God's Word for God's Glory — Gary Wilkerson

Remain standing if you would, we're gonna read the whole chapter of the 19th Psalm. I wanna encourage you and warn you. Sometimes when we read scriptures, particularly a long passage of scripture, we kind of want the preacher to get onto the commentary about it.

But I wanna tell you tonight, the commentary about it is not important as the word of God itself. The most important thing I will do in your presence tonight is these next few minutes as I read these verses.

So don't drift off, just look at this and say, this is the word of the Lord. Psalm 19, to the choir master, the Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech. There are no words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes through all the earth and their words to the ends of the world.

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

Scripture Reveals God’s Glory and Revives the Soul

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 commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the heart.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much more than fine gold. Sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb.

More over them by as your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. 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. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Charles Spurgeon says about this chapter that we've just read, in his earliest days the psalmist, while keeping his father's flock, had devoted himself to the study of God's two great books.

God's two great books. One being nature and the other being scripture. This chapter we've just read describes those two books of God. One, the creation. God speaks through his works. The second, his word.

God speaks through his word. The first one is what's called the general revelation. It's found in the handiworks of God. Great is thy faithfulness. Seeing his faithfulness in the stars and the moon and the sun and the shine and the mountains and the rivers.

Those are things we have in Colorado that maybe you haven't seen yet. The beauty of God's nature speaks about his handiwork. It reveals the things of God. And David, as a young man, he understood these two books.

And I wanna encourage you to live in these two books, to appreciate what God has created around you. Oftentimes I look at my hand and I just go, that's a miracle, it moves. My brain says something and it does it.

And I just look at that and go like, that's a miracle. It's wonderful what God has done. And I don't even have the best looking hand in the world. But just to see what God has done in creation. A baby, I have four children, nine grandchildren.

To hold the baby in your hands. Beauty of God's creation. He speaks through these things, but he also speaks more importantly through his word, through scripture, through the word of God. David looks at these books and he remembers these things that were really in his heart from his birth.

David’s Hunger for God’s Word

He says in Psalm 139 verse 13, you formed me in my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. There's the first thing he did.

He shows his beauty and the works that he's done around him. My soul knows you very well. He knew God from the time he was born. Just as a baby, he knew the things of God, probably from his family and from others around him.

But it wasn't just as a baby, as a young man, he grew up in the things of the Lord. First Samuel chapter 13 verse 14 says, the Lord sought out a man after his own heart. And this is when Samuel was looking for a new king after King Saul had failed the test of the Lord, so to speak, and he's looking for a new king.

And little David, the youngest of all his brothers, wasn't even part of the selection committee, the one who could possibly be selected. And Samuel says, there has to be another brother. And God says to him, there's one who's been seeking after my heart.

A little boy out in the wilderness, out in the forest, out in the fields, tending sheep. He's been seeking after my heart. He's been looking at these two books and I have chosen him. He had a great hunger for the things of the Lord.

When he became king, he had access. Historians tell us he had access to these books, the first five books of Moses called the Torah. He had the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, and he also had the books of Samuel.

And so he could study these books. As a matter of fact, Deuteronomy 17 verse 18 through 20 says there's a commandment given to kings that when they become kings, they are to take the scriptures and write them in their own book.

And then they are to take that book and meditate it on day and night. They are not to leave that book behind. Everywhere they go, they are to bring that book with them. So there's something about King David.

This heart after God continues. It wasn't just a heart of singing. It wasn't just a heart of praise, although those are good, but he had a heart for the book. He was a man of the book. He carried that book with him.

Psalm 16, eight says this. I have set before me, I have set before me the Lord because he is always at my right hand. Now, how do we make sense of that? Well, the rabbinical teachings of the Old Testament tell us that what the kings would do when they wrote in that little book, some of the different testimonies of the Lord, some of the writings of Moses, they would put it in a book and then they would tie that into their right hand and they would have that book and they would carry that book, not just carrying a book around with them, but even when they were dancing or singing or ruling or reigning, whatever they were doing, they had that book tied to their right hand.

