Book of Psalms - Psa. 19, Vs. 1-5

Well, it's been a minute since I've done any of the Sunday school lessons. Mm-hmm. Ben Jamin's been hogging all of them. No, just kidding. I've been Gone a lot and so he's had to cover for me a lot. I really appreciate him doing that.

But I do like to tease him that he's been hogging them all. And he's been doing a fantastic job of it and so now he's raising the bar and I gotta I gotta try and see if I can meet the bar today and That's like a hopeless situation.

Unfortunately, Ben is also home with some sick babies today, so.

He.

He wasn't here to be able to do some of the tech stuff for us. He's doing it from afar and he's still getting it done. So appreciate you doing that Ben Jamin. Anyway, so the last time I left off we had done Psalm 17 we backtracked to Psalm 17 because I Accidentally skipped it when going through the Psalms.

I went 1 through 16 and I jumped to 18. Somehow I thought I had taught 17. Then we backtracked to 17 now. We're gonna jump ahead to 19. Now I don't know that we'll get through the entire Psalm today, which is okay we could split this into a couple of weeks I'll be doing next Sunday to Lord willing and Let's see, let's see what we can learn from Psalm 19.

Let's start off with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father. We thank you for your word. We thank you that it's truth. We thank you for the Psalms and how encouraging they are to us and the instructions that we can Gain from the Psalms Lord.

We thank you for David who wrote so many of the Psalms father we ask that you help us to listen to these words and To ponder them not just during Sunday school, but maybe throughout the rest of the week as well.

And every time we look at nature help us to recognize that all of all of that is in a sense a word to us as well, so where we ask that you bless this time together and Help us to enjoy it. It's in your name.

We ask these things. Amen. Okay. So I hear myself I'm not sure why but That's it. Oh, it's it's in the back. Okay. I wasn't sure if it was coming from this computer over here or not. There are two books That are a witness to the existence of God.

You have a metaphorical book of creation. And then you have the spiritually inspired book God's Word the Holy Bible.

Now.

Pastor David mentioned the metaphorical book of creation the Sunday after Christmas. I don't know if you guys will remember that or not, but if you want to go and listen to his sermon the Sunday The Sunday that came after Christmas he said that a Information on God whatsoever other than his own existence in the existence of the heavens above.

Both of those evidences are enough to prove the existence of a higher power. But natural man will not know Who that higher power is unless he receives the with rightness of heart By the power of the Holy Spirit the written Word of God.

So that's something that pastor said in his sermon one Sunday after Christmas and. And you know, there's there's some people who believe that Just seeing creation around you is enough To get a Saving knowledge of God and therefore would be enough.

To Condemn you.

Well, what they're doing is they're conflating two different ideas because If there is a higher power and you don't answer to him It's enough to condemn you but it doesn't need to be there to condemn you.

You're condemned already. You're born in sin and While there is evidence that there is a higher power in creation. It doesn't necessarily Give you what is required to become a child of God. We're gonna see that in Psalm 19.

So without the Word of God, you can't understand the works of God. We spend a lot of time as Christians trying to prove God's existence. By looking at creation and While there's plenty of evidence that God exists by looking at creation you're doing it backwards.

You can prove why creation exists, but you start with God in his Word. You don't go the other way around and that's a trap that Christians fall into all the time. We try to go and prove God's written Word is true because of The works of God.

When in reality, it's the written Word of God That helps us understand the works of God it's not the other way around you can Draw some conclusions and some analogies based on the works of God to better understand The Word of God to get a better understanding of the things he says.

But they don't prove the Word of God. The Word of God proves the works of God. How do we know that's true? Well, we'll see that as we get into the scripture here. And why is it important why is it important for us to know that the works of The moon the stars the Sun the sky the the earth the plants the trees the animals the rocks.

All of it. Why is it so important? for us to know that those things came from God as opposed to.

A.

Being a result of something like a Big Bang Theory. Even if you believe that God was behind the Big Bang. Why is it important for us to under surround us as well? And that those didn't just come about by happenstance or by a process of evolution.

