My Rock and my Redeemer

Thanks, John. One last thing for me to think about this morning. Turn back in your Bibles to Psalm 19. Have that ready. Before we look into God's word, let's pray and ask for his blessing on our time together. Father, we are grateful indeed that your mercies, which are new every morning, have providentially brought us to the place where we're here to hear from you. And God, I'm so thankful that you have provided a witness to us. not only in the heavens and in the sun, but also in the word that we read and in the spirit of God that you provided to us. Lord, I pray that as we look into this passage, as David prayed, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Lord, we dare not stand before you without your blessing, and dare not stand before you without your word. I pray that you would help me to speak according to that word, and I pray that you would help those who either have already started, maybe even finished, a message about you this morning, our brothers in like-minded churches that are preaching or about to preach today, I pray that you would encourage them and bless them, that you would help them to speak of Christ pointedly, and that you would help the people, the sheep of your pasture to hear. We thank you for all that you'll do, and Lord, have mercy on us, help us to have the grace to hear and to see what we need to see. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Psalm 19 is listed as a Psalm of David. I don't think there's any doubt that it is. It's for the, as the NIV puts it, for the director of music for the choir master. It's a psalm he composed, and while we'll talk about it a little bit more towards the end of the message, I think his prayer at the end there primarily is just aimed at He wanted to be right and acceptable in what he said and how he thought about what he said in God's eyes. He wanted to be pleasing to God.

And I know that prayer was answered because his words are preserved for us here in scripture. Sometimes we don't know when we pray whether or not God has heard us. And sometimes when we think about God, at least I am, worried, are we thinking about him in the right way? Am I being led astray?

Well, God divinely inspired David here in the composition of this psalm. And I used to pick on Joe quite a bit about speculating on stuff, but I think some speculation here is good in the sense that here's David. we know was a shepherd, spent lots of time out in the fields, both night and day. And as he's out there, he's thinking about what he's seeing.

And that's really the first movement, as it were, first part of Psalm 19 is, I would say, imagine no light pollution, probably have less here than we do up where I live, but no light pollution from from all the modern amenities that we have. And don't worry, I'm very thankful for lights, artificial lights. But David, out with his sheep, out in the field, pitch black. And the majesty of the stars out there. And then as he's out there, Contemplating that, he thinks about what we're gonna speak on here in the first few verses, about the glory of God being declared by that. And then he's out tending the sheep, pitch black night, the sun comes up.

The sun comes up and it's majestic. It's amazing, and I've been privileged to see a lot of amazing sunrises and sunsets in my life. Not this morning. This morning it was pretty gray and dreary on the drive down. But I like to think that that and his heart, he was a man after God's own heart, his heart began to meditate and contemplate nature. Now we know a lot of people look at the beauty in nature and they come to the wrong conclusions.

In fact, David's ancestors, Abraham, the people that they came out of, they worshipped the moon and many in those days worshipped the stars and the sun. But David here says in verse one, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. It's as if he's saying, after looking at everything that he's seen in the heavens, and after he's seen a spectacular sunrise, and he's had some time to think about it, maybe over the course of months, I don't know how long he contemplated this, he's like, that's God's heaven.

Those are God's stars. That's God's son, and we'll talk about that. It's S-U-N here, not to be confused with S-O-N. But rather than repudiating a work of God, the creation of God, it brought him to a place of praise. And he says, the heavens themselves declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hand.

And it's not a one-time thing. Look, day after day, I don't know what it is, getting older, especially if you have a routine, day after day seems to go faster. I know Earth isn't spinning any faster, but day after day seems to happen faster. But his idea here isn't the speed, it's the clockwork, the reliability of the universe. You know, we live in an age where people worry about a lot of things, and worry about. Is the world gonna blow up? We're gonna blow up the world. Lots of, on Facebook, people using the AI stuff to create videos.