It was dear to them. They loved this book. The kings of the Old Testament, most of them loved this book and David loved it with all of his heart. And then when he was an old man, 1 Kings chapter two, verse one through four says this about him on his deathbed.

He called his young son Solomon. He said this to him. I am about to go the way of all the earth. Keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statues, keeping his commandments, keeping his rules and keeping his testimony and it will go well with you and all of your children after you.

David was born with a hunger for the word of God, grew up in a place where he desired the word of God, became a king and carried the word of God with him everywhere he went. And he was an old man about to die.

What was on his heart? My son, dig into this word, grow in this word, get to know this word, be hungry for this word, be consumed for this word. Let this passion for the word of God become the highest pursuit of your life.

More than ruling over a kingdom, more than singing songs, more than reigning and more than anything else in your life, have a hunger for the word of God. This generation and the church that we're living in today needs a revival of the word of God.

We need to see the word of God proclaimed, preached, taught, sung, the word of God becoming tied to our right hand that we would say, God, I want the hunger to be fresh again in the love for your word.

Give me a love for your word. David speaks about these two different things and in Psalm 19 verse one through six, we see him talking about this first book, the book of nature, the book of creation, the book of general revelation.

Then from seven through nine, we see speaking about specific revelation. God has spoken in these last days through the word, through his son who is the word and he has speaking to us now, not just through creation, but he's speaking to us through his word.

In the first six verses, David speaks about God and he uses the word, when he uses the word God there, he uses the word L, E-L. And what he means by that is sovereign one, omnipotent one. He sees him as a king, a most high, ruling and reigning with power and majesty and might and splendor.

But then when he begins to speak about his word in verse seven, the law of the Lord, he changes language and this word Lord in English would be translated or in the Hebrew would be Yahweh. And so he moves from L, God of power and might and majesty to Elohim or to Yahweh, to the more personal.

In other words, I can know something about your power in creation around me, but when I really wanna know you, as a friend speaks to a friend, as a son to a father, then you're my Yahweh. That's where you speak life into my heart.

General Revelation Through Creation

And I wanna take just a few moments with you in the time I have with you to break these two books down and see where you're at with this hunger for the word of the Lord. Verse one, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky proclaims his handiwork.

The word heaven there speaks of the realms or the sky or in its original root, it means to be lofty or the lofty realms. And it says here that the heavens declare the glory of God, the lofty realms, the things we see when you look out at nature, when you look between the buildings and the skyscrapers in New York, you see a little bit of cloud, you see a little bit of sunshine, you see sometimes some stars possibly even at night, that's the handiwork of God.

And it's in the realm. And it says here, the word declare, the heavens declare, a strange word. The heavens actually speak something to you. The clouds in the sky, the stars at night, the lightning bolts, the thunderstorms, they speak something to you.

And this word declared is often translated as a scribe, somebody who would write something, would write something into our mind, into our heart, into our understanding. It means to announce or to inscribe or it can literally mean to preach.

The sky preaches to us, the clouds preach to us, the moon preaches to us, the sun in its orbit preaches to us. And it tells us something amazing. The heavens don't declare the heavens. The heavens don't say, aren't we a pretty heaven?

Aren't the stars shining so bright at night, deep in the heart of Texas? No, there's something more that the word is trying to say to us. And look what it says here. The heavens declare, what's the next few words?

The glory of God, hallelujah. The heavens aren't declaring their own beauty, majesty or splendor. And that's where a lot of people fall short of understanding the glory of God and the word of God because they're looking just to creation.

I worship nature. I go out into the woods and into the trees or into Central Park and I just commune with the frogs and the birds and the birds sing me songs and it's glorious. No, every bird that sings is singing the glory of God.

Every tree that branches its flowers is proclaiming the word of God. God is to be glorified. God is the one they're preaching about. God is the one they're singing about. God is the one the ducks are quacking about.