I.

Had a guy that I was listening to is scrolling through one of the social media sites and Landed on this guy who said evolution in that way. He's like according to evolution and He was so fascinated by Evolution and how it could explain so much and yet he was bought into the idea of evolution and I was like you.

You think you're genius and he the way that they presented it was like listen to this guy. He's so profound.

And I.

Tried to listen for something profound to be said and I was like maybe because sometimes you know people who who are They don't have an understanding of God they can still have profound thoughts. And so I look for what what is the profound thought and then I go All right.

Now does it line up with Scripture or maybe they don't know where that profound thought comes from or maybe Maybe I can figure it out where it comes from because it all comes from God so I'm waiting for this profound thought and It never manifested.

I was like, wow, this is weird. But um, why is it important? What do you guys think? There's a question for you Why is it important for? Man to understand that everything came from God. Okay made it for us.

That's a great answer. It's a very important answer actually any other answers. Yes, Sam. Okay, if everything was made By God and the scripture tells us that there is nothing that is made is not made by him, right?

He makes it all it all consists by him. Like all of it if that's true, that would mean that God would have had to have created evil, right? Well in the book of Isaiah, it tells us that he forms the light and creates darkness right and It actually tells us that he creates evil as well.

So why is that important that's probably It goes along perfectly with what Noah said. He made it all for us. But why does that mean God made evil for us? Mmm, so Katie says you can't understand perfect and good and mercy and grace without Sin when Adam and Eve ate of the knowledge ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It's always kind of struck me that it's called the tree of the knowledge of good. And evil so like when they ate of that fruit. They didn't just get a knowledge of evil. They got a knowledge of good as well a knowledge that they didn't previously have.

And what was that knowledge? Well now they could compare between good and bad. They could see how desperately evil they were in and of themselves having sinned against God and how perfectly Holy God was in comparison to them.

So the more they understood just how bad they were the more they could understand just how great God was.

So.

That's always kind of been a very interesting concept to me that. Because we tend to think of it as oh they ate of the fruit and now they know evil, right? And that's what we focus on. Because it was the bad thing.

They weren't supposed to do it.

And.

When Satan tempted Eve, he said he does that God didn't want you to eat this because you would. You would know evil like he does. Is that what he said? No, you would have you would know good and evil that you would be as God's knowing good and evil.

So there was an extra portion of good that they understood because of the concept of evil. So in a sense we could say that God made evil for us, but he didn't really he made it all for him. It's all for his honor and his glory and.

So when we have a better understanding of the difference between good and evil That brings honor and glory to God now. We do get to receive a benefit. Right, we get to understand better Just how glorious and wonderful God is.

All right, so those are good answers. Any other answers as to why it's super important for us to understand that everything came from God. Turn off my notifications here because they keep popping up. I don't know what's got me having a runny nose this morning.

Mm-hmm. All right, so there's nothing that was made without him. So It's important for us to understand that he had an intricate Hand in everything that's good. But why why is it important for us to understand that?

Let me give you an analogy let's say you're sitting out on the beach and All of a sudden off in the distance you see a.

Fleet of.

Naval destroyers Coming right at you Massive iron ships Just filled to the brim with deadly.

Ammunition.

Right, but you don't know whose ships they are. Is that scary or is that comforting? It's scary right as they approach closer It gets scarier because now they start turning and you begin to see the broad sides of the ships where the guns Can be facing right at you, is it comforting or is it scary?

It's scary, right? But you recognize the other side of the ship could be aiming at something as well and it's not until you see an American flag and You recognize that these ships belong to your country that all of a sudden It's not quite as scary.

Unless you think they're gonna turn on you, which who knows that could happen in our lifetime, couldn't it? But if you saw that they were your ships. Would that be less scary? Would that be more comforting?

Now.

Think about the fact that man looks around at all the stuff and all the good and all the evil. That's in the world and he looks at evil and he begins to fear all the evil that's around him. Because he doesn't know where it all comes from.

