God Wrote A Book

Point number one will be God's worldwide speech. God's worldwide speech. Point number two, God's perfect word. God's perfect word. And point number three, God's king and the scriptures. God's king and the scriptures. So we're gonna go ahead and dive into point one, God's worldwide speech, and please turn to verses one and two. Please look with me there down at verses one and two.

God's worldwide speech

It says this.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

David here begins by reflecting on the beauty of the skies. He brings to mind a clear night full of thousands of stars, maybe a beautiful sunset, a beautiful sunrise. He's reflecting on the beauty of the skies above us.

He calls them the heavens as well. This is not the heavens where your soul goes to when you die. He's just referring here, the heavens, as another word for the skies. We see in Genesis chapter one, this phrase, the heavens, is also used to refer to the skies. So David reflects on these sites, and as he reflects on them, he sees that the skies are communicating something to us.

David says that they declare, that they proclaim, that they have speech, and that they reveal knowledge. specifically knowledge about the glory of God. And his point here is there's not a single moment where the skies and where all of creation is silent about the glory of God. He uses the words day to day and night to night to sort of cover the entire 24 hours. Every single moment of every day, the skies are proclaiming the glory of God.

You know, it makes me think, when I was a kid, maybe you did this when you were a kid, you'd look up at the clouds, and you'd maybe try to see what shapes they were making. And say, this one, that one's in the shape of a bear, that one's in the shape of a lion. And maybe in your small imagination as a kid, or I guess your great imagination as a kid, you could sort of try to picture the skies are like giving you a message. You know, this cloud is a bear because, you know, the skies are trying to tell me this. We know that's silly, right? That's sort of the imagination of a kid. The skies are not communicating to us like that. We know that. That's not how the skies are communicating to us. There's not some game of Pictionary going on in the clouds.

Now, the way the skies are communicating to us is their beauty is demonstrating not necessarily a message, but a maker. Their beauty is communicating a creator to us. The main thing the skies are doing day and night, their number one responsibility from God is to display to us God's own glory. The innumerable stars at night, if you were to go somewhere far away from any light pollution, those thousands upon thousands of stars are meant to communicate to you an eternal and an infinite God. The cycle of the seasons that come around year after year is meant to communicate to you a God of order and not of chaos. There's always, you could say, a sort of sermon being preached to you. when you go out in creation.

Look with me now in verses three and the beginning of verse four. David writes,

there is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

So we've seen that David has shown us that creation is proclaiming God to us every moment of every day. And here, he shows us that creation is proclaiming the glory of God everywhere, not only at all times, but in all places as well. And to picture this, David gives an illustration. There at the end of verse four, continuing to verse six, he gives us an illustration of how creation is proclaiming God's glory everywhere.

He says this,

in them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them. and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

So what's the point of this picture? What is this symbolism here trying to communicate? Well, you can picture, metaphorically, sort of a tent on the horizon at the end of the skies that the sun dwells in.

And when daytime comes, it's sort of like the sun rises Maybe it gets its caffeine in him, he's ready to go, and he runs his course all the way across the skies with joy. Says he runs like a strong man. You can picture a sort of professional marathon runner who just can go the same pace the entire time, not growing weary, and with joy continuing in his course.

What's the point of this? as far as the sun's beams reach, that is as far as God's glory is being proclaimed in creation. Wherever the sun's beams hit the earth, creation there is displaying God's glory. In other words, God's glory is everywhere. You cannot run from it. You cannot go anywhere in this world where creation will not be proclaiming to you God's glory.

Makes me think of back home where I grew up in Indiana. Lots of tornadoes. Lots of them all the time. And one thing they do there, they put these tornado sirens on top of tons of telephone poles everywhere. They're just everywhere. And the point of that is so that when a tornado comes, they blare the sirens and they're everywhere so that nobody misses the message.