That it is God in all of nature. He's wanting to speak to us and the heavens are declaring it. It's a powerful word. It's not a light word. Like I'm kind of speaking a little bit to you. No, it's a word like a preacher which preaches with fire, a fire shut up in our bones.

But oftentimes people don't listen to this voice. They don't listen to this majesty. And so that's why Romans 1 20 talks about even though the divine nature and the things that are seen of God's character are seen in nature, people suppress that truth.

So everybody in their right mind, in a clear understanding without rebellion and the sin nature in the heart, would look at the things that God created and would bow down in honor and majesty and worship him.

But because of the sin nature, the fallen nature of man, we've rebelled against God and we don't want a ruler in our life. We want to live an independent life and therefore we don't receive the glory of God being preached from creation around us.

But God doesn't give up. Verse two says, day to day pours out. First verse he's declaring his glory. Now he's starting to pour it out. Are you gonna see my glory? Are you going to see wind storms? Are you going to see volcanoes?

Are you going to see the Psalms calls it the terrors of the Lord. They that go down into the sea and do business in great ships. These see the works of the Lord, the powerful majestic works of the Lord.

And this is what he's doing now. He's pouring forth speech and night and day reveals what? The knowledge of God. God is wanting to, God loves to speak to you. Did you know that? God loves to speak to people in New York City.

Even those who are hardened in heart and deaf in ears, he wants to speak his word. He wants to show his glory and his majesty. And he's saying this in verses one and two put together. He uses the word declaring, which is preaching.

He uses the word proclaiming, which is letting others know. He uses the word pouring out speech, which is a fountain that's flowing. And he uses a revealing of his knowledge. He's revealing things, even just in nature, let alone what we're about to study in the word part of this.

The preacher reveals and proclaims day and night. It's 24 hours. I won't preach that long here tonight, but can you imagine day and night speech pours forth. Knowledge of God pours forth day and night.

It is unceasing 24, seven, 365 days a year. Every year calendar year, since the beginning creation of time, God has done this one thing. I wanna be known. I want to speak. I want you to know me. I want you to know me well.

I want you to study me. I want you to be close to me. I want you to be near to me. I want to be dear to you. I wanna let you know who I am, what I'm like. That's what God loves to do. 24, seven, he does these things.

Verse three, there is no speech. There are no words whose voice is not heard. In other words, there's no place where God's word is not heard. There are only missionaries in certain countries. There are some countries, one country, when my mission is director at World Challenge told me recently that just to own a Bible there is a death sentence.

If they find you have a Bible, even on your phone, your phone device, if you're trying to hide it in there and they find an app, Bible app, they will literally behead you. And there are some countries where the word of God is not preached in spoken form.

But you know what? Every country in the world has this speech being revealed to it. The knowledge of God is being known. It's not only 24, seven, but it's everywhere. There's no speech. There are no words whose voice is not heard.

In other words, there's nowhere where this is not being heard. Nobody is, Romans says, we're all without excuse because even creation has spoken to us about the good things of God. The literal Hebrew translation of this is a little bit different.

It's basically like this. No speech, period. No words, period. Their voice is not heard, period. Speaking of a different way, saying, right now in creation, you're seeing things, you're catching drift of things, you're understanding some things, but it's not quite the voice yet.

It's not quite the speech yet. It's not quite being the word being heard. It's a hint. Even David writing several thousand years before Christ was born, there is a hint here of something to come, a word to come, a voice to come.

Not John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness, but the voice of Jesus Christ. In these last days, Hebrew says, he speaks through this son. And David was aware of this. He's speaking in the beauty.

When I'm in the shepherd in the fields, he speaks through his beauty. He's speaking 24 -7, he's speaking to the whole world, but there's another voice coming. There's another one coming, and that's going to be the most profound voice of all.

Right now, there's really no speech. You're not hearing words. It's not God saying, look at the stars. That means I'm alive. He's not speaking literally like that in those times. There's no speech, no words where their voice is heard, but God is speaking then through a different way.