Man looks at at the world's destructive power today and we look at poverty and we look at sickness and we look at natural disasters we look at inequalities and we look at wars and We say oh Man did that.

All right, so who does man who do we fear if man did all of that. We fear man. We say his ambition created poverty his Modifications created sickness his pollution created natural disasters his religion caused war his migration caused Inequality, so it's all man and the people who believe this will live in fear of the world around them.

Because they'll fear the people that are in that world. But God's Word says something different. God's Word says the poor will be with you always. It says that he sends pestilence and famine. He controls the winds and the waves he maketh rich and he taketh away.

He makes war he forms the light and creates the darkness. If you understand that all that stuff that man thinks he did actually came from God now, who do you fear? You fear God. And Fearing God is the what the beginning of wisdom, right?

So that's a little bit different. So then if you knew that all that stuff came from God You would fear. Either way because all of that stuff is fearful stuff, right? Hurricanes and natural disasters and like earthquakes and but then things that are a little bit unnatural like war and Inequalities of income and inequalities of living conditions all that stuff is kind of scary.

If you think it came from man, you'll feel fear man. But if you think it came from God, you'll fear God and if we fear God It's the beginning of knowledge. What does that mean? It's the beginning. It's a starting point.

See like with your kids when your kids have a a fear or a healthy respect of you they will think twice about crossing you and it gives you the ability to Educate them on what's right and what's wrong and Because you love them you can do so in a way that keeps them safe and eventually through their growing up they understand that oh Dad told me that because he loves me.

Oh Mommy told me I should do this because she loves me and they be they begin to understand that some of the things that they Would have feared previously. They don't have to fear because they fear mommy and daddy and they will keep them safe.

Prime example itty-bitty starts crawling over to a Power outlet, right? They want to go touch that thing and all of a sudden they hear You get over to the kid and.

Like.

You scare the living daylights out of them because of that thing, right? Now they they fear you. But they don't have to fear that thing because they're gonna go nowhere near that thing because they fear you.

So the most important reason I believe why We should understand that everything that comes that everything that is around us comes from God Is so that when we see good and when we see bad We recognize it all comes from him and we start with the place of yikes.

He is powerful. Yikes, if he made all that he could snuff me out in a moment. Yikes, I better not cross God. Because what will happen is that will put us in the starting point where he can then begin to instruct us about what to stay away from what to go near and and He can keep us safe because at some point we will understand Lord willing that he also loves us.

All. Right, so let's get into the text here real quick. We won't get all the way through this psalm. That's okay. To the psalm 19 one to the chief musician a psalm of David. I. Right when when he creates this psalm he wants this to be sung by the best and So he sends it to his number one Rockstar.

For the chief musician.

Here's what it says the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. There are a hundred there. There are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone. And perhaps up to ten thousand of them can be seen by the naked eye on any given night from Earth.

Think about that ten thousand of them. Have you ever been out where you can see just a ton of stars? Out in the middle of nowhere. When I went down and did my hike this year in Big Bend we were out in the middle of nowhere.

Like you go out there and it's as dark as dark can possibly be but it's the winter sky. So it's clear I have never in my life seen so many stars. It was Amazing. I thought man. I want Katie to come see this.

I want the kids to come see this and.

It was incredible and.

You think you're seeing them all but you're literally just seeing 10 ,000 out of a hundred billion. I Mean, that's not even 1 Like you're seeing less than 1 of all the stars in our galaxy there are stars outside our galaxy.

Would you say that's a lot of stars. The Hebrew word for declare is support. I Don't know that I'm saying that right say par maybe it's a par. It means to recount or to count exactly or accurately. It can also mean to number but there are two things it's for one it's like math so this is counting and numbering.

This this is a math term. But the second thing it's for not just for using for math. But the second thing it's for is that this math is for the purpose of accuracy in recounting the facts. You ever heard the the term numbers don't lie.