They're there so that nobody is outside of the bounds of its proclamation. Creation is the same way. Every square inch of creation shouts God's glory. You cannot find a square inch of creation that doesn't. The unbeliever cannot go anywhere to escape the clear evidence of God all around him. There's nowhere he can run where creation will not be right up in his face, declaring the glory of God to him.

But here there's an issue, isn't there? There's an issue because though creation is right in front of the face of the unbeliever, declaring to them day to day and night to night about God's glory, the unbeliever can close their ears. The unbeliever can cover his eyes to it. And this brings us to a very important question we need to consider in light of the text. If creation at all times, in all places, is declaring God's glory, why isn't everyone a Christian? Why doesn't everybody know God? If from the moment they're born, the glory of God is right in front of them. Why is everyone a Christian then?

This is the question we need to reckon with, and there's two reasons why. The first reason is that our sin suppresses the things that are communicated to us. There are all sorts of truths communicated in creation, and in our sinful nature, we hate them. For many people, this isn't sort of a conscious thing that they're doing, but it's really just the sinful nature inside of them doing what it does best, suppressing God's truth in unrighteousness.

Picture with me, maybe a silly example, but maybe relatable. Maybe you're on this beautiful hike You're on the mountaintops, just glorious views all around you. The sky is amazing, beautiful day. And everything around you is shouting to you about the goodness of God. And everything is shouting to you about the fact that you are a creature. And he is the creator. And he is majestic. And he deserves your obedience. Maybe you slip on a rock, scrape your knee, and you get angry about it, and what do you do?

You take the Lord's name in vain. You've spurred out all sorts of profanities, taking his name in vain. What has just happened when you've done that? As miles and miles of creation all around you are proclaiming to you the goodness of God, his worth, the fact that you need to obey him, in a moment you've suppressed that to the point where you're comfortable taking his name in vain.

Our sinful nature so easily suppresses the messages creation is giving us. So that's the first reason. The second reason why not everybody knows God is this. Creation does not reveal the way of salvation. Though creation's proclamations are wonderful, when it comes to displaying God's glory, his goodness, they are limited in how much truth they can convey. You could say creation, in all of its sermons that it's proclaiming to us every day, it's limited in its number of sermons, and none of its sermons speak of Christ.

So as mankind piles guilt upon guilt upon guilt, in itself for rejecting what it's seeing all around. Creation offers nothing to help. Mankind's biggest problem, suppressing all the truth that God is declaring around them. Creation can do nothing to save them from this. It cannot proclaim Christ to us. And thus, without Christ, creation is actually only able to condemn if we don't have Christ. And here, I think what we've reflected on requires me to give a warning.

If you're here and you are not trusting in the Lord Jesus, not following him with your life, You may, with many other people, love the creation that you see all around. I'm sure you love the mountains. You love all of the beautiful creation out there. And you may even, sometimes when you're out in creation, you sort of feel this sense of awe and reverence at what's around you. You may even feel spiritual. You may even say, you know, I don't really believe in all that Jesus stuff, but when I'm out in creation, I feel really connected with God. There's lots of people out there that have that mindset, you may be one of them. Friend, I need to warn you, do not let Satan deceive you.

Every moment that you take in the beauties of creation and yet reject its maker and reject its maker's son who was given for sinners, every moment you are rejecting him While enjoying his creation, you're piling guilt upon yourself. You are seeking to steal from God his own glory, an impossible task. Those feelings of wonder that you have at the mountaintop are not going to be able to hold you up on the day of judgment. In fact, you need the maker of those mountains to hold you up. on the day of judgment.

And friend, he has given his own son to die, take the punishment for sinners, and rise again to give new life. If you love the creation out there, why would you not want the maker? Why would you not want to have relationship with that maker through his son given for you? Friend, run to him today. Do not wait.

God's perfect word

Well, we've seen creation's glorious preaching about God. We've seen the limitations of what creation can communicate. And we've seen how creation could not reach the sinful heart of man. Something more glorious is needed. Something more powerful is needed to reach the sinful heart of man.

