Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Two Books and the One Redeemer: God’s Revelation in Creation and Scripture (Psalm 19)

Transcript

The Two Books and the One Redeemer: God’s Revelation in Creation and Scripture (Psalm 19) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
• 0:01
  I am your host, and today we are sitting down to unpack a text
• 0:06
  that, frankly, most of us think we already know pretty well.
• 0:10
  Yes, it's one of the famous ones.
• 0:12
  It is. We're opening up Psalm 19.
• 0:15
  Now, if you've grown up in the church or you know, even if
• 0:17
  you've just attended a few weddings or nature retreats,
• 0:20
  you've heard this read. It's famous for its poetry.
• 0:23
  It's beautiful. The heavens declare the glory of
• 0:25
  God. Exactly.
• 0:26
  It's that one. It's beautiful, it's rhythmic,
• 0:29
  and it's so easy to just kind of nod along to.
• 0:31
  But the stack of sources we're looking at today argues that we
• 0:35
  have, well, largely missed the point.
• 0:38
  That's right. We treat it like a greeting
• 0:39
  card, but it's actually a rigorous theological argument.
• 0:43
  It's about how human beings can know anything about God at all.
• 0:46
  It's good to be here, and you are so right to frame it that
• 0:49
  way. We often categorize the Psalms
• 0:51
  as purely emotional literature or, you know, songs of praise,
• 0:55
  which they are. Of course they are, but Psalm 19
• 0:58
  is doing some really heavy lifting in the department of
• 1:01
  epistemology. Epistemology.
• 1:02
  That's the fancy philosophical word for how we know what we
• 1:05
  know. Right.
• 1:06
  And this text addresses the the fundamental problem of human
• 1:10
  existence. We're down here, God is up
• 1:14
  there, and how on earth do we bridge that gap?
• 1:17
  CS Lewis who had a pretty Goodyear for literature.
• 1:19
  He called this the greatest poem in the Psalter.
• 1:21
  High praise. One of the greatest lyrics in
• 1:23
  the world, he said. But I think he liked it because
• 1:26
  it solves the Riddle of revelation.
• 1:29
  And the framework the sources give us for this solution is
• 1:32
  this concept of the two books. Now I've heard this phrase used
• 1:36
  in theological circles, but I think for the average person it
• 1:39
  might sound a bit a bit abstract.
• 1:41
  What are we talking about when we say 2 books?
• 1:43
  Well, it's a classic way of explaining how the Great
• 1:45
  Architect of the Universe communicates with us.
• 1:48
  The idea is that God has published 2 distinct volumes for
• 1:52
  the instruction of the human race, and you can't just read 1
• 1:55
  and expect to pass the final exam.
• 1:58
  You need both. You need both.
• 1:59
  Volume 1 is the Libra Naturae, which is just Latin for the Book
• 2:03
  of Nature. OK, so the created world the.
• 2:05
  Universe, the galaxies, the atoms, the quantum fields, your
• 2:08
  nervous system, all of it. And volume 2.
• 2:11
  Volume 2 is the Libra Scripture a The Book of Scripture, the
• 2:15
  Bible. Two books, one author.
• 2:17
  That seems simple enough on the surface.
• 2:19
  It's simple, but boy, the implications are massive.
• 2:23
  And since we are on a show called Reformed Thinking, we
• 2:26
  should probably ground this in our standard.
• 2:28
  Westminster confession. The Westminster Confession of
• 2:30
  Faith opens with this distinction.
• 2:32
  It is the very first thing the Confession deals with, Chapter
• 2:35
  1, paragraph one. It starts by affirming that the
• 2:38
  light of nature and the works of creation manifest the goodness,
• 2:42
  wisdom, and power of God. So the confession admits that
• 2:45
  nature works. It's a valid source of
• 2:47
  information about God. It works well enough to do 1
• 2:49
  very specific thing, and that is to leave men inexcusable.
