral pep talks,
it's not through religious psychology. It's not through the power of
positive thinking. It's through the Word of God. And that's what, that's really
what got me on to Psalm 19. And I want you to look at this.
This is talking about the revelation of God. How God reveals himself
to humans. What is revelation? We talk about
the book of Revelation. The word revelation means uncovering. Unveiling. Uncovering mysteries. Now, a mystery in the Bible is
not something that God gives you certain clues and if you
find those clues and put them together, you can figure it out.
That's not what a mystery is. A mystery in the Bible is something
that we don't know by nature. By looking in the sky, we don't
know it by natural conscience. God must show it to us. He must show it to us. He must
give us eyes to see and ears to hear. That's what the scripture
says, isn't it? When he talked to the disciples about that subject,
you know, they said, why do you speak in parables? He said, this
is a judgment against them who see but see not, hear who hear
not. They shut their ears lest they
be converted. They didn't want to, they didn't
want to, what that means is this, they didn't want to repent. They
didn't want to let go of their religion. They didn't want to
let go of their self-righteousness and come to Christ as a naked
sinner begging for mercy. They didn't want to come to Christ
as sinners who have no righteousness of their own, who are totally
dependent upon the God of sovereign mercy and grace to save them,
keep them, and bring them to glory. They wanted some room
to glory. So they shut their ears. I'm
not going to hear any more of that. But then he looked at his
disciples and he said, blessed are your eyes for they see. Blessed
are your ears for they hear. Now do you suppose that the reason
they had eyes to see and ears to hear is because they were
better than the rest of that bunch? No. If you believe the
gospel today, you're a miracle of grace. That's what you are.
Did you know that? You're a miracle of sovereign grace. It's not
because you rose above the crowd of rebellious people and were
less stubborn less rebellious, less obstinate. Oh no, God gave
you a willing heart, a new heart. He said, I'll put my spirit within
them. I'll give them a new heart. I'll cause them to walk in my
statutes. That's what he says. In other
words, we don't have anything to brag about in ourselves. We've got one boast, Jesus Christ
crucified and raised from the dead. Jesus Christ, the Lord,
our righteousness. So revelation is to show us things
that we don't naturally know. Now, what is God's glory? The
heavens declare God's glory, it says here. Well, God's glory,
first of all, start with it this way. God's glory is who God is
within himself. Who he is. It has to do with
his nature. The nature of God. The divine
nature. It has to do with His attributes,
His character attributes. For example, the Bible says,
God is holy. You know what that means? It
means He's separate. He's unique. There's no one or no thing like
God. You can't compare Him. Who can
compare anything to God? He is so separate, He's high
above us. It has to do with God's majesty.
His power. It has to do with His honor.
Again, separate, unique from all that would claim to be God
or could be declared so. It is His holiness. The Bible
says there is no God like Thee in the heaven nor in the earth. He's the only one. Now, we may
go through life thinking we're the only thing and the only one
and that the universe revolves around us, but that's a lie,
isn't it? We go through life thinking we're
indispensable. Well, the graveyard out there
is full of indispensable people. You see, God is it, Him. He is life. He is everything. He is all. That's His glory. But the psalmist here, this is
David, the psalmist, writing by inspiration of the Spirit,
he speaks of God's revelation of himself to men. He says the heavens declare the
glory of God. This is the communication of
God's glory, God's attributes, God's majesty. And that's an
awesome thing. That's why I read at the beginning
in that psalm, you know, stand in all. There's that little song,
our God is an awesome God. Well, that's true. He's awesome. We can't figure Him out. We can't
really explain Him, only that which He lets us in on, what
He tells us of Himself. David wrote in Psalm 8 verse
3, he said, when I consider thy heavens, the works of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man
that thou art mindful of? Listen, what this book teaches,
and I know people don't want to hear this today because we,
you know, religion today is full of humanism. Even so-called Christianity
is full of humanism. You know what humanism is, it's
all about man. Everything revolves around man.