And you may think, you may have been to some amazingly beautiful places on this earth, And you may think about those and think, what could be more glorious than that? What could be more glorious than the Alps? What could be more glorious than that beautiful sunset on the ocean? Friend, it's this book. This book is more glorious than even that. And that leads us to point two. God's perfect word. Look with me in verses seven through nine. It says,

the law of the Lord is perfect.

Now before I read the rest, I just don't want anybody to get tripped up here on this word, the law. This word could also be really translated as instruction, You don't need to automatically think in your mind do's and don'ts, rules. It's really broader than that.

And in fact here, it's really a word to encapsulate the first five books of the Bible. That's the way David was using it here. But at this point in redemptive history where we are at now, validly this word, the law, can refer to all of scripture. It's the instruction of the Lord. It can refer to the entire canon of scripture, so don't get tripped up on that word, the law. It's simply referring to scripture.

David writes this,

the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts 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 rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

So where creation could not save the sinner, where creation could not deal with the sinner's problem, here we see the word of God reviving, making wise, rejoicing, enlightening the heart, and enduring. It is far more powerful than creation to deal with our greatest problem. And look at the traits that David ascribes to the word of God. He calls them perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, and righteous all together.

So I wanted to just take a step back and notice the contrast here. Creation. in the first part of Psalm 19, creation is the one speaking. So it's sort of second-hand speech, right? God is revealing himself, but somebody else is speaking about him. Creation is the one speaking. It's second-hand speech. But the word of God, that is first-hand speech. It's the law of the Lord. It is firsthand speech from God himself, and that's why it is perfect and sure and right.

You know, another thing back in Indiana where I grew up that they had lots of, they don't really have many here, is billboards. Lots and lots and lots of billboards back home. And what are billboards? Well, they're a means of communication that can't really convey a full, thorough message.

They're limited by how much space they have. They're limited by even how much time you're able to see them. They can't really give a thorough message, but what are they meant to do? They're meant to grab your attention and point your attention to something beyond them.

Creation is the same thing. Creation is limited. It cannot give us a full, thorough message of salvation. Really, what it's meant to do is grab our attention and point it to someone beyond it. Creation is a sort of billboard, but friends, God's word is a personal letter. It's composed from God himself. It's filled with real, deep, thorough truths that will make you wise unto salvation.

God wrote that book

And I think at this point, it'd be very beneficial for us to just briefly reflect on some language that we use all the time as Christians. And a lot of that language we use all the time, we can sort of forget really what it means. We can sort of forget how profound it is of what we're saying. The language that I'm referring to is when we speak of the Bible as God's word, or when we use the language of the Bible being inspired. We use that language all the time. We sort of take for granted what it means.

So I want us to just briefly reflect on what we mean by that. Earlier in the service, Ben read from 2 Peter 1, verse 21. And this verse really, if you're looking for a verse to really briefly encapsulate what Christians believe about scripture, it's this verse. It says,

for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So the first observation to make here is Peter says, men spoke, okay? Men spoke. So we do need to take into account, yes, Paul does not sound like Peter. Peter does not sound like Moses. Moses does not sound like Isaiah. The men who wrote scripture, the human authors, their personalities, their literary styles really are part of this. It really was part of the writing of scripture.

And yet, what does Peter say?

men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So as these men were writing, God, by the Holy Spirit, was sovereignly superintending the whole process in such an amazing way that what we have recorded, what these men wrote down, was exactly, word for word, what God meant to communicate to his people. In God's sovereignty, he made sure exactly what we needed to hear, exactly what God wanted to communicate to humanity was word for word recorded through the writings of these men. So the Christian doctrine of scripture is this, that the Bible is the writings in which God recorded through the styles and personalities of men exactly word for word what God wanted to communicate to us.