• 2:54
  Inexcusable. That's the exact phrase the
• 2:56
  confession uses. The Book of Nature gives you
• 2:58
  enough data to know there is a God and that you owe him your
• 3:02
  allegiance. It it removes your excuse for
• 3:05
  atheism or for idolatry. But then the confession
• 3:08
  immediately pivots. It says that while book 1 is
• 3:11
  clear enough to convict you, it is not sufficient to give that
• 3:14
  knowledge of God and of His will which is necessary for
• 3:18
  salvation. So that's the catch.
• 3:21
  The stars can show you you're guilty, but they can't save you.
• 3:24
  Precisely for salvation, you need the better light of the
• 3:27
  word. You need Book 2, and really
• 3:29
  that's the road map. For our deep dive today, we're
• 3:32
  going to follow the structure of Psalm 19, which moves along a
• 3:36
  very specific trajectory. A trajectory.
• 3:39
  Yeah, the sources describe it as moving from the outer court of
• 3:42
  Creation into the Holy of Holies of Scripture.
• 3:45
  And finally, and this is a part that might make you squirm a bit
• 3:49
  into the secret chambers of the human heart.
• 3:51
  So it's a movement from the outside in, from the telescope
• 3:54
  to the microscope to to the mirror.
• 3:56
  That's a great way to put it, a really great way.
• 3:58
  OK, then let's start with the telescope segment.
• 4:00
  One of our outline is the syntax of the skies.
• 4:04
  We're looking at general revelation in verses one through
• 4:06
  4, and verse 1 is that famous opener.
• 4:09
  The heavens declare the glory of God.
• 4:11
  Now I want to push on this a little bit.
• 4:14
  When I look up at the sky, I see clouds, maybe the sun or stars
• 4:19
  at night. I see physics, I see gas and
• 4:21
  plasma. When the text says they declare,
• 4:25
  is that just a metaphor? Is it just poetic license?
• 4:29
  Yeah, it's the question, isn't it?
• 4:31
  But the sources, they highlight the Hebrew grammar here to argue
• 4:34
  that it's much, much more than a metaphor.
• 4:36
  The verb David uses for declare is mesaparum.
• 4:39
  Mesaparum. Yes, now we need to get a little
• 4:42
  technical here just for a second to see the engine under the
• 4:44
  hood. In Hebrew, verbs have different
• 4:47
  stems that they indicate the type of action.
• 4:50
  OK, break that down for us non linguists.
• 4:52
  What does that mean? A stem.
• 4:54
  Well, the peel stem, which is what we have here, indicates
• 4:56
  intensive action. It's like putting the verb in
• 4:58
  bold, italics and adding, you know, 3 exclamation points.
• 5:01
  So it's not a whisper. No, the heavens are not just
• 5:03
  mumbling about God, they are shouting about Him.
• 5:06
  But there's another layer. It's also a participle.
• 5:09
  And a participle indicates time or or aspect.
• 5:12
  Aspect exactly. Specifically, continuous,
• 5:15
  habitual, ongoing action. So it's not something that
• 5:18
  happened once way back at the beginning.
• 5:20
  Correct. And this contrasts so sharply
• 5:23
  with a view like, say, Deism. A deist might say God wound up
• 5:28
  the universe like a clock, set it on the mantelpiece, and just
• 5:31
  walked away. Yeah, the clockmaker.
• 5:33
  God. In that view, the universe is a
• 5:35
  museum piece. It's a recording of something
• 5:38
  God did a long, long time ago. But the grammar of Psalm 19
• 5:42
  suggests the universe is not a museum.
• 5:44
  It's a pulpit. Ulit, that is a strong image for
• 5:48
  a Galaxy. It's the right image, though.
• 5:50
  The idea is that every rotation of the Galaxy, every photon of
• 5:53
  light, every single movement of the planets is a fresh sentence
• 5:56
  in a sermon. It is a sermon that has never
• 5:59
  paused since the moment God said, let there be light.
• 6:02
  So it's happening right now. They are actively, aggressively
• 6:05
  recounting the glory of God in real time.
• 6:07
  It's a live feed, not a DVD. Spot on.
• 6:09
  That's a perfect way to say it. A live broadcast.
• 6:12
  Exactly. But the sources also point out
• 6:13
  something really interesting about the name used for God.