This is what San Diego will look like in 1,000 years. You don't know what it'll look like in 1,000 years. You're assuming, based on some sort of thing that you have, it'll look like, here's what San Diego will look like in 1,000 years. Whatever God, and Rock Valley, whatever God wants it to look like.

But he's talking about the reliability, the relentless reliability of the sun here and the stars. Day after day, every night, and every day, I see the heavens. They pour forth speech. It's kind of interesting, I mean, If you go outside and the sun or the stars are talking to you, usually they have a place for you for situations like that.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying, in fact, in the next verse he says, there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out to all the earth and their words to the end of the world. It's a testimony. It's a speech that's unspoken. Again, when you're poetic and artistic, which I'm not. I might be autistic, but not artistic. But when you're artistic, you think about this in terminology.

And what he's saying here is the heavens themselves declare the glory of God relentlessly. And then, As I gave you my speculation about perhaps how David was inspired at least to start thinking about this, in the heavens he's pitched a tent for the sun. He's just talking about it's veiled. David wasn't practicing modern science, so he wasn't trying to say this in scientific terms. He was saying it in his understanding and in the artistic way that he would. But he's saying the heavens seem to blot out the sun, but yet every day, day after day, the sun comes up. And we were talking about, Paula and I were talking about this on the way down.

You know, right now, if we have a wedding, nobody looks when the bridegroom comes up, right? There's no entry march for the bridegroom, but in here, at least, you know, maybe we need to change traditions. You know, we want to be more biblical, but all kidding aside, the bridegroom took a more prominent spot there.

And David is trying to make an analogy here. Just like a bridegroom, he would dress himself up, and in the pomp and circumstance of the wedding march, as it were back then, the weddings were a bit different. That is an analogy for what a sunrise is like.

And then he uses another analogy here, and that's like a champion, ESV as strong man, but literally the idea is somebody in shape, I'm not now, but believe it or not, there was a time I was in shape and I could run long distances, and if you're a runner or if you have been a runner, there's something called the wall, you hit the wall, You don't wanna stay there, right? If you hit the wall and stay there, life is not gonna be good. But you hit the wall and you go through it. I won't say it's an out-of-body experience, but it's definitely an experience that changes your abilities to do things.

We moved around a lot when I was younger and We moved down from the cities down to Winona, Minnesota, and they were so backwards back then, they did not have soccer. That was my sport, I wanted to play soccer. All they had was cross country. And I had a cross-country coach, actually two of them, who didn't just tell you go out and run, and they sat in their office and drank coffee. They ran with you. And if you didn't keep up with them, you had to run more laps when you were done. One guy was a Marine veteran. I forget the other one. Paul will probably tell me later what his background was. But I remember doing that, and I'm like, man, I don't wanna do this. This is horrible.

But there was a place, and he told us about this, is like, if you work at this, you'll get to a place where you run through that. That is the analogy that rejoicing to finish the course, that's the picture that was here. And sun rises at one end, makes its circuit to the other, and nothing is hidden from its heat. Yes, there's a spectacular heaven, there's spectacular stars, the sky is amazing, The sun is amazing, but it's God's sun. It runs according to his will, and it pours out knowledge. It displays knowledge to us. Now, there's two places in Romans, if you wanna turn there, you can.

One, I think, is more of a general one, and I'm not gonna spend a lot of time there, but in Romans chapter one, And in, I'll start in verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what they may be known about God is plain to them. because God has made it plain to him. How has he made it plain to him? Well, Psalm 19 is one of the ways he's made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, And it's interesting that the invisible plank clearly seen being understood what has been made. So the problem isn't with the testimony of nature or the testimony of the stars. They're there if you can see them.