The voice goes out. Verse four, their voice goes out through all of the earth. They're words to the end of the earth. The voice can speak about a different word too. In the Hebrew, it means the line. A line of God goes forth.

It's from the beginning, line upon line, precept upon precept. God is teaching us his word even through creation around us. Now, all of a sudden, there's a shift here, and now it's gonna get really good.

Thanks for bearing with me so far, all right? But now I'm gonna get into the word. Now I'm getting into the stuff that I really love. Now I'm getting into the stuff that, to some degree, like King David, from the time I was 15 years old, I got a milk crate, filled it with two different Bibles, three different manuals about studying the word of God, and I would go out to the woods behind my house, and I quit watching TV, I quit playing sports with my friends, and I went out into those woods, and I just studied the word of God, two, three, four, sometimes five hours till it was dark at night.

And I had, from the time I was 13, 14, 15 years old, I'd have to call it a desperate hunger for the word of God. It's like, I would read this, and I'd go like, that was good, but I want more. You know, give me more, Jesus.

Give me more of you. A hunger for the word of God. And so I'm thankful for what he's teaching us in creation, aren't you? But I want to talk about the second part here. He talks about the sun as a part of creation, and he says here, verse five, which the sun comes out like a bridegroom, leaving his chamber, and like a strong man, it runs its course.

Verse six, its rising is from the ends of the heaven, and it circuits to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. In other words, God's bringing the heat. And we're about to see something here in transition in the Psalms here, when David just begins to stop speaking about creation.

But the last thing he says about creation, he begins to speak not about the universe in whole, but just our sun, independently our sun. And he uses the word here, it goes in its circuit. And many scholars for a long, long time looked at that verse and said, you know, this is evidence that the Bible is inaccurate or true.

Scientists generations ago would say, you know, because how foolish, they think the earth circuits, excuse me, the sun circuits around the earth. And we all know that the sun doesn't move. The earth is in status, and the sun is not rotating around it.

So they despise the scripture because they thought this was an inaccurate thing, until scientists started discovering later on that the sun actually is moving. Did you know that? The sun is actually moving.

The sun moves around an orbit around our Milky Way. The earth orbits around the sun at 67 ,000 miles an hour. That's pretty fast, but the sun with the earth and all the other planets and moons in its gravity travels around the Milky Way at 137 miles per second, which is 500 ,000 miles per hour, half a million miles an hour.

If you were to take a taxi in New York City or get on a subway and it was going 20 or 30 miles an hour, and all of a sudden he accelerated and was going 40 or 50 or 60, or that train started going 80 or 100, and it got up to 120, you'd be screaming your head off, wouldn't you?

And many of you have already experienced that multiple of times. But at 120 miles per hour, multiply that by 4 ,166 times, and you have how fast the sun is traveling around the Milky Way galaxy. Are you getting dizzy yet?

Next, our whole Milky Way and the earth with it is traveling at 67 ,000 miles around the sun, or while we're traveling around the sun, the sun's traveling around the Milky Way. Together, the sun and the planets are traveling at 25 miles per second around a cluster of galaxies called the Local Group.

It's a fun scientific name, isn't it? New ones have these names you can't pronounce. I kind of like this one, the Local Group is the closest cluster of galaxies. And the Local Group, our sun and galaxy, the Milky Way, is traveling around the Local Group at 375 miles per second towards the Virgo Cluster, which is 45 million light years away.

You are not standing still right now. You are traveling fast. And God was accurate in his scriptures even before the scientists knew this, that the sun is moving around in a circuit. That is God speaking about who he is.

That is God speaking about his goodness. That is God understanding things we could never understand in its fullness. And now here's this marvelous shift. David is marveling at the wonders of the sun and the stars and the mountains and the rivers.

But he says, all of these things pale, they're minuscule in comparison to the greater light of the glory of God that's found in the word of God. The sun and its most brilliant shine does not shine like this book does.