• 6:15
  Here in verse one, David says they declare the glory of God.
• 6:19
  He uses the Hebrew name L. Yes, and that is a critical
• 6:22
  detail. L is the generic name for the
• 6:24
  Mighty One, the God of power. Now notice who is not mentioned
• 6:28
  in this first section of the Psalm, Yahweh.
• 6:30
  Yahweh, the personal covenant name of God, does not appear in
• 6:35
  verses one through 6, and that is completely intentional.
• 6:38
  Nature reveals the Architect's power.
• 6:41
  It reveals the sheer magnitude of the Creator.
• 6:44
  But it can't tell you his personal name.
• 6:46
  It can't. The stars reveal the omnipotence
• 6:48
  of the Maker, but they cannot reveal the intimacy of the
• 6:51
  Father. So we see the power, but not the
• 6:54
  person. We see the attributes of His
• 6:56
  greatness, certainly, and that leads right into the next
• 6:58
  phrase. The firmament showeth His
• 7:00
  handiwork. The word there is rakia.
• 7:03
  I know this gets debated a lot in, you know, creation versus
• 7:06
  evolution circles, but how did the ancient reader understand
• 7:10
  rakia? What did that word mean to them?
• 7:12
  In the ancient Near Eastern mindset and in the the
• 7:15
  phenomenological language of the Bible, rakia referred to the
• 7:18
  expanse, the extended surface above, but it was viewed as a
• 7:21
  constructed. Edifice like a building.
• 7:23
  Yes. Think of a Tabernacle or a huge
• 7:25
  tent pitched by God. And that just flies in the face
• 7:28
  of the modern materialist view, doesn't it?
• 7:30
  Completely. The materialist looks up and
• 7:32
  sees random gas, gravity, accidental collisions.
• 7:36
  They see a void, but the theologically literate person
• 7:39
  looks at the rakia and sees a structure.
• 7:42
  They see the signature of the artist on the canvas.
• 7:45
  The universe isn't a random explosion, it's a constructed
• 7:48
  house. A house with an architect.
• 7:50
  The sources then move on to discuss verses 2 and three and
• 7:53
  they call it the paradox of silent speech.
• 7:56
  Verse 2 says day unto day uttereth speech.
• 7:59
  And that verb uttereth is naba. It's in the high fill stem which
• 8:03
  is causative. It literally means to pour forth
• 8:06
  or bubble up like a fountain. It's irrepressible.
• 8:09
  That's the idea, an uncontrollable gushing of
• 8:11
  testimony. It's like a relay race one day
• 8:13
  runs its lap telling the glory of God, and then it hands the
• 8:16
  baton to the night, which continues the proclamation with
• 8:19
  the moon and the stars. There is no gap in the liturgy
• 8:23
  of creation. But then comes the paradox in
• 8:24
  verse 3. It says there is no speech nor
• 8:26
  language where their voice is not heard.
• 8:28
  Or as some other translations put it, they have no speech,
• 8:31
  they use no words. Right.
• 8:33
  So they are pouring out speech, but they have no speech.
• 8:37
  How does that work? That's the Riddle, isn't it?
• 8:39
  The heavens possess no phonetic capability.
• 8:41
  They don't speak Hebrew or Greek or English.
• 8:43
  They lack verbs and nouns, but the communication is noetic.
• 8:49
  Noetic as in related to the mind?
• 8:52
  Yeah, the nose. It means the message bypasses
• 8:56
  the ear entirely and strikes the mind and the conscience
• 8:59
  directly. It's a visual cognitive
• 9:01
  language. And this is so vital because of
• 9:03
  what happened at the Tower of Babel.
• 9:05
  Oh. That is a great connection, I
• 9:06
  hadn't thought of that. Well, think about it.
• 9:08
  At Babel, human languages were confused.
• 9:10
  If I want to explain the gospel to someone who speaks, say,
• 9:13
  Mandarin, I need a translator. The language barrier is a result
• 9:17
  of the curse. But the Curse of Babel did not
• 9:19
  touch the stars. It did not.