The next passage later on in Romans, in Romans 10, if you want to turn there, Very famous passage, and I miss this, I'll confess. It's a extended argument of the Apostle Paul, and I think people tend to focus on one part of it and miss part of this, but if you look at Romans 10, and I'll just pick up in verse 11, The scripture says, anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. And then the famous or infamous verse, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I say infamous because in the Romans Road, usually that's what is cited. Now, this next part, I have to say, I've looked at this time and time again, and it never really hit me. And there's two things to be emphasized here, but I think we usually miss one. So how then can they call on the one, verse 14, that they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Now, rightly, This puts the foolishness of preaching, as it's called elsewhere, as central to what goes on. We sing, we pray, but preaching is the primary emphasis, and this is one of many passages to talk about that. But notice, as we go along, but not all the Israelites accepted the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord who has believed our message, talking about revelation of scripture. Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

And I'll argue to you what we're about to talk about. Paul has flipped the order here. He's clearly thinking about our passage and here's why. But I ask, did they not hear? And he says, of course they did. And he quotes Psalm 19 verse four, which is speaking about the heavens. Their voice has gone out into all the world and their words to the ends of the world.

And I'll get into this a little bit more, but The problem is not for the pagan in Africa, right, to use the term, and there's plenty of pagans in the US, but I know that historically that's how people have looked at it. The problem is not that there isn't a testimony, the problem is with us. And Paul puts it in reverse order, he's saying the word is there for Israelites, they didn't accept it. And not only that, the heavens above and the sun testify, the S-U-N testifies to the S-O-N, and they haven't heard it.

Paul is using David's words to make, I believe, the same point, and I think the point that's being made here, and by making it that way, I kind of jumped ahead a little bit, but he's saying the problem here is not Nature. Yes, nature groans and travails the same way that we do because of sin, but there's a glory of God that's revealed that's just plain.

It goes everywhere. It's relentless. You're in the desert, and you're David, and you're out there, and the sun's out. There's nowhere to hide from its heat, right? The word of God is the next part of what's there. David transitions from this meditation on the heavens and the sun to the law or the word of God, the testimony that is found in scripture. Both are, and if this was a systematic theology course, and I try not to make it that, The first part is what's called general revelation, and the word of God is part of what's called special revelation.

But neither one of them is sufficient, but that doesn't mean that the problem is with them. The problem is with us. But again, I jumped ahead a little bit here. So in this section from seven down through 11, Generally speaking, what David does is he gives a name. for scripture, he gives a definitional quality of that aspect or facet, if you want to use that, of scripture, and then he talks about the benefit of scripture. Now, towards the end, he deviates from that a little bit to come in to talk about something, but it's very important for us to see in these six names that are given, he's talking about the same thing. So if I hold up a diamond and I say, the light is this, the clarity is that, we know we're talking about one diamond, but I'm talking about it from different aspects.

The same is true here. So first of all, the law of the Lord, not the law of Moses, not the law of man, But Yahweh, and I notice here that it looks like the NIV does this. I believe King James and New King James do this. Lord is in small caps. So earlier when he talks about the glory of God, I forget, I believe that's Elohim. There's also another word, Adonai. But this is Yahweh or Jehovah.

The law of Yahweh or the law of Jehovah is perfect. Again, nothing wrong with it. It is the comprehensive term for all of God's revealed will in scripture. And it's perfect, it's without flaw, it's without lack of love, it's without lack of power. And what does it do, what's the benefit? It revives the soul.

And I'm gonna go through this fairly quickly. One of the goals that I've had when I've taught on an entire psalm is to try to give the picture of the whole thing. That means that sometimes you have to cut things short, and maybe Eric will pick up on part of this like he did with Psalm 103. If you're listening, Eric, you didn't mention me when you brought up Psalm 103, but that's okay. I didn't write it, so anyway. So Eric, if you find something to preach on that I missed, please do so.

But it revives the soul. So this comprehensive revealing of God in scripture reveals to us his will. There's nothing lacking in it. And kind of like farmers know better than I do, you can have good soil and good seed, you need one other thing, you need water. And that doesn't mean the seed is bad or the soil is bad. If it doesn't rain, and we're looking for some rain today, it won't work. So it revives the soul.

