since we're telling tonight what
we never thought we would experience. Many of you have heard this,
I'm sure. Many of you read articles by
Charles Spurgeon. He, at 18 years of age, was invited
to come to London to preach to a church, New Park Street Church,
who were without a pastor. He thought they'd made a mistake,
that there must be another Charles Spurgeon somewhere in England.
But no, it was him they wanted to come and preach. And he came,
and I believe he preached several weeks, came back later and preached
several weeks or months, and they invited him to become their
pastor. And from the very beginning,
that church was at a low point But God began to bring people
in. And it got awfully stuffy in
that building. And he mentioned to the deacons
they needed more air. You know, more people in a building,
more air that you need. And the deacons didn't do anything. So mysteriously, somehow, one
night, some of the window lights were broken out. in the building,
so he evidently got the air into the building he felt like they
needed. But then they built a new church
building called Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle. They moved
into it debt free. It would seat 5,000 people. There
were people who had seats. They paid pew rent, I believe,
back then. I'm not sure if that church did,
but it was packed every Sunday, every service. On Sunday, people
sat in the aisles. And so every once in a while,
on Sunday morning, he would ask his congregation not to come
back at night. I've never done that. But he
would ask them not to come back that night. And that would give
people who didn't have tickets the opportunity, new people,
visitors to come in and hear the gospel. When this all started
back a few months ago, my son David told me, he said, David,
or he said, Dad, I bet you never thought you'd be asking people
not to come to church. He was right. I never thought
I would live to see this, but we have to, try to mitigate as
best we can this virus and hopefully it'll pass in God's time. And
I'm praying that God will use it for his glory. I know it's
all part of his purpose. It's not here by mistake. And I don't know what God's purpose
is in sending it, but I pray that God will use it in the lives
of some of his people to make make us realize that this life
is fleeting, it's passing, and we're not guaranteed another
day. And the most important thing is that we know Christ, we be
prepared to meet him whenever he calls us, at the age of 80
or 18, whenever. Now, if you will, open your Bibles
with me tonight to Psalm 19. Psalm 19. I believe that if you ask most
Christians, if a person had been saved for any length of time,
to list their favorite 10 Psalms, this probably would be on most
of the list. I know it would be on mine. The
psalm, as we read through the psalm in just a moment, we will
see how it divides itself into three divisions. The first division,
verses one through six, speaks of God's book of creation. The
heavens declare the glory of God, God's book of creation,
so that all men, no matter where a person may be born, has a testimony
given to him in God's creation that God exists. The eternal
power, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter one, the Godhead
of God is manifested in creation, his power, his wisdom. The second
division, as we'll read through in just a moment, verses 7, 11,
speaks of God's written book. The first book is book of creation,
but then his book of revelation, his written book. And we see
that the excellency of the word of God. And then the third division
in verses 12 through 14, it contains a beautiful prayer. A beautiful
prayer that is helpful and useful for all of us that we might learn
to pray. Now let's read through the psalm,
beginning with verse one. The first book, verses one through
six, the book of creation. The heavens declare the glory
of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is 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 is nothing hid from the heat thereof. That's the first section, God's
book of creation. Now the second section, beginning
with verse seven, God's written word. 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, more to be desired Are they than
gold? Yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter
also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant
warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can
understand his errors? Now, this verse, verse 12, begins
this prayer, this beautiful prayer of the psalmist Who can understand
his errors? 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. Let the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in
thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." Tonight, I
want to take the first verse, the first line, actually, for
us to think about the heavens that declare the glory of God. And I'm going to spiritualize
these things, and I trust the Lord will bless my thoughts to
each of us here tonight. But what do we see? The psalmist
said the heavens declare the glory of God, but what do you
see? What do I see when we look up
into God's heaven? What do we see? First, we may
see the sun, the S-U-N, in the heavens. For us, the sun dominates
our rules in the heavens. The sun is sometimes used to
illustrate the truth about God existing in a trinity of persons. You've got the sun, its rays,
and its heat. All three are one. The sun could
not exist without its rays or without its heat. They're all
one, and yet we think of them in three ways. We know the scriptures
reveal there's one God, just as there's one Son in our heavens. And yet, God exists in a trinity
of persons. Sometimes people will say, well,
the word trinity is never in the Bible. That's true. But you cannot read the Bible
with any spiritual understanding and not see that there is a trinity
of persons in the Godhead. Because each person is proclaimed
to be God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Not three gods. One God who exists
in three persons. The Son, as we look up into the
heavens, that's the first thing that we see. First thing that
we're always going to see. The Son, it dominates, it rules
in the heavens. And this reminds us that not
only is God a triune God, but that He is a sovereign God. Just
as the sun rules in our universe when we look into the heavens,
so God rules. He rules in the heavens. Nebuchadnezzar
confessed He rules among the armies of heaven. That is, all
of the angels, all of the created beings, spiritual beings, God
rules. And not only among the armies
of the heavens, but also among the inhabitants of the earth.