Why would we say something like that? Because numbers are exact right? And so we look at math and we look at numbers to find a truth. It's an expression Which is designed to make people think that statistics cannot be argued with but statistics are a little bit different than numbers.

They are numbers. The thing is is that at its core if the numbers are accurate Then you are looking at a truth, that's that's the core right like if numbers are accurate you're looking at a truth but The presentation of those numbers can be used to deceive.

So for example, if you had a very small sample size of something let's say we pulled a hundred of a hundred people out of a million voters and They were all Democrats. All right, and then we said of those Democrats 93 of all voters approve of the Democratic Presidency they approve the Democratic candidacy or whatever.

That would be such a tiny Sample size that it would kind of be unrealistic to say 93 of all voters of the million, right? But that's one way that someone can use statistics to Deceive they pull a very tiny amount a very small number and they say of this small number.

All of them do this or all of them do that which means the giant number is exactly the same way. There's another way you can use numbers to deceive or present the numbers in a weird way to Deceive and that is with big meaningless numbers.

This happens with social media accounts. So like a social media account Can buy like a company can buy a social media account that already has tons of followers to make people think that those tons of followers are following that company and They all got to be a part of this account for that company, but it's a meaningless number, right?

We just bought it. It's not what we are presenting it as so that kind of thing can happen. There are many other ways another way is correlation. Not causation. So an example would be if you said a large number of people who drive SUVs Also eat broccoli.

Therefore if you eat if you drive an SUV You will eat more broccoli. You see so that would be called causation. But we know That's absurd to say that just because someone drives an SUV They are going to eat more broccoli.

No, there might be a correlation. There might be a correlation in that people who drive SUVs also happen to like broccoli as well. But driving SUV doesn't make you eat more broccoli, right? So man will use this concept of causation in In the the wrong way.

To present findings with numbers and And present it the wrong way and in trick you with numbers. So numbers are just numbers and.

They are.

When they are figured out properly They can reveal truths. But people are also just people and they are flawed and they are deceitful. The heart is wicked and they're deceitful and wicked desperately wicked above all things who can know it, right?

So like man will look at something and he'll twist it man looks at the stars and he says Well, that looks like it just exploded up there. Look at all those fragments of light big bang. Right. That's what it is.

And so we will we will then Go down this long road of perfect logic starting with a false premise and we will mess up The truth about the numbers that are out there. Those of us who understand that that stuff was made by God we go well actually.

That's 10 ,000 stars that you can only see with your eyes and Then beyond those stars that you can see with your eyes. There's Nine. What is it not. Ninety nine million or billion. Ninety nine billion nine hundred ninety nine million 990 ,000 that you can't see.

Like that's a big God right, and so It's very important for us to understand that when we when we look at the stars. And we look at the heavens and it says that it declares the glory of God. We have to recognize that the Bible right there is telling us What the stars do.

Stars don't tell us what the Bible does. And we try as Christians to say ha look at the stars. Look at all the design. There's design there true and it does Imply that there's a designer, but if you really want to understand it You got to start with the designer and then work towards the design.

You don't start with the design and then work towards the designer. It won't ever work.

And.

The firmament showeth his handiwork. Okay, so before we get to that part if the heavens declare the glory of God They are a witness To something greater they are a witness to the truth, right? And so while they cannot Necessarily be used to prove God's existence because really it's the other way around God proves why they exist they do give testimony.

And people who give testimony like in a court of law they present evidence that they have and It's almost never the entire picture right. So like you go into a court of law They're looking for the entire picture and what they have to do is they have to get the witness of two or more.

Or the account of two or more eyewitnesses and they begin to piece together the story. We were talking about this in a Bible study on Wednesday and how when we're doing. We're going through the the Gospels right now we're doing John.

When you go and read all the different accounts of the same story you get more Layers to the story when you put them all together because they're different eyewitness accounts. You're seeing the story told through someone else's perspective.

And so the more witnesses you have The the greater the picture becomes right the more complete the picture becomes. But even with all the pieces even if you had a ton of witnesses you still have to make a judgment.