The speed of travel that which we see in the universe has nothing to do with the speed of power of God working in your life through his word. And I pray that my sermon today, my message tonight would be one, if you don't remember anything I say, there'll be some strange inkling in your heart to say, God, give me a hunger for your word.

Put a fresh fire in my heart that I would meditate on this book day and night, that I would maybe take some time to turn the TV off or just stay up a little bit later or wake up a little bit sooner. Give me a craving hunger.

If you're hungry for it, you'll make time. If you're hungry for it, you'll find time. If you thirst for it, you find the refrigerator and we can find the word of God being alive to us. Verse seven through 11 begins to, and I'll move along quickly.

Verse seven through nine, excuse me, begins to speak about the word of God. And everything I've said up to this point is introduction. So you're ready to get into it now? The word of God, it's just three simple verses, seven, eight, and nine.

But six times in these three verses, it says this, of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord, the word of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord. You know what David is trying to say? These things are of God.

The word of God, the perfections of God, the statutes of God, the laws of God, the rules of God. These are things of God. These are God's things. The word there is Yahweh. These are of Yahweh. Yahweh loves his word.

Yahweh says his word is perfect. Yahweh says his word is true. Yahweh said his word is sure. Yahweh says his word is right. Yahweh said his word is clean. Yahweh said his word is perfect. And Yahweh goes on to say, not only is it perfect and sure and right and pure and clean, but it revives the soul.

It makes wise people who are simple. It causes a rejoicing of our heart. It lightens our eyes when we're in darkness. It causes endurance in our life when we're struggling. We feel down and out. It makes us righteous.

It makes us live with a hunger and righteousness. So six descriptive words, law, testament, precepts, commandments, fear of the Lord, and rule. And there are six things that these things have within them, being perfect, being sure, being right, being pure, being clean, being true.

And these are the six things that God does as a result of these laws that are perfect and these testimonies that are sure. He's reviving us. He's making us wise. He's causing our hearts to rejoice. He's causing our eyes to light up with joy and life.

And he's causing endurance and making us righteous in the things of God. The law of the Lord is perfect. It's perfect. And what does this perfection do? It revives. It restores you. If you're looking to be revived and restored, I suggest to you the best way is not the local cinema.

And I certainly would not suggest to you the local bar. I would not suggest to you even a vacation. I would not suggest to you anything other than what God says himself. The reviving of the soul or the awakening of the soul or the turning back to the fire of impassioned from God, the perfect way to find that, the complete way to find that is in the Torah, the law of the Lord, the first five books of the word.

And so if you'll study the word of God, your soul will be revived. And many of us in the world today are looking for worldly answers to a spiritual problem. We're trying to find some way to get revived in our heart and our mind.

And when we can't find it, we just look for something new, the next thing down the road. But God is saying, I have something perfect for you. There's not many offers in the world today that show you something's perfect.

I know the guy says there's perfect slippers and there's the perfect blanket, but there's not. The perfect thing is in the law of the Lord that he has for you day and night. The second thing he says is his testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

If you find wisdom to be a problem, you don't know how to discern, who should I marry? What kind of job should I have? How should I raise my kids? You get concerned, there's something simple about all of us.

We just don't know what the best decision is in our life. God has a solution for you. And the solution is not just a nice solution compared to other solutions. The Bible says this solution is sure. In other words, you could say in our modern vernacular, it's a sure thing.

Not offered very often a sure thing. God's saying this is a sure thing. What is it? It's my testimony. My testimony. The testimony is different than the law. The law is like the five books of the Torah of Moses and other scriptures, but this is God speaking who he is.

He said to Moses, I am that I am. This is my testimony. And he has a testimony about himself. And that testimony is inscribed in the scripture. Yes, it's in creation, but it's more clear in his word. He tells you who he is.

He's the most important person in your life. The most important being is him. And he has described himself in this book. And that's why David says I meditated on day and night. I hunger and thirst for these words.