• 9:21
  So the person in the most remote jungle and the professor at the
• 9:24
  top university are hearing the exact same sermon from creation,
• 9:28
  Exactly the same sermon. The silence of the spheres is a
• 9:31
  deafening shout to the soul. And This is why Romans 1.20 says
• 9:35
  that the invisible things of God are clearly seen so that men are
• 9:39
  without excuse. It creates a a crushing
• 9:43
  theological weight. The atheist is morally culpable,
• 9:46
  yes, because he is suppressing a truth that is being shouted at
• 9:50
  him by the stars every single night.
• 9:52
  He has to actively put his hands over his well, not his ears, but
• 9:56
  his mind. And then verse 4 says their line
• 9:59
  has gone out through all the earth.
• 10:00
  What's this line? The word is cava.
• 10:03
  It refers to a measuring line. You know a builder uses it to
• 10:06
  mark out a foundation, or a surveyor uses it to determine
• 10:09
  property lines. So it's about territory.
• 10:11
  It's a territorial claim. By sending this line to the ends
• 10:13
  of the earth, the heavens are declaring that the entire globe
• 10:16
  is the property of El. There's no neutral territory.
• 10:19
  The whole universe is claimed lock, stock and barrel by the
• 10:22
  Creator. Wow.
• 10:24
  OK, that brings us to the second segment of our discussion then
• 10:27
  the demotion of the sun God. This is a fascinating bit of
• 10:31
  historical context that I for one hadn't really considered
• 10:34
  before looking at these sources. We look at the sun and we just
• 10:37
  see a star, but that is not at all how David's neighbor saw it.
• 10:41
  No, and it's essential to understand the plummet David is
• 10:43
  making here. He's picking a fight In the
• 10:46
  ancient Near East and cultures like Egypt and Babylon.
• 10:49
  The sun was not just a star, it was a God.
• 10:52
  Right, in Egypt you had raw. And in Mesopotamia you had
• 10:54
  Shamash. The Sun was viewed as a
• 10:57
  sovereign ruler, a divine king who dictated the fates of men.
• 11:02
  So when David writes about the sun here in verses 4 through 6,
• 11:05
  he is essentially taking a shot at his neighbor's gods.
• 11:07
  He is. Stripping the sun of its
• 11:09
  divinity. Look at the text carefully.
• 11:11
  He says God set a Tabernacle for the sun.
• 11:14
  The Hebrew preposition there indicates possession.
• 11:17
  So the tent belongs to the sun. But who pitched it?
• 11:20
  God pitched it. So the sun isn't the landlord of
• 11:23
  the universe. No, the Sun is a tenant.
• 11:26
  It occupies a tent that Yahweh pitched for it.
• 11:29
  It's a radical, radical demotion.
• 11:32
  David is basically saying that thing you worship.
• 11:35
  It's just a lamp hanging in my God ceiling.
• 11:37
  And he uses these metaphors that describe the sun as a servant,
• 11:41
  right? He calls it a bridegroom and a
• 11:42
  strongman. Yes, he says, it is like a
• 11:44
  bridegroom coming out of his chamber.
• 11:46
  It implies this radiant joy and anticipation.
• 11:50
  But notice it is a simile. It's not a person.
• 11:53
  It is like a person. And then he compares it to a
• 11:55
  strong man, a Giber running a race.
• 11:58
  An athlete, an athlete, an athlete running a prescribed
• 12:01
  path. The word for race there is orac,
• 12:04
  which means a set way or a fixed path.
• 12:07
  Now think about astrology for a moment.
• 12:09
  The premise of astrology is that the planets are these wandering
• 12:11
  powers that influence your destiny.
• 12:13
  They have minds of their own. David says.
• 12:15
  No, the sun isn't a wandering deity deciding your fate.
• 12:19
  It is a dutiful employee staying in its lane, doing exactly what
• 12:23
  the creator told it to do day in and day out.
• 12:25
  Then verse 6 says nothing is hid from the heat thereof.
• 12:29
  Now scientifically, that's a truism.
• 12:32
  We know solar radiation penetrates everything, but the
• 12:34
  sources say this serves A theological function too.
• 12:37
  It does. In that ancient context.