Right. You still have to go. All right. What do I believe? Based on all the testimony. What do I believe now the more testimony you receive? The more it may be Confirmed what you're gonna end up believing would you agree with that?

Well, so imagine 10 ,000 witnesses Declaring God's glory 10 ,000 of them and these are witnesses that don't need a witness protection program. They can't be silenced they can't be bribed or blackmailed or bullied.

They will never deny the truth. They'll just continue every day To show evidence of God and give eyewitness to his handiwork. Matthew Henry says from the excellency of the work. We may easily infer the infinite perfection of its great author.

From the brightness of the heavens we may collect that the Creator is light. Their vastness of extent bespeaks his immensity their height his transcendency and sovereignty their influence upon this earth his dominion in Providence and universal beneficence and all-declare his almighty power by which they were at first made and Continue to this day according to the ordinances that were then settled.

So there is a very clear order. That's that's one thing that we can see right. From the stars there is order there is design. So much so that it provides functionality to the earth below we actually navigate by the stars.

Did you know that if you took two sticks and you ran a String or a wire between the sticks in the night sky you put them down in the ground and you get behind the stick with the string. If you look at the string and Line it up with any one star in in the sky.

If that star based on which way that star moves you can determine Which way you're facing if you're facing east south north or west. If the star and I used to have it memorized which way you would move.

I think it was like if it moved left. You were facing east. If it moved right you're facing west and if it moved up you're facing north and if you move down. Or if you moved up you're facing south and move down you're facing north.

I think is what it was. I'll have to go look it up. But based on just lining that that string up with a star if You watch long enough that star will move off the string in a certain direction and you can determine which way you're facing at night.

And.

So that design is so exact. It's so perfect in orderly That it can actually provide direction in. Just walking tell me that's not an analogy. All right, so. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge when you think daytime.

What is the first thing that comes to mind ready go? Sun what else? Bright what else? Birds, I like that the morning birds. Okay so life and Sun and bright and light right and that the first we said Sun and bright first.

Those are both concepts associated with light. Well, Jesus is the bright and morning star the day spring the light of the world also called the true light. We've been reading in John, right? And what is it saying John in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life but you brought up life right and the life was the light of men and.

The light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. All right, so you have light and you also have darkness. Let me ask you this when you think nighttime. What do you think of? Darkness.

What can you do in total darkness. Can feel around? All right. What else? You cannot see you can listen. Okay, you can hear so you can move you can move in the dark. But you may fall into a hole or smash against an obstacle.

That's one of the few Chinese words that I know when you Run into the coffee table. My mommy or my dad used to tell me that now my dad grew up in Taiwan and it's not real Chinese. He's just said when you run into the coffee table, you start speaking Chinese you go.

I bang my knee.

You.

Yeah, you can run into an obstacle or find yourself in the way of some sort of pending disaster. Moving in the dark isn't something most people do with confidence. Would you agree you can speak? But you don't know who's listening in the dark.

You don't know who might answer back. What you say in the dark can give away your position to an enemy. Now think about that. When when considering the concept of speaking in tongues. People who speak.

Who.

Who believe that they can just speak in tongues? Many of them refuse to go and read the scriptures about that. Especially the scriptures that are very clear that speaking in tongues Was always in known languages.

Right, and so they do this Thing that pastor David says should have bought a Honda that kind of thing, right? They just start speaking gibberish. What are they actually doing if they're not in the word and they are not in the light?

Because remember the word in the word was life and that life was the light of men when they're speaking. Without consulting the word they are speaking in the dark. Because they don't have the light if you're speaking in the dark, you don't know who's listening and you don't know who will answer.

And you're giving away your position to the enemy. You can listen that was what? Emily said right you can listen in the dark. You might find Listening more than talking a wiser endeavor. But listening in darkness means being uncertain of the source and of sounds.

You.

Hear things that go bump in the night. What do you say?

What was that?