Think about that. The book that you hold in your hands, God wrote that book. Almighty God wrote that book. That book contains in it exactly what God wants you to know. What a gift. What a gift. And it is precisely because of this very truth that David says in our passage that scripture is perfect, and it's sure, and it's right, and it's pure and clean and true and righteous altogether. All of those are flowing from the fact that God wrote that book. And God loves to use his own words to effect true change. in us, true change in sinners.

So, dear brother or sister, that should make you say along with what David says in verse 10. That should make you, from your heart, repeat what David says in verse 10. Look with me there. He says, the Scriptures, they're

more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

And I'll just begin the application of this with what we see there in verse 10. Brothers, sisters, you're craving for God's word like this.

Is your craving for God's word like this, where you see scripture as more valuable than fine gold, where it is sweeter to you than honey, If not, let me submit to you, it may be because recently you have not reflected on what this book really is, the very words of God.

So let me suggest something. Tomorrow, when you pick up your Bible to read, you may, like many of us, it's very normal, you may really not feel much desire to read it. You may sort of be kind of bored by it, if we're honest. That is a normal experience. But let me suggest something.

Take a few moments before you open this book and just think about what it is. Just ponder what this book is that you have in your hands. I mean, do you remember what Peter says about this word of the gospel that's now been revealed to us? Do you remember what he says? He says that

even angels long to look into these things.

So you can picture tomorrow morning, you grab your Bible, you open it up, you're a little tired, maybe a little disinterested, and the angels in heaven, you can sort of picture them bowing down, trying to look over your shoulder at what is in these pages, because they understand the glory of this book. They're just longing to look over your shoulder and peek into these pages. So as you sit tomorrow morning and open up your Bible, think about those things.

Reflect on creation with scripture truths

The second thing I want to address with this is the proper use of creation in our spiritual growth. So we've seen the distinction between how creation speaks and how the word of God speaks. And so how should we think about using the natural world in our spiritual growth. How should we think about that? Well, we have many examples, both from scripture and from church history, about how to do this properly. And how to do it properly really boils down to this.

Reflect on creation with scripture truths. Reflect on creation with scripture truths. Jesus does this as he's trying to drive home to the heart of his disciples the scriptural truth that God cares for his people, that God has a fatherly care for his people. As he's trying to drive home to his disciples that scriptural truth, what does he say?

He says,

look at the birds. They neither sow nor reap.

And he says,

look at the flowers. They neither toil nor spin, yet God provides for them.

He looks at creation. He's not commending to us sort of just looking at creation, trying to come up with our own interpretation of what it's telling us. That's not what he's saying.

But what he's saying is turn our attention to creation and reflect upon it with scriptural truths. Look at how creation demonstrates the things you already know from scripture. Look at how it illustrates them beautifully, because the same God who wrote this created it out there. Reflect on creation with scripture truths, just to give another example from Christ.

He says,

truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Jesus uses the life cycle of a grain of wheat to illustrate, to drive home the scriptural truth of death and resurrection. We would not know about Christ's death and resurrection, about our death and resurrection apart from scripture. And yet Jesus looks out in creation and he finds an illustration there to confirm what is in this book. That's how we can use creation in our spiritual growth.

Earlier in the sermon, I may have sort of given off a negative picture of creation as I was talking about, you know, it doesn't proclaim Christ, it's limited in what it could tell us. It may have come across as sort of negative. That is not at all what I want to leave you with today. In fact, in our day that is so obsessed with screen time and cell phones and all of that, Brothers and sisters, I think the people of God would be far healthier, far more spiritually mature to go out in creation far more than we already do.

As long as we're going out in creation and reflecting on scriptural truths. Just in passing, if you're interested more in this topic, There's a very helpful book, I was very helped by it in writing this, by a man named Matthew Bingham, called A Heart Aflame for God. He speaks of a lot of these things, it's very helpful. So I recommend that to you. That leads us to our third and final point.

God's king and the scriptures

God's King and the Scriptures. God's King and the Scriptures. Look with me in verse 11.