Second term that's used here, or facet, is here it has the statutes or testimony. What that means is a truth that's attested to by God himself. There's no greater witness than God. People will say, well, this book, it's a collection of men's thoughts about God. If that's all it was, throw it in the garbage, right? I mean, I can read men's thoughts about God, And a lot of times they're wrong. What it is, is God's testimony about reality and himself. It's God's testimony. Men were moved, as I believe Peter says, by the Holy Spirit to write these words, but it's God's testimony, not man's.

And in keeping with that enough, it's sure, it's firm. Here it says trustworthy, but another translation says it's sure. It's confirmed. There's no doubt. There's no, well, you know, maybe. No. God's testimony about everything, you can take it to the bank. Men might misunderstand it and misapply it. Men may draw the wrong conclusions from it, but it is trustworthy. And it makes, the benefit is, it makes wise the simple. You think about that. I have to be careful what I say.

In my career, I've met lots of people with college educations. I may have even heard one of Paula's relatives call them college dummies. Now I know people graduate from college, very smart people, but sometimes people come out of training like that without actual experience without actually knowing how things work, and they come to the wrong conclusion. And the sad part is they're very confident about their wrong conclusions.

When it comes to God, somebody might read a bunch of theology books, Arminian reform, doesn't matter. And they get very confident about what God meant about something. You know what, and I've said this before, I'll say it again. The Bible clarifies lots of commentaries, lots of preaching, right? Don't rely on me, rely on his word. It makes why's this simple. And why I thought of that illustration was I think people oversimplify things when it comes to the work world and certainly people oversimplify things when it comes to scripture.

Now, some people overcomplicate it, but the wisdom we want is the wisdom that's found in this book, and the wisdom that the Holy Spirit can give to us in the reading of it. Then the third one is the precepts of the Lord. are right, rejoicing the heart. So the precepts. So the idea of this section is precision. Now people often mix up precision and accuracy. The point is, precision just means it's always gonna be the same. It's precisely the same all day long.

And scripture, when people say, I don't know where you find Christ is in all the scriptures, you have a couple of proof texts, like read it. It's very clear if you read it and you take it and understand it spiritually. But the precepts of the Lord are right, they're morally right, they're straight, and that causes us to rejoice. We live in a day and age where people, you ask them for the definition of something that for thousands of years, nobody had a problem with, and they don't know, well, who am I to say what that means? Well, read this book, it'll tell you. And that moral compass, that rightness of God's word for a believer, because David is writing this as a believer, should cause you to rejoice. I know when I've heard people on the internet or on TV or whatever say something that's biblically true, when normally you just get a bunch of sap, it's good. You know that it's right and it brings forth joy.

Well, moving along, and I gotta watch the time, the commandment of the Lord, or the commands, and the NIV says are radiant. The translation I looked at when I put together my notes say are pure. And there's a little bit of discussion here, but the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eye. I think the NIV is just trying to help. I did look at the words here. I'm not saying they're wrong and I'm right. I'm just saying what I saw, it talks about purity, but let's go with radiant.

Again, As you get older, you get aware of these sort of things. And then there's a little bit of darkness. It doesn't have to be a lot. And then, you know, thinking of modern technology, take out your phone, turn on the flashlight, go in there and look. Give me those stronger lenses so I can see. Well, the strongest lens, the most radiant, pure light is the word of God. It makes up for all that shades of gray that people have problems with.

And then you have the fear of the Lord. This is emphasizing the response to God's word. So God's word is being described in a way where it talks about the right response. Right response to God's word is worship. That's what fear means. And it's not happy, slappy sort of worship. It's worship that puts God in the right place, that contemplates his holiness and our need for grace.

And it says that it's clean, or in this translation, pure, and it endures forever. Notice, and this was the first example, it's not talking about the benefit, it's just talking about the quality, and it does equality twice. And then at the last one here, we have the ordinances or the rules of the Lord, the judgments, the judicial decisions he has, they're true and righteous, they're dependable and they're right. And then, again, little speculation here, I think as David is thinking about this and being artistic and moved by the Spirit of God, he can't help himself than to inject some praise here. And what he says here that they are more precious than gold, than much pure gold, they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. He's saying, Scripture, God's word to us, is our greatest treasure and our deepest delight.