You know, people talk about, well, the preacher is going to
preach a message and I hope he meets our felt needs. I hope
he doesn't. I hope he tells us from the word
of God, what we really need because man by nature doesn't feel that.
That's right. It's all conditioned on man.
Everything's conditioned on man. Just like the false preacher
was saying, are you somebody who God can trust? Why? And they
all clap. Well, yeah, I'm somebody God
can trust. No, don't trust me. You check me out by the word
of God. I tell people all the time, you know, this morning's
TV program was on the first one on our series on what is a Christian.
and writing these books, you know, the one on what is salvation.
These are books to help guide you through the scripture in
self-examination. What is salvation? What do you
claim to be saved? Well, check it out. Put it to
the test of the Word of God. That's what the book's written
for, to take you through the Word of God. What is salvation
according to God's Word? Do you claim to be a Christian?
Well, put it to the test. Can I stake my claim? Can I have assurance of my claim
based on God's word? Now, I know what people will
tell me, and I know what churches will tell me, and I know what
preachers... What does God say in His word? That's what He says. The law of the Lord is perfect,
complete. The word of man is anything but.
So what does the word of God say? Now, the first six verses
of this psalm The Heavens Declare the Glory of God, God's world
book, speaks of the limited revelation of God's glory, which is available
to all people without exception. God's glory in creation. And
now you ask, why do I call it the limited revelation? There's
two reasons. There's two reasons that this
is limited. Number one, Even though there is a direct correlation
between God's glory revealed in creation and God's glory revealed
in His Word, God's revelation of Himself in creation is not
the full revelation of God's glory which brings salvation. Now, I'm all for communing with
nature. and enjoying nature, not mother
nature. There's no such individual as
mother nature, folks. Father time and mother nature.
That's myth. And I'm all for going out and
enjoying nature. But salvation doesn't come from
enjoying nature. The Bible says the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. You've
got to hear the gospel, the true gospel. I'm all for going out and enjoying,
looking at a beautiful river. One of my favorite movies is
that movie, The River Runs Through It. You ever seen that? I love
that movie. It's about fly fishing and all that. And it's a beautiful
thing. But that's not salvation. We
enjoy nature as God's creation and we look at nature and we
see the glory of God, his wisdom, his power, his goodness. I mean,
it's an awesome thing, isn't it? You look at the stars at
night and it really reminds us how insignificant and small we
are, doesn't it? What is man that thou art mindful
of him? The full revelation of God's glory which brings salvation
can only be revealed in His word. The law, verse 7, the law of
the Lord is perfect converting the soul. And it goes on through.
It gives you six things there. Which I'll deal with next week. Look over at 2 Corinthians chapter
4. Let me show you something here.
Many of you are already familiar with this passage. Now listen to what I'm saying.
In the creation, God reveals to everybody without exception,
this is one place we can say everybody without exception,
that God reveals something of His glory. Now, by nature, men
reject the truth that's revealed there. We'll see that in just
a moment too. But God does reveal it. It's there. But that's not
the revelation that brings salvation. Conversion. brings faith, all
right? But look, there is a correlation. Look at verse 6 of 2 Corinthians
4. He says, for God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, that's the God of creation. Let
there be light. And what happened? There was
light. Genesis 1, Genesis 2 records the Creator God. But that same
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined
in our hearts." Now here's conversion. Here's the law, the word of God,
the gospel. "...hath shined in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God." Where?
In the face of Jesus Christ. What is His face? That's His
person. That's His finished work. That's who He is. That's which
identifies Him and distinguishes Him as the only Savior of sinners. Christ said, I'm the way, the
truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father but by me.
You're not going to be saved until you come to Christ, and
look to Christ, and rest in Christ, and plead his righteousness.