Right, where'd that noise come from? You don't know where it came from. So again. Specifically the thing that comes to mind is the concept of speaking in tongues, right. If you're doing so without Consulting what the word says about speaking in tongues you are doing so in darkness and.

If you're doing so in darkness, you don't know where that noise came from. You don't know where the source is. Why do you think it is that God chooses to use darkness so often as a metaphor for sin? Because those who live in darkness move toward destruction.

They speak without wisdom and they end up listening to the enemy or the wrong source. For those of us who live in the light.

We.

Understand that the darkness is it still serves a purpose for us as well. When night falls it is hard for us to see isn't it. But we don't walk by sight do we. Know we walk by faith. 2nd Corinthians tells us that we know that our hearts may plan our way.

But the Lord establishes our set our steps. That's in Proverbs and Jesus tells us that my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I think about that. My sheep hear my voice. It's funny that it doesn't say my sheep hear my voice and they see me and they go.

Oh, there he is and they come over. They hear my voice. I know who they are. That's an interesting thing Jeffrey brought up in Devo not too long ago.

And.

They follow me. Have you ever played follow the leader in the dark. You haven't we used to do it as kids. Like we would we would try to follow somebody while they would like whisper or something. And so long as they kept whispering You could figure out Where they were going if you stayed close enough.

If you got too far away The whisper became kind of disorienting like you couldn't tell where they were or where the sound was coming from. So you'd start going off the wrong way. Stick close to Jesus and in the dark you'll be able to follow him just by listening to his words.

See. Even the night carries knowledge for those of us who care to observe it. Spurgeon says day bids us labor night reminds us to prepare for our last time Day bids us work for God and night invites us to rest in him.

Day bids us look for endless day and Night warns us to escape from everlasting night. Verse 3. There is no speech Nor language where their voice is not heard. Okay now lest we. Lest we read this improperly.

I want you to understand that there's a comma in there.

It isn't. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. There's nothing verbal.

When you're looking at the night sky and you're seeing the stars. You're seeing all that heavenly glory as Bruce Lee would say, right? There's no words. You know how important that is. It never really occurred to me how important this was till I was reading through this.

That's so extremely important that there are no words. Here's why? When it comes to creation, there's no language barrier. Everyone can look at it whether they speak Chinese or Russian or African or You know English.

Doesn't matter whatever language you speak of all the thousands of languages. You can look up there. There's no language barrier. You can understand to some degree that there is a creator. It's easily understood by all races and all cultures every subculture and every dialect of tongue.

They can look at the stars and the moon and the Sun and the planets the orbital movement of it all. They can see the glory and the handiwork of it and recognize there's a designer at work. But there's a more important reason.

Why.

This verse Means what it means if there is no speech nor language and its voice cannot be heard then seeing all of that heavenly glory all that creation all. That proof that there is a designer Cannot save you.

That right there verse 3 is proof that just seeing all that cannot save you. Why is that proof? What's required for salvation. Hearing the gospel. Why is that required. Because faith? cometh by hearing.

Yeah.

Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God so you can't look at all that heavenly glory and Become saved by the by its immense. By its immensity. You can't be saved by its glory. You can't be saved by its exactness, it's.

It's all that stuff that people want to go and worship. Let's go worship mother nature. Let's go worship the universe. Scriptures very clear the designer of it is very clear. There are no words up there.

Verse 4 their line is gone out Through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. Well, wait a minute. There's world there's words now. Hey, didn't we just say there's no words. It's Matt is speaking metaphorically in them.

Hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun. See in other words. There are words, but these words aren't spoken. This is like a book that is an unspoken book. That's why it's not the Word of God.

Which is.

The spoken word. By the Holy Spirit to the to those who penned the Holy Word. Not only does creation silently scream that there is a creator in every understandable language spoken or not. But its message is also not hidden from anywhere at any time.

That's what this verse means. It's never hidden. It's always out there for everyone to see. If you live on earth you have proof all around you that God exists. There is proof.