• 12:39
  Shamash, the sun God, was also the God of justice because he
• 12:43
  saw everything. The sun looks down on everyone,
• 12:46
  the good and the bad. OK, so it exposes everything.
• 12:49
  Right. David co-ops that imagery.
• 12:51
  He admits the sun exposes everything physically, but he
• 12:55
  uses it as a metaphor for the all seeing eye of Yahweh.
• 12:58
  It's a transition point in the Psalm, isn't it?
• 13:00
  It is the hinge of the entire Psalm.
• 13:02
  The sun strips away the shadows of the night, but it also
• 13:05
  represents the scorching, inescapable presence of a holy
• 13:08
  God. If you cannot hide from the
• 13:10
  physical sun, how in the world can you hide from the God who
• 13:13
  made it? It leaves you feeling exposed,
• 13:17
  sweltering under the gaze of a holy Creator.
• 13:19
  And that is a desperate place to be.
• 13:21
  The sun can scorch you, but it can't save you.
• 13:24
  It can reveal your physical location, but not your spiritual
• 13:27
  destination. Correct.
• 13:29
  And this desperation, this sense of being exposed, it sets the
• 13:32
  stage perfectly for the cooling waters of the law.
• 13:36
  We realize we need something more than nature.
• 13:38
  We need a word from God. Which leads us right into the
• 13:41
  Holy of Holies of this Psalm. Segment 3, the architecture of
• 13:45
  special revelation. We move from verse 6 to verse 7
• 13:48
  and the whole tone just changes on a dime.
• 13:51
  The change is jarring, and it's meant to be.
• 13:54
  We leave the silent grandeur of the skies and we enter the
• 13:57
  articulate perfection of Scripture.
• 13:59
  And the very first thing to notice is the name change.
• 14:01
  We've been talking about. L And now we shift from L, the
• 14:05
  God of power, to Yahweh the covenant Lord.
• 14:08
  This name appears seven times in this section alone.
• 14:10
  So now we're meeting the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Yes.
• 14:14
  The God who speaks. The God who makes promises.
• 14:17
  And the structure here is incredible.
• 14:19
  It's so rigid. It's like an architectural poem.
• 14:21
  David gives us six titles for Scripture, 6 attributes of
• 14:24
  Scripture, and six effects that Scripture has on the believer.
• 14:27
  Let's walk through these pairings, because the sources
• 14:29
  argue pretty strongly that this this section dismantles the need
• 14:33
  for any kind of supplemental revelation.
• 14:36
  The idea is if we have this, we don't need anything else.
• 14:40
  That's the argument, yes. The sufficiency of scripture is
• 14:43
  built right into this poetic structure.
• 14:45
  OK, pairing #1 the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the
• 14:49
  soul. The word for law is Torah, which
• 14:53
  means instruction. It's much broader than just
• 14:55
  legal code, and David calls it to mean perfect.
• 14:58
  That's a word often used for sacrificial animals.
• 15:01
  It means without blemish, complete sound.
• 15:04
  It lacks absolutely nothing. And its effect is converting the
• 15:07
  soul. Meshy bat nefesh.
• 15:09
  It literally means restoring or turning back the life.
• 15:12
  Now. This is crucial.
• 15:13
  Notice it doesn't say it improves the soul, it converts
• 15:16
  it A. Complete turn.
• 15:17
  Around it presupposes the Reformed doctrine of total
• 15:20
  depravity. The soul isn't just a little
• 15:22
  sick and needing a boost. It's dead.
• 15:24
  It's wandering, and it needs a radical reversal.
• 15:26
  Secular psychology might try to patch up the old nature, but the
• 15:29
  Word of God resurrects it. It turns the soul back to its
• 15:32
  rightful owner. Pairing #2 then the testimony of
• 15:35
  the Lord is sure making wise the simple.
• 15:38
  The term eduth, or a testimony, views Scripture as God's own
• 15:43
  witness about himself. It's His sworn statement, and it
• 15:47
  is niman ashore. That is the root of our word,
• 15:49
  Amen. It means firm, reliable.
• 15:53
  Think about the contrast with, say, scientific textbooks or
• 15:56
  cultural trends. Those are shifting sand.