These words were life to me. One of the prophets says these words were found and I ate them and I ate them. They just got into my soul and they became a joy to me. You don't have to say it, but I'll say hallelujah right there for myself.

The precepts, the third thing, the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the soul. How many of you want to have a rejoicing soul? You just want to rejoice. I just wish I could get happy. Maybe I need to see a counselor.

Maybe I need to take a pill. I'm depressed all the time. I don't know how to get joy back in my soul. I've lost the joy. I've lost the spark. I've lost the fire. God has a solution for you. And he says it's in his word.

It's the right way to go. He says the precepts of the Lord are right. You can't go wrong with the word of the Lord. Study it day and night, dig into it, memorize it, get to know it, and you will live a right life.

You'll see things turn out right in your life. These are the precepts. And the precept is a guiding principle. Some organizations have guiding principles. We're going to be doing teamwork or we're going to have good order or we're going to be compassionate as people.

We have, these are called guiding principles of a company. Interesting, God has his own guiding principles and they are called precepts. That's what the Hebrew word for precept means, how he guides us.

These are principles to live your life by. And that is what causes you, when you live by these precepts, they're right for you and it will cause a rejoicing in your heart. Anybody rejoicing tonight? If you're not rejoicing tonight, I have the prescription for you.

I have the remedy for you. It's right in this book. Dig into it and you'll find rejoicing of the soul. Fourth, as we move along quickly, the commandments, another way of saying things, the commandments of the Lord are pure.

They enlighten the eyes. If everything around you seems dark and dreary, if you feel down and out, if you feel the world is a traumatic place, if you feel depressed by everything you're seeing around you and your eyes have kind of grown dim in a sense of maybe from my childhood trauma or maybe when I turn on the news, I just want to close my eyes.

Everything around me seems dark and depressing and weary. I'm fed up with it. I don't want to hear another portion of bad news. And God says, I have a remedy for that because he says here, I can lighten your eyes again.

In other words, put the spark back in you. Put the fire of God back in you. The prophet Jeremiah was weary of all the things were going on in the world. He saw the trauma and the heartache and the brokenness and the rebellion towards God and the sexual immorality of his day.

And he says, I'm giving up. I don't want to preach ever again. But he says, oh, but there was a fire. Shut up in my bones and I could not contain it. I have to preach the word of God. And you can have that fire that lights up your eyes once again.

You can become, in other words, brilliant, brilliant, a flame in your eyes with a passion for Jesus where people notice there's something different about you. What is it about you? It's this, you're on fire for God.

And when you get on fire for God, John Wesley said it so well, people will come to watch you burn. People will see that fire in your life. And God says it's pure. His commands are pure. They're not mixed.

They're not adulterated. They're not diluted. They are pure words from God's throne. Moving quickly, five. We've got five and six to go. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. If you want endurance, you got a spark in your eye.

You got joy back in your heart. You're feeling good. How many of you have been there before, but you've also got off the mountain back into the valley and you've been up and then you've been down. You've been up and down.

Look at this promise now, enduring forever, a constant endurance in the things he's already just promised that his word would deliver, joy in the Lord, fire in your life, eyes brilliant with the Lord, purity, cleanliness, godliness, these are promises of God.

And he says, these promises will endure forever. Why? Because they are clean. They are clean. These are promises of God. And where do they come from? Where does this clean promise of enduring in righteousness and holiness forever?

It comes in the fear of the Lord. That's what David says in this verse here. Verse nine, the fear of the Lord. It doesn't seem to mix, does it? The fear of the Lord with being clean. It seems like fear of the Lord trembling, fear of the Lord repentance, fear of the Lord sorrow, but it's fear of the Lord and a clean heart.

It's the fear of the Lord that brings a clean heart. Remember Abraham when he went into Egypt and he was afraid they were going to kill him because they were lusting after his wife. And what he says in Genesis 20, verse 11 says, because there is no fear of God in this place, they will kill me.