SPIRITIUAL
DIARY FOR 1/6/2012 5:13:30 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1“God’s
Creation And His Word”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Psalm 19:1-6
Message of the verses: “1 For
the choir director. A Psalm of David: The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours forth
speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are
there words; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through all
the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed
a tent for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; It
rejoices as a strong man to run his course. 6 Its rising is from one end of the
heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden
from its heat.
“7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8
The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the
LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring
forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. 10
They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than
honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them
there is great reward. 12 Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of
hidden faults. 13 Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me;
Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression. 14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your
sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
Psalm
19 is one of the favorite psalms in the entire book of Psalms. I suppose that Psalm 23 is the favorite of
most people, but Psalm 19 is also a favorite of many. We see two names of God that are used in this
psalm and this makes some believe that it was not all written at the same time
by the same author, however the Bible has had many critics in different eras of
man and it is still here for us to read so we must believe that this psalm was
written by David just as the beginning verse says. John MacArthur writes in his
study Bible these words to help us understand why this is only one psalm by one
writer: “Because of its two distinct
parts and two different names for God, some have tried to argue that Ps. 19 was
really two compositions, one ancient and one more recent. However, the shorter form of the name ‘God’
(cf. the longer form in Ge. 1:1) speaks of His power, especially power
exhibited as Creator, while ‘Lord’ fits the relational focus. Consequently, David depicted the Lord God as
author of both His world and Word in a unified hymn. God has revealed Himself to mankind through
these two avenues. The human race stands
accountable to Him because of His non-verbal and verbal communications. In the light of these intentions, Ps. 19
eloquently summarizes two prominent vehicles of God’s self-disclosure.”
C.
S. Lewis writes the following about Psalm 19:
“I take this [Ps. 19] to be the greatest poem in the Psalms and one of
the greatest lyrics in the world.”
John
MacArthur gives the following outline for Psalm 19:
I.
“
God’s General Self-Disclosure in the World (19:1-6)
A.
The Publication of the Skies (19:1-4b)
B.
The
Prominence of the Sun (19:4c-6)
II.
God’s
Special Self-Disclosure in the Word (19:7-14)
A.
The Attributes of the Word (19:7-14)
B.
An
Appreciation for the Word (19:10,11)
C.
The
Application of the Word (19:12-14)”
Warren
Wiersbe writes the following in his introduction to this psalm: “The emphasis in the Psalm is on God’s
revelations of Himself in creation, Scripture, and the human heart.”
There
is one more thing that I want to write before moving on to the first point in
Dr. Wiersbe’s outline and that is something that came up in an earlier SD which
speaks of how some of the authors of the Bible describe God. We know that God is Spirit and therefore does
not have a body like the one He has created for humans, but there are times in
the Scriptures that God is seeing as having hands, feet, eyes, ears in order to
help us understand God better. We see in
verse one of Psalm 19 these words, “their
expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” We see in Psalm 8:3 these words “When I consider Your heavens, the work of
Your fingers.” These are called
anthropomorphisms and whenever you are reading the Scriptures and see this type
of description of God that is what it is called.
The
World Around Us—God the Creator (vv. 1-6): “1 For
the choir director. A Psalm of David: The heavens are telling of the glory of
God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours
forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor
are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out through
all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has
placed a tent for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. 6 Its rising is from
one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is
nothing hidden from its heat.”
I mentioned in an earlier SD that I am involved in a
Bible Study about creation and we see in the first part of Psalm 19 an answer
to the question as to why the Lord created so much in the universe and I
believe we get the answer in verse one of this psalm: “The
heavens are telling of the glory of God.”
God is glorified in His creation, and not only is He glorified in His
creation, but His creation is a witness to everyone that there is a God who
created all we see. Dr. Wiersbe
writes: “So complex a universe demands a
Creator who can do anything, who knows everything, and who is present
everywhere. But even more, David knew that God was speaking to the inhabitants of
the earth by means of His creation. Creation is a ‘wordless book’ that
everybody can read because it needs no translation. God speaks through creation day after day and
night after night; His speech ‘pours out’ silently, abundantly,
universally.” The evolutionists are
trying to rob people of this by stating that all we see was just some kind of a
cosmic accident and therefore they are robbing God of His glory and will have
to answer to that someday when they stand before God, for they too can look and
see what God created and therefore are accountable to God. Evolutionists are causing mankind to “be off
the hook” when it comes to God for if creation was all an accident then we are
accountable to no One. I have stated
before and will state again here “Evolution is impossible!”
I
want to talk about verses two and three in that we see in verse two that the
heavens pours forth speech and then in verse three we see “there is no speech, nor are there words, their voice is not heard.” John MacArthur writes: “This is not a contradiction, but shows that
the constant communication of the heavens is not words of a literal nature.”
I
found an interesting story in Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary that states that
“Philips Brooks gave the first instructions about God to Helen Keller, who was
blind and deaf, and she replied that she had always known there was a God but
didn’t know what His name was.” Acts
4:12 says, “’And there is salvation in
no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among
men by which we must be saved.’” Of
course that name is Jesus Christ and it is up to believers to tell others about
Him.
We
know that many so called religions worship the creation, like the sun and the
stars, but the Bible teaches us that we are not to worship anything but
God. Part of the Ten Commandments states
this: “4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is
in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5
"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third
and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” “13 "You
are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who
prophesy by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save
you from what will come upon you. 14 “Behold,
they have become like stubble, Fire burns them; They cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame; There will be no coal to warm by Nor a fire to sit
before!” (Isaiah 47:13-14)
Before
we move into the next section I want to look at verses 4c-6 where David writes
about the sun and how it is like a bridegroom, but it is also like a vigorous
athlete that is running a race. This
picture of the sun as a bridegroom shows that the bridegroom was in a hurry to
leave the marriage pavilion in order to claim his bride. Dr. Wiersbe has an endnote that gives another
possible interpretation to this: “Some
interpret the picture as the bridegroom leaving the marriage pavilion after
consummating the marriage, rejoicing that now ‘two had become one.’ Either way
David saw the sunrise as a time of joy as he faced the day, and also as a time
of determination to reach the goals set for the day.”
I
think that Psalm 19 will answer a question that many have asked and that is
“Are people lost who have never heard about Jesus?” Dr. Wiersbe writes that there are two answers
to this question: “1. Yes, they are
lost, because God speaks to them all day long, and they refuse to listen; 2.
What are you doing about getting the message to these people?”
Lord
willing I will continue with the rest of Psalm 19 tomorrow as there is still
much to cover in the last portion of this wonderful psalm.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I see a constant need to be ready to tell
others of the hope that I have through my relationship with Jesus Christ. The heavens declare the glory of God as verse
one says, and perhaps that will be the way to open up a conversation to someone
that the Holy Spirit will make a divine appointment with sometime soon.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Be ready at all times to be led
by the Spirit of God to talk to some poor soul who needs to hear the Word of
Truth in order to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
2. Continue to learn contentment in
my life knowing that God is in control of all things even though at times it is
hard to see. I must remember that “Faith
comes by hearing the Word of God,” and the more I read and study the Word the
more faith I can get, the more contentment I can learn.
1/6/2012 7:03:27 AM
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