• 15:58
  They change every decade. The testimony of the Lord is the
• 16:01
  rock. And it makes wise the simple.
• 16:04
  The Hebrew word there is pithi. The sources have a funny but
• 16:08
  pointed take on this. The pithe is the open one.
• 16:11
  The word comes from a root that means to open.
• 16:13
  We often praise open mindedness today, but in scripture being a
• 16:16
  pithai is dangerous. How so?
• 16:18
  It means your mind is so open that your brains fall out.
• 16:20
  You have no doors on the House of your mind, so any error or
• 16:23
  any like and just walk right in. You're gullible.
• 16:25
  So the sure testimony of God acts as a gatekeeper for the
• 16:29
  mind. Exactly.
• 16:30
  It closes the mind to error. It gives the simple person the
• 16:32
  skill of godly living. It protects the naive from being
• 16:35
  taken for a ride. Pairing #3 The statutes of the
• 16:39
  Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart.
• 16:42
  Piquidim. This refers to detailed orders
• 16:45
  from a supervisor or a commander, and they are yeshrim,
• 16:49
  which means straight or level. The world's ways are crooked,
• 16:52
  full of twists and turns. That's exhausting, but the word
• 16:56
  is straight. And the effect is joy.
• 16:59
  This runs counter to the idea that God's law is a burden.
• 17:03
  It opposes the lie of antinomianism, the idea that the
• 17:06
  law is a killjoy. The text says true joy comes
• 17:10
  from moral alignment with reality.
• 17:12
  When you walk a straight path, your heart rejoices.
• 17:14
  There's a deep blindness in that.
• 17:16
  Pairing #4 The commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening.
• 17:19
  The eyes, Bara. That means clear, bright, lucid
• 17:23
  sin acts like a spiritual cataract.
• 17:25
  It darkens our understanding. We don't see the world as it
• 17:27
  really is. We see it through the distortion
• 17:29
  of our own lusts and fears. The word is the cure for that.
• 17:33
  The word is the ocular salve. It clears the vision so we can
• 17:36
  see moral reality for what it is.
• 17:38
  Pairing #5 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.
• 17:42
  This one is interesting because he calls scripture fear.
• 17:46
  What he means is the word produces the reverence of
• 17:48
  commands, and it is dahora, ceremonially pure.
• 17:52
  It's free from the dross of human error.
• 17:55
  And because it is clean, it endures forever.
• 17:57
  It outlasts the very stars that were mentioned in the first half
• 18:00
  of the Psalm. And finally, pairing number six,
• 18:03
  the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together.
• 18:07
  Mishpatim. These are the judicial verdicts
• 18:10
  of God, and they are immet truth, not a mix of truth and
• 18:14
  error, not my truth versus your truth.
• 18:17
  They are the objective standard by which all other claims are
• 18:20
  measured. The sources make a really strong
• 18:22
  point here about the theological take away from all this.
• 18:24
  I mean, if the word is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean and
• 18:28
  true, what are we doing? Looking for other messages.
• 18:31
  From God, precisely. If you have a perfect word, why
• 18:35
  do you need a vague whisper? If you have a sure testimony,
• 18:38
  why are you chasing subjective impressions or feelings?
• 18:41
  This section is a fortress for the sufficiency of scripture.
• 18:44
  We don't need to add to it, we just need to obey it.
• 18:46
  That brings us to segment 4, the valuation of the word.
• 18:50
  Verses 10 and 11. David gets.
• 18:53
  He gets emotional here. He does.
• 18:55
  He moves from describing the word to desiring it.
• 18:58
  He says it is more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold.
• 19:02
  That was the ultimate standard of value.
• 19:04
  Supreme worth in the ancient world.
• 19:07
  But David says the Bible is better.
• 19:08
  It's more valuable. And sweeter than honey.
• 19:10
  Sweeter than honey and the honeycomb Supreme delight.
• 19:14
  Honey was the sweetest thing they had.
• 19:16
  This really rebukes the lukewarm habit we so often have of
• 19:20
  treating the Bible like a cold textbook.