Now, with inflation the way that it is, And sorry, I'm old enough that I'm a curmudgeon about things like Bitcoin. The dollar is in the tank, right? Gold is worth something. You can use the same amount of gold to buy the same sort of things as you could back in the day. If you needed three ounces in 1950, and I'm making this up, I don't know exactly how many you would need. with the value of gold back then, you could have the same amount and buy the same sort of thing. It holds its value, and it has historically for a long time. And no, I do not work for a company that sells gold. I'm not telling you to buy gold.

I'm just saying from David's standpoint, he's saying the Bible, scripture, God's word as it's recorded, is more precious than the purest gold because they had to worry back then about alloys or corruption in gold. You had to refine it more to get all that out.

It's worth more than the finest gold. And again, something from his day, it's sweeter than honey. They didn't have ultra refined white sugar that could provide that. Honey was the sweetest thing, I assume, that they knew. And he's saying, not only is scripture of more worth than gold is, it's sweeter than honey. Those are amazing things when you think about them.

So there is his praise, then in verse 11, he gets to the benefits that he skipped for the last two, and I think you would apply the value that he ascribed to it and these benefits to everything. And he says, by them, by all these aspects of scripture, by the words that God has given us, is your servant warned, and in keeping them, there is great reward.

Nothing we say about the gospel of Christ or the grace of God should ever diminish from the fact that if the Bible is clear and says, don't do this, with this comes much sorrow, that there's some sort of special, you are the exception to the rule. Certainly there are cases where God protects us from ourselves, doesn't let us feel the full negative aspect of what we've done. And there are cases that are the reverse, where we've been obedient, at least to the best of our understanding, to scripture, and it seems like nothing can go right.

This is a general statement. It is true in the long term regardless. But all of scripture is for us. So we talked about the beauty and the glory of the heavens and of the sun. And we talked about the greatness of God's word and the adequacy of it. But the problem I said earlier is us. Am I bringing that in from outside the passage?

No. Because verse 12, I think is our third movement, if this was put to music, and I've heard people do it, and this should be another transition in the song. David is thinking about this. And what do we know about David? David was a sinner. And as I've heard Joe say often, The only one going to heaven are sinners. All sinners go to heaven. David knew his sinfulness. If the psalm ended here, I would be a little bit worried about things because it would sound like he's saying do right and everything will be right. But in verses 12 and 13, David, a very great sinner, and I mean that in a negative way, a man guilty of many sins, I wouldn't say that he despairs, but he feels the weight of the greatness of God, and he looks at himself and says, who, not what, who can discern his errors?

I can't. He can look back at his life and say, I messed everything up, God. There's the thing with Bathsheba and her husband. There's the thing of numbering the people of Israel. There's all sorts of ways that we saw David's sin, and because God regenerated him, He was one of God's elect. He was a man after God's own heart.

He called his sins for what they are, and I'm gonna mess it up, but I know one of the things that I came across in some of the quotes that I've been putting on Facebook from Joe is related to this idea is a believer doesn't run from his sins. He calls them what they are. Right, there's no excuse.

When we sin, we sin. And David uses at least three categories here, I think, maybe more. When he says errors, it's a general category. Hidden faults, I grew up, as did Paula, in Roman Catholicism, you had, what is it, venial sins and mortal sins, so you have venial sins.

Hey, I didn't know, so God is gonna give me a pass. No, God doesn't work that way. All sin is deadly if it isn't paid for. Who can discern, and David knew that, who could discern his errors? Forgive my venial sins, if I can use that there. Things that I don't know from, about. Keep your servant also from willful sins. Well, when David sinned the way that he did with Bathsheba, that was a willful sin. When he numbered the people and they were like, hey, what are you doing, David? That was a willful sin.

May they not rule or have dominion over me, then I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression. He wants it all covered. He can't do it. What this does not read like, and unfortunately some commentators I came across, this is the way that they put it is, who can discern his errors, go back to the law. Keep me from willful sins, help me learn the disciplines not to sin. I want to sin less, but I never believe I'm going to be sinless. I want to sin less, but keep your servant from, he's addressing God. Who can discern my errors?

Only God can. Who can keep me back from willful sins? Only God can. Who will make sure that they're forgiven? Only God can. Who's gonna make sure that they don't have dominion, at least ultimately, over me, and this life as well, if it's His pleasure? Only God.

Who will declare me blameless in spite of the fact that I've been guilty in my actions of great transgression? Who's gonna make me blameless and innocent? Not me, not my obedience, not my good deeds, not my tears, not my emotions. No, who can discern our errors? Only God can and he is the only one who can make us blameless and innocent of great transgression.

Well, in closing for David, I'll try to wrap it up here as well. all of this contemplation he's like god may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight only god can do that and he says oh lord oh yahweh oh jehovah you who are my rock and you who are my redeemer now May have to indulge in a little bit of speculation. I don't know what was in David's mind when he brought up these two things. Now, in other passages, and Lord willing, next week we'll look at Psalm 40.

It talks about taking me out of a miry pit and setting my feet upon a rock. The idea there, rock is a stable place to stand. But there is also the idea of the rock in the wilderness that was struck, and as 1 Corinthians points out to us, that rock was Christ. And I like that idea. I don't know which one, both apply.

But the idea that they were in the desert, dying of thirst, And God told Moses to strike the rock the first time he did it the right way, and water came forth. The second time he was supposed to just speak to it, and he disobeyed God, speaking of willful sin and great transgression, but in the first case, he struck the rock and the water came out, and 1 Corinthians, let's see, I should have it here. 10 verse 4 if nothing else if you don't turn to it now if you curious later that's the passage that i'm thinking of I'll start with verse one.

For I do not want you to be ignorant the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

And whether it's firm foundation, which would fit with Psalm 40 and some other Psalms, or if he's thinking about that particular incident in the history of the people of God, it doesn't matter. Both of them, he's saying, I'm a great sinner, the problem is not your word or your revelation, your problem is me and my sinfulness. But he comes boldly to God, as a believer asking for God to make him pleasing on the basis of what God has done for him.

So there's the rock part and there's the Redeemer. And definitely don't have time to go into this, but sometimes those genealogies come in handy, and I won't read the genealogy, but David's great-grandmother and great-grandfather are spoken of in the book of Ruth. And if you remember in Ruth, Ruth asked Boaz, great-grandma asked great-grandpa, spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer. That same word that's used throughout the account in Ruth, that Boaz, took the responsibility that another turned down to pay and be responsible and be her redeemer, Boaz acknowledges, and he's a picture of Christ. Now, whether or not that was in David's mind, certainly it could be, and certainly, I think, comparing with scripture with scripture, we can use that analogy here.

May the words of our mouths and the meditation of our heart when we think of this be pleasing in God's sight because he is our rock and he is our redeemer. Let's pray and then we'll have a closing hymn. Father, I'm so mindful right now of my own sinfulness, but I'm so thankful that I don't stand before you ultimately on any of my own merits, because the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for me. He was buried and rose again and ascended to heaven and he intercedes for me and for all of his sheep. Lord, help us when we see great wonders, when we read your word, and we think about our sin, help it to cause us to turn to you, to think that you are the only answer because you are. So often we want to fix things, want to do all the needful things, and I know even based on our passage, Lord, we need to, we need to trust and obey, but Father, I pray that you help us to know that our only hope is in what Christ has done for us. And we need to cast all that we are upon him, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. All right, if you can make your way

My Rock and my Redeemer

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My Rock and my Redeemer

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