Now, I know there's other aspects of salvation. That's what I wrote
about in the book, What is Salvation? There's the eternal aspect. God
has a people chosen before the foundation of the world, and
he gave them to Christ. The Bible teaches that. I know
people don't want to hear that today, but that's what the Bible
teaches. And they were saved redemptively
on the cross when Christ took their sins, imputed, charged,
accounted to Him, and died for those sins and established righteousness
whereby God could be just and justifier. But in time, what
happens? God brings them under the preaching
of the gospel. And they're born again by the
Spirit. They're given new life, new heart, new eyes, new ears,
all of that. The book of Colossians chapter
2 and verse 9 says, For in him, in Christ, dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. The glory of God, the fullness
of the glory of God is only to be found and seen and revealed
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The God-man,
the mediator, the redeemer. That's what the old writers used
to call the Shekinah glory. You know, the word Shekinah,
have you ever heard that? It's not in the Bible, the word Shekinah. But the truth of it is, Shekinah
means God dwells. It's where God dwells. Well,
the Shekinah glory dwelt in the tabernacle, above the mercy seat. Because that's where you could
find the revelation of everything that God is. All his attributes. And that was a picture of salvation
by the grace of God based upon the blood and the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the heavens, you can see some
of God's glory, some of His attributes. But in Christ, you can see every
one of them. Christ is the Shekinah glory
of God. He's the fullness of the God.
And it's summarized in this phrase, Isaiah 45. a just God and a Savior. That's how it's summarized. That's
how God can be both a holy God and still commune with men, sinful
men. That's how God can be both a
righteous judge as well as a merciful, loving, gracious Father. How
can God, who must punish sin, who is a just God, who judges
according to truth, how can He be right according to Himself? How can He be true to Himself?
How can He honor His justice and still forgive a sinner like
me? He can't just look over it. He can't deny it. He can't do
anything opposed to it. He must be just when He justifies. When He forgives me, when He
saves me, when He justifies me, He must do right. Now, how is
that possible? Well, here's the Shekinah glory.
Only by His grace, through the suretyship and substitutionary
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, God in human flesh,
Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth and took in union
with himself a perfect, sinless humanity, walked this earth,
and kept the law, not for himself, but for his people, his sheep,
for God's elect. And he went to the cross, having
all the debt of their sin charged to him, and he drank damnation
dry. He paid the debt in full. He
established the only righteousness whereby God could justify a sinner. And so God looks upon me in Christ,
and that's the fullness of His glory. So this limited revelation in
the heavens, though glorious as it is, and all who are saved
acknowledge it, it's not enough to bring you to salvation. Secondly, it's limited this way.
Even though there's enough revealed of God in creation for God to
hold all people responsible and accountable for not seeking and
believing in Him, if left to ourselves, we will either totally
reject or pervert this revelation of God in creation. Turn to Romans
chapter 1. Now, I tell people all the time,
look at Romans 1. The key to reading and understanding
a lot of the scripture is this. And incidentally, I'm working
on a new booklet on rightly dividing the word of truth. You know,
people say, well, you read it your way, you interpret it your
way. You know there are rules of interpretation
in scripture. Interpreting scripture correctly
is not bringing your preconceived notions and prejudices and personal
preferences into it. When you do that, you'll mess
it up all the time. Me too. What does it say? If it says God is sovereign and
man's responsible, you say, well, I can't understand that. And
I say, join the club. But that's what it says. And
I'm going to bow to it. How about you? You know, it doesn't
amaze me that we can't understand every nuance about God's glory
and His creation and His providence and His sovereignty. That doesn't
amaze me. That's the way it ought to be.
He's God and we're not Him. We're human beings. We're finite.
We're limited, aren't we? And then when you add to that,
we're sinful human beings. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me in the book of Job. I cannot attain unto it. Can man by searching find out
God? See what I'm saying? Well, look
at verse 16 of Romans 1. Now listen to this. He says,
For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That's the good news
of how God saves sinners by his grace through the Lord Jesus
Christ, by his blood and righteousness alone. It is the power of God
unto salvation. You know that word power. It's
the Greek word denimus or dunamis and it means it's what we get
our word dynamite from. That's the power of God's word
unto salvation that's in the hands of the Holy Spirit to everyone
that believeth. Faith is the gift of God to the
Jew first and also to the Greek or to the Gentile. In other words,
nationality and all that means nothing here. Verse 17, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed. If the gospel is preached properly,
somebody's going to hear something about the righteousness of God. What is that righteousness of
God? Well, he tells us, he defines it over in Romans 3, but you
can sum it up in Romans 10 and verse 4, for Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. The
righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. is the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the merit, the value,
the quality of what Christ accomplished on Calvary as the surety and
substitute of His people. In other words, it's not what
I do for God, it's not what I decide for God, it's what Christ did
alone. That's the righteousness of God.
And he says, in verse 17, he says, from faith to faith. From
faith, that means, that's the noun, means the preaching of
the gospel. I'm preaching to you the faith. To faith. If the Holy Spirit brings you
to conversion, the law of the Lord, you'll believe it. As it is written, the just, the
justified. What is to be justified is not
guilty. is to be righteous before God.
They live by faith. What's that mean? It means they
live by looking to Christ as the author and finisher of their
faith. They look to Him. They rest in Him. They sing that
hymn, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
Now, here's the question. Why do I need the righteousness
of God? And what I was saying earlier,
I tell people all the time reading the Bible, I say one of the keys
is don't always relegate certain passages of scripture off to
somebody else. What Paul is going to do from
Romans 1.18 all the way over to Romans 3.20
is tell me, this guy up here in the pulpit, Why I need the
righteousness of God. Why I can't save myself. Now
understand what I mean. He's not just telling them. He's
telling me. You understand what I'm saying?
Don't just say, well, when I read these verses, he's talking about
somebody else. He can't be talking about me. No, he's talking about
me. He's talking about all of us
by nature here. And listen to what he says. Verse 18. And don't get scared, I'm not
going to go all the way to Romans 3.20 this morning. He says, For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men. Now what do you suppose he's
talking about there? Oh, he must be talking about the drunks and
the drug pushers and the prostitutes and the crooked politicians.
Well, yeah, they're included. But look at what he says. Who
hold the truth in unrighteousness. He's talking about people who
do not believe the truth. They can be religious. They could
be immoral like the woman at the well in John 4. They can
be on the highest court of Jewish religion like Nicodemus in John
chapter 3. They can be sitting in a church
right now hearing and believing and supporting
a false gospel. Hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Verse 19, Because that which may be known of God is manifest
in them, for God hath showed it unto them. God's given them
enough truth. How? Verse 20, For the invisible
things of him, of God, from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
There's enough revelation of God in creation so that all people
are without excuse. God holds us accountable. The
fact that by nature if left to ourselves we won't seek the Lord
is no excuse. He says in verse 21, look, because
that which they knew, that when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,
to birds, four-footed beasts, creeping things, you know, the
idols. Wherefore, verse 24, God also gave them up to the uncleanness
through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own
bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into
a lie, worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,
who is blessed forever. Amen. You can go on and on. Go
back to Psalm 19, just briefly now. You see, And there are different degrees
of this. Man even rejects the glory of God in creation that
is seen. Look at it. The heavens declare
the glory of God, the firmament showeth His hand. There's enough
revealed of God in creation to let people know there is a God
and He is powerful. He is wise. What do men do with
that? One of two things. They either
shove that knowledge out of their minds and become agnostic. You know, the Latin word for
agnostic means ignoramus. You do know that, don't you? Or atheist. Or they fashion a
god-likened to themselves and worship an idol. So what's their only hope? Verse
7. The law of the Lord. is perfect,
converting the soul. If you want to know God, read
His Word. Seek Him in His Word. And I'll
tell you where you're going to find the knowledge of God unto
salvation every time. You're going to find it in the
person. And in the finished, redemptive work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, summarized in that phrase of Romans 1, 16, 17, the righteousness
of God. is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone. There's the glory of God in all
of its Shekinah glory, in all of its fullness in Christ.