• 19:22
  Or, you know, a manual. We only check when something
• 19:24
  breaks. He sees it as treasure and
• 19:26
  sweetness. Treasure to be sought and
• 19:28
  sweetness to be savoured. He also mentions a warning and a
• 19:31
  reward in verse 11 by them. Is your servant warned?
• 19:34
  The warning is necessary because sin is so deceptive.
• 19:37
  We need the guardrails, we need the flashing lights.
• 19:40
  But the reward is key. The phrasing is in keeping of
• 19:43
  them. There is great reward.
• 19:45
  Not for keeping them. No, not for keeping them as if
• 19:48
  we were a commercial transaction where you do the work and get a
• 19:50
  wage. But in keeping them, the
• 19:53
  obedience itself brings the reward.
• 19:56
  Which is what? Communion with God, a cleansed
• 19:59
  conscience. The joy of walking in the light,
• 20:03
  that is a reward. OK, so we've looked up at the
• 20:06
  sky, we've looked down at the book, and now the Psalm takes a
• 20:09
  very sharp turn inward. Segment 5, the Book of the
• 20:12
  Heart. This is where the humarteology,
• 20:16
  the doctrine of sin, comes in. This is the inevitable reaction
• 20:19
  to revelation. It has to happen.
• 20:21
  When you stand before the perfect mirror of the law, you
• 20:24
  don't just admire the mirror, you see the smudge on your own
• 20:27
  face. The discussion has to move from
• 20:29
  admiration to repentance. And the sources categorize the
• 20:32
  sin David finds in himself into two species.
• 20:35
  First, he talks about secret faults.
• 20:36
  Yes, verse 12. He asks who can understand his
• 20:39
  errors? The Hebrew word is shaggyoth
• 20:42
  these are sins of ignorance, wandering, or inadvertence,
• 20:45
  things you do wrong without even realizing it.
• 20:46
  And that question, who can understand his errors?
• 20:49
  It's a rhetorical question, right?
• 20:51
  It is, and the implied answer is no one.
• 20:55
  Our corruption is so deep, according to the doctrine of
• 20:58
  total depravity, that we are blind to our own sickness.
• 21:02
  We sin in ways we don't even comprehend.
• 21:04
  We have mixed motives, even in our best duties, our best acts
• 21:07
  of service. So we need forgiveness for sins
• 21:09
  we don't even know we've committed?
• 21:11
  Is that what he's saying? That's exactly what he's saying.
• 21:12
  He prays cleanse thou me from secret faults.
• 21:16
  He knows he needs a justification that covers the
• 21:18
  unknown darkness of his own nature.
• 21:20
  If God only forgave the sins we remembered to confess, every
• 21:24
  single one of us would be in deep trouble.
• 21:26
  Then there is the second species of sin he mentions, presumptuous
• 21:29
  sins. Verse 13 Keep back thy servant
• 21:33
  also from presumptuous sins. The Hebrew is ziddim, which
• 21:37
  means the arrogant ones. These are different.
• 21:39
  These are not sins of ignorance. No, this is high handed
• 21:42
  rebellion. It's rebellion committed in
• 21:44
  broad daylight. This is when you know exactly
• 21:46
  what the law says, and you do the opposite anyway.
• 21:48
  You shake your fist at heaven. And David prays that they would
• 21:51
  not have dominion over him. Marshall Dominion.
• 21:55
  He views sin as a tyrant seeking a throne in his heart.
• 22:00
  If you play with presumptuous sin, it doesn't just stay a
• 22:02
  singular act, it enslaves you. It takes over.
• 22:06
  There's a definite progression here in the text, isn't there?
• 22:08
  A scary one. A terrifying one.
• 22:10
  It starts with secret faults, sins of ignorance.
• 22:13
  If that's left unchecked, it can grow into presumptuous sins,
• 22:17
  willful rebellion. If that continues, sin gains
• 22:20
  dominion. It becomes slavery.
• 22:22
  And finally David mentions the great transgression.
• 22:25
  Pesha. Yes, pesha.