God rules. He reigns over all things. And
as far as you and I are concerned, the sun is stationary. It doesn't
move. And I know scientists now tell
us that the whole universe is moving. But as far as we can
see, when David wrote this hymn, when he looked up into the heavens,
he saw the sun. And when we look up into the
heavens, we see the sun. And as far as we are concerned,
it is stationary and everything revolves around the sun. It gives to all of creation.
The sun does, as this passage tells us, there's no place. There's
no place upon God's earth where the heat of the sun does not
reach. It's everywhere. It gives. Here's
the point. It gives. The Son gives to all,
but it receives nothing from its creation. God gives to all,
and yet we add nothing. His creation adds nothing to
God. God has always been, He is eternal
being. He's always been perfect and
complete. Before there was ever anything
made that is made. His creation adds nothing to
Him but all of God's creation. We all receive from Him. And
I know you've seen the statistics, but if our earth was just a little
bit closer to the sun, we would all burn up. If it was a little
bit farther from the sun, we would all freeze. Now, that didn't
happen by accident, did it? Not hardly. God is the creator
of all things, and he reigns and rules just like the sun does
in the heavens. And you notice, well, first,
the apostle John, in his first letter, his first epistle, he
wrote, this then is the message. This is the message. Have you
heard this message? I pray that you do. I pray that
you have, that you will. This then is the message which
we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and
in him is no darkness at all. So the first thing that we see
when we gaze up into the heavens is the sun. Now notice down in
verse five, we're told two things about the sun. And I'm going
to take the second thing we're told first. But the sun is here
likened to two things. The first, the sun is likened
to a strong man to run a race. He comes out of the east in the
morning and makes his way across the skies and sets in the west
every day. He's like a strong man who comes
and runs his race across the sky. Don't you love to see those
time, how do you say that, those photographs that are time? Timeline? Laps. Don't you just love to see them
when you see the sun just race across or the moon? Yes, my friends, the sun is likened
to a strong man to run a race. The Son of God came into this
world and it was prophesied of Him coming as the Son, the S-U-N. I know He's the Son of God, the
S-O-N, the Son of God, but the prophecy in Malachi speaks of
Him as the Son, S-U-N, in Malachi chapter four and verse two. But
unto you that fear my name shall the Son, S-U-N, shall the Son
of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. The sun has a healing
effect, doesn't it? It really does. Sometimes when
I have been sick, I've liked to just go out and sit in the
sun, the warmth of the sun. It has a good effect. It has
a good effect physically and emotionally, I believe, upon
all of us. And just as the rays of light
come from the sun, This scripture here says, but unto you that
fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing
in his wings, just as the rays of light come from the sun. So
the righteousness of God's people, the righteousness of the saints
comes from him who is our righteousness. He has both God and man, and
he was strong. It says here, as a strong man
to run a race, the load of the guilt of the sins of his people,
all the angels together, as mighty and as powerful as all the angels
of God are. could not have sustained the
weight of the guilt that was laid upon this strong man, the
Lord Jesus Christ, when He bore the sins of His people. He is both God and man, and we
are exhorted in Hebrews to run with patience the race that is
set before us, just as Christ did. He ran the race that was
set before Him. and finishing that race that
was given unto him by the Father. So that he could say at the end
of his life, Father, I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do. I've run the race, I've finished
my course. Now the second thing in this
verse five that is said about the son, he's likened to a bridegroom
coming out of his chamber. There's much about Jewish weddings
at this particular time that we do not really understand. But I know this, that the bridegroom
was just like the bride, was dressed in the best finery that
they had, the bridegroom. And our Lord in Matthew chapter
25, he gives a parable of the 10 virgins. That's usually the
way it's referred to. But in that parable, there's
a bridegroom. And obviously, he himself, Jesus
Christ, is represented by the bridegroom. And the ten virgins,
five of them had oil for their lamps, brought oil for their
lamps, and five didn't. And it's a picture, it's a warning
to make sure to every professing believer that we have the oil
of God the Holy Spirit, that we're not just Sham Christians,
you know. Because the bridegroom's going
to come. And when he came in the parable,
there was five of them. Now they all went to sleep. They
all went to sleep. But five were wise, and their
wisdom was they had oil. So that though the bridegroom
tarried, when he did come, they still had oil for their lamps.
Those who were foolish, they had no oil for their lamps, and
so they were left without. His coming in that parable was
unexpected. No one knew what time, what day,
what year the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come again. But we
are told this, that it will be as it was in the days of Noah. People were eating, they were
drinking, they were giving in marriage. Things were going on
as normal until God called Noah into the ark. And that's when
things changed. The rain was unexpected, so shall
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like a bridegroom, it's
unexpected, his coming. The heavens declare the glory
of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his
prayer, said, Father, I have glorified thee on the earth.
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. So the
first thing, when we read here, the heavens declare the glory
of God, the sun. That's the first thing that we
think of when we look up into the heavens. The second thing,
of course, is the moon. The moon is in the heavens. In the Song of Solomon, the bride,
which represents the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bride
is described to be fair as the moon. Fair as the moon. The bride of Christ, his church
that he loved and gave himself for, is pictured by the moon. Now the moon is called a light,
but we know that The light of the moon is reflected light.
It has no light of its own. It receives its light from the
sun. So the church, you and I, as
believers, as members of His spiritual church, His mystical
body, the church, the moon, we receive and we give light that
comes from Him. We have no light in ourselves.
In fact, In Ephesians, Paul says that lost people, those he's
writing to were saved, but he tells them that one time they
were darkness. What an accusation is leveled
against lost men. Not that they were in darkness,
that's true. We were all in darkness, but
more than that, we were darkness. We were darkness. But He has
come and given us light. The moon reflects the light of
the sun. And so the church gives light
in this world, but it's light, not of its own, but it's light
that is derived from the bridegroom, from the son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is interesting that in the
Song of Solomon, where that verse is found, that the bride is described
as being fair as the moon, that the bridegroom declares this
about his bride. He says that she is fair as the
moon. In fact, he says, now listen,
the bridegroom tells his bride, the church, thou art fair as
the moon. But that's not all, he says.
He says, thou art all fair. A-L-L. Thou art all fair, my
love. There's no spot in thee. That's
his description of his bride, of the church. Thou art all fair,
my love. There's no spot in thee. In his
sight, in the sight of God, in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ,
His bride, His blood-bought, blood-washed children are arrayed
in His righteousness, so there is no spot in thee. There's no
spot in thee. But like the moon, sometimes
we look up at the moon and we see some dark spots, don't we? We see some dark... He doesn't.
When he looks at his church, he sees no spot in thee. Thou art all fair, my love. When we look at ourselves, just
like when we look at the moon, we see spots, oh yes. When we
look into the word, the mirror of the word of God, we see spots
all the time, don't we? There's not a day goes by that
I don't see spots. I don't see spots in myself.
But here's the wonderful thing, the blessed thing, he sees no
spot in his pride. And those that he loves, those
that he has washed in his precious blood. Their sins are all gone. They're all gone. When you think
about the moon, the moon has its phases. I remember reading
about a tailor. man who makes clothes, have a
hard time making a suit for the moon. He goes to take his measurements
one day and it's full. He goes back with his material,
his coat he's made and it's too big because it's not full anymore. The moon has its phases. It's full and then it has what
is called its wane. The church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is represented by the moon, it also has its phases. I was mentioning just a few minutes
ago about the ministry of Charles Spurgeon. There have been days
in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ when it has been full. It has been full in the days
of the apostles. Read church history, you find
what took place after Pentecost and the apostles went out into
the world. And you and I, being born as
we were at this time in this country, we cannot even begin
to imagine how pagan, we live in a pagan country, don't misunderstand
me, but how pagan the world was when the gospel went out. from Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea,
and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And the converts
that flocked, that were brought into the church at that time,
like the moon when it was full. But then there's been times when
it has been less. It's been on the wane, the days
of the great reformation. There was many people that were
brought in. And there have been times of
revival. And oh, we look for a time like
that, a great awakening, as it was called in our country. And
the church was added to, the Lord added unto his church daily,
such as were being saved. And not only is the church collectively
like the moon in the sense of being full and then having its
phases, but every child of God, we know by experience what this
is like. We know what it's like to be
full, to be rejoicing, to be praising the Lord. I mean, you
can't read the word of God and your heart is not warm. You cannot
come to a service and your heart is just enlarged and blessed
and singing of the hymns. And yet it's not always that
way. Sometimes our hearts are cold and the word doesn't speak
to us like it has. And the services become routine,
old hat. I've heard all that before. We
go through times just like the moon does, spiritually. You read the Psalms, and you
read the psalmist sometimes, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. At other times, is your mercy
clean gone? Same writer. God's people. We know what it
is to be on the mountain. We know what it is to be in the
valley. That's our life in this world. And God has ordained it
to be like that because I tell you what that does. It keeps
us looking to Christ, looking to Him. Here's the third thing. When we look up into the heaven,
we see the stars. We see the stars in the heaven.
Now you know, in Revelation chapter one, John saw the Lord Jesus
Christ, the resurrected Christ. And he saw him there in that
place, and in his hand, in the hand of the Lord, he had seven
stars. He had seven stars in his right
hand. And a few verses down in that
chapter, he tells us what those stars represent. The seven stars
represent the seven messengers, or the seven pastors, to the
seven churches. The Lord there is among the seven
golden candlesticks. Seven is the number of completion.
And what a blessing that is to all of us, because first of all,
we see that Christ is among the candlesticks. When we gather
here together, where two or three are gathered in my name, there
am I in their midst. He's always among all of his
churches. And then for the pastors, the
preachers, we're in his hands. You know, I heard a brother say
this. He's now with the Lord. He's
gone to be with the Lord. But he said this, he said, in
my lifetime, I've had three pastors. And he said, every one of them
was different. And yet every one of them preached the gospel
and cared for my soul. The pastors, everyone's different. As the stars, you look up into
the stars at night, into the heavens rather than see the stars.
Some are brighter than others. Ministers are not all the same.
They're different. We should be thankful for those
that God raises up, and pastors should remember that we are in
His hands, as the stars must have this as
their one desire. The heavens declare the glory
of God, so every pastor, every preacher must have this desire
in his heart, like the Apostle Paul, whether it were I or they. Whether it was I who preached
or others who preached. So we preach and so you believe. That's our desire. That's our
purpose. I don't care where we are as
pastors. We're missionaries or pastors
or wherever. That's our desire is to see others
come to know Christ. That's the reason we continually
preach and lift up Christ. Because faith is a very strange
thing, the way that God communicates faith unto his people. Faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. You don't
just decide to believe. That's just not so. You hear
the gospel, and God gives you faith, or God doesn't give you
faith. And when God gives you faith, you believe. You couldn't
do anything else. You believe. Now, the fourth thing, when we
look up into the heavens, we see the clouds. We see the clouds. I remember as a teenager, as
a young boy, sometimes maybe laying down in the field and
just looking up into the heavens and seeing the clouds as they
pass by and trying to, that cloud looks like this or that cloud
looks like that, you know. Let me tell you two things about
the clouds. First of all, clouds we know
bring rain. They bring rain. They water the
earth. And the earth would not be fruitful
without the rain that the clouds bring. Let us not be negligent
to pray that the Lord would send his blessings upon each and every
one of us that we too might be fruitful. The fruit of the Spirit
might be manifested in our life. The flesh can't work it up. It
has to be produced by the Holy Spirit in us. And the second
thing, clouds foretell trouble. You've all heard the statement,
well, I see clouds, dark clouds gathering in the horizon or something
like that. Look with me in Isaiah 44. In Isaiah chapter 44 and verse
21, Isaiah 44 and verse 21, Remember
these, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant. I have formed
thee, thou art my servant. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten
of me. I have blotted out as a thick
cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins. Now here in this passage God
is speaking and He uses the clouds to picture our sins. Now, think about that. The clouds
picturing our sin. Number one, the number of clouds. The number of clouds that we
see in the sky. So our sins, though they are
many, and they're high, the clouds are high above us, We can't get
to them. We can't remove the clouds. And
the same thing is true about our sins. They are many and they
are so far above our ability to remove them. But thank God,
God says, I have blotted out thy sins as a cloud. You know that word blotted out
when a person used to have a debt book and he would go into a store
or whatever and he would charge something, they'd write your
name at the top of the page, and then every time you'd charge
something, they'd write that in the line, they'd write that
in the line, and the next day you'd come back and charge something
else, they'd write that in the line, and then on Friday, on
payday, you'd come in and you'd pay what you owe, and he would
blot it out! They're gone! That debt's gone! So the Lord blots out the sins
of His people. like a cloud. They're gone. They're
gone. The heavens declare the glory
of God. He forgives. He blots out our
sin. And he does so for his own namesake,
for his sake. And here's the last thing. When
we look up into the heavens, we see lightning sometimes, and
we hear the sound of thunder. The lightning speaks to us of
speed, doesn't it? We see the lightning and then
we count, one, two, three, and then bang, then comes the noise. Lightning, the speed of light. That's the way we're told His
coming is going to be when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. He said this in Matthew chapter
24, as the lightning as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth
even unto the west. Just how quickly it moves, how
quickly it moves across the sky. So his coming is going to be
like the lightning. He's going to come with speed.
So shall the coming of the Son of Man be. And what a blessed
day that's going to be for all of his children. when he comes
to receive us unto himself and take us to be with him. The heavens
declare the glory of God and what glory, what glory will be
manifested when he comes to take us home to be with himself. I pray that the Lord would bless
this word all of us here tonight and we thank God for his book
of creation. And God willing, I want to bring
a message next time about his book of Revelation, the written
word of God. But let's sing this hymn, Sitting
at the Feet of Jesus.