Moreover, by them,

meaning the scriptures,

by them is your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward.

Two things about this verse that we need to ask. Who is the servant and what is the reward? Who is the servant and what is the reward? And actually, we can figure out who the servant is from the very context.

If you look just the psalm before, Psalm 18. If you look up at the very top of Psalm 18, where it has the superscription there, it says,

to the choir master, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord.

The servant here is David. He's speaking of himself. And then what is the reward? Well, I believe the reward here is referring, you don't have to turn there, I'll just briefly summarize it. The reward is referring all the way back. to the end of Deuteronomy 17.

There in Deuteronomy 17, it is an extremely important passage, sort of a paradigm to understand the history of the kings of Israel. Because there, the first instructions given for the kings of Israel describe that they must know God's word and they must obey it. Those are really the first instructions given to Israel's kings. Know God's word and obey it.

And in fact, it talks about how if the king knows God's word and obeys God's word, it will go well for the people. It will go well for the people of the kingdom. It will go well for the people of God. But if the king is disobedient to the word, then the people of God will not be safe and even will go into exile.

And so the reward here, David calls it very great because he's thinking back, I believe, to Deuteronomy 17, and he's thinking, okay, the reward for keeping God's word is not just for me, it's for my kingdom. The reward is great for all of these people that I'm in charge of. If I keep God's word, it is a very great reward because the well-being, the safety, the salvation, you could say, of the people of God is dependent upon the obedience of the king.

Look with me now in the rest of the verses, verses 12 through 14. David writes,

who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. Be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

"

You can feel coming off the pages here David's love for God's word and his desire to obey it. It's just oozing off of the page. You can see his heart after God. David longed to be fully in love with and fully in line with God's word, and for much of his life he was.

And we can see it went well for the people of God. And yet there were seasons of his life where he was very disobedient and chaos ensued for the people of God, especially in his own royal family that led the nation. And as the generations go along, the kings of Israel become worse and worse and worse. And what happens when they become more and more and more disobedient? The people of God suffer. They're no longer safe as they used to be. And eventually, the disobedience of the kings brings the people into exile.

And while they're in exile, the prophets are proclaiming a day when there'll be another king, a new king to come from David's line, who will be fully obedient to God's word. And what would it mean if a king came from David's line to be fully obedient to God's word? It would mean that the people of God have salvation, and the people of God are safe. We know the end of the story, don't we? We know who that king was. Jesus Christ descended from David, the true David. He was able to perfectly know and keep God's word.

If it were up to us to gain salvation through our love and through our obedience to God's word, we'd be done for. We are children of Adam. Just like he heard clearly God's word and rejected it, we do the same. And just like Adam, we deserve death for it. But God made it where another king would represent us. King Jesus would represent us.

The blessing that he receives from fully knowing and obeying God's word falls down upon his people. So, dear brother or sister, if you feel wretched because of how little you love and obey God's word, look to your king who represents you before the Father.

Look at your king there in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. And as Satan tempts him, what does Jesus do? He responds with scripture. He holds fast to the truth of Scripture, and he obeys Scripture. Look at your king, as even last week, we saw our king facing the Pharisees and the scribes, putting them to shame because our king really knows Scripture, and our king really knows what it means to obey God's Word. and brother or sister, he has united himself to you so that his word-loving, word-obeying righteousness becomes yours before God."

It becomes yours before God. That is such good news. We have a king who obeys for us. So now, friend, because of that, Go this week, pick up your Bible. Know that you are free from guilt. And therefore enjoy this word, which actually proclaims to you the fact that you're free from guilt because of your glorious King.

Let's pray together. Lord, we cannot thank you enough for your word. The fact, Lord, that you would not remain silent, but that you would give us a whole book, in fact, a large book just full of what you have to say to us, Lord, that is such kindness. Lord, make us a people who never take your word for granted, but who love your word who desire your word and proclaim your word. In Jesus' name, amen.