• 22:26
  That implies apostasy, a total falling away, the point of no
• 22:30
  return. So the prayer here is for
• 22:32
  restraining grace. It has to be Keep back thy
• 22:34
  servant. Even David, the man after God's
• 22:36
  own heart, knows that the seeds of apostasy are lying dormant in
• 22:40
  his own flesh. He needs God to hold him back or
• 22:42
  he knows he will run right off the Cliff.
• 22:44
  Which leads us to the climax of the whole Psalm, the final
• 22:47
  verse, segment 6, the Christological climax, verse 14.
• 22:50
  Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
• 22:53
  acceptable in my sight. And that phrase be acceptable is
• 22:57
  highly technical. It's not just I hope you like
• 22:59
  this. The Hebrew is Ratzen.
• 23:01
  Ratzen. It is Levitical language.
• 23:04
  It's used all over the Pentateuch to describe a
• 23:06
  sacrifice that God is Blues to receive of propitiation, an
• 23:10
  acceptable offering. OK, but wait a minute, we have a
• 23:13
  problem. If the law is perfect, which we
• 23:15
  saw in verse 7, and David's heart has secret faults and a
• 23:19
  tendency toward presumptuous sins, as we just saw in verses
• 23:22
  12 and 13, how can his meditation possibly be?
• 23:25
  Rats in it should be rejected. It's a stained sacrifice.
• 23:29
  That is the crisis of the song. You put your finger on it.
• 23:31
  By all rights, a holy God should look at David's flawed
• 23:34
  meditation and reject it out of hand.
• 23:36
  But David appeals to two specific titles of God that
• 23:39
  solve the entire problem. He calls Yahweh my strength and
• 23:42
  my Redeemer. Yes, my strength, the sources
• 23:45
  say. This is Suri, my rock, the rock,
• 23:47
  the rock. You have to think of the
• 23:48
  wilderness wanderings. The water flowed from the
• 23:50
  smitten rock to save the people. Paul comes along later in 1st
• 23:54
  Corinthians 10.4 and identifies that rock as Christ.
• 23:57
  It's the cleft of the rock where the Sinner hides from judgement.
• 24:00
  And then the most powerful word in the whole Psalm, maybe
• 24:03
  Redeemer. Goel.
• 24:05
  This isn't just a generic word for savior.
• 24:07
  It refers to the kinsman Redeemer.
• 24:09
  This was a specific legal office in ancient Israel.
• 24:12
  There were rules for it. There were.
• 24:14
  To be a goel, you had to meet three specific conditions.
• 24:18
  First, you had to be a kinsman, a blood relative.
• 24:21
  Second, you had to be able to pay the price to buy your
• 24:22
  relative out of slavery or debt. And 3rd, you had to be willing
• 24:26
  to do it. And this just points us straight
• 24:28
  to Christ. There's no other candidate.
• 24:30
  It is the gospel in a single word.
• 24:32
  Christ is our goel. The Incarnation makes him our
• 24:36
  kin. He became bone of our bone and
• 24:38
  flesh of our flesh. His infinitely valuable blood is
• 24:41
  the price He is able to pay, the debt we could never pay, and his
• 24:45
  self giving on the cross shows his willingness beyond any
• 24:48
  doubt. So, bringing it all back to
• 24:50
  verse 14, how does this make our flawed words and meditations
• 24:53
  acceptable? Or Ratzen.
• 24:55
  Because we are accepted in the Beloved.
• 24:57
  That's the New Testament language for it.
• 24:59
  We cannot keep the law of Psalm 19.
• 25:01
  It crushes us, it condemns us. But Christ is the Sun of
• 25:04
  Righteousness who ran the race perfectly.
• 25:06
  He is the Word made flesh, who had no secret faults, no
• 25:09
  presumptuous sins. So he's our substitute.
• 25:12
  He is our substitute and our representative.
• 25:15
  When we pray in His name. Our words and our meditations
• 25:19
  become rats and acceptable because they are filtered
• 25:22
  through the perfect intercession of the sun.
• 25:24
  He presents them to the Father on our behalf.
• 25:26
  That changes the whole Psalm from a heavy burden to an
• 25:31
  incredible relief. It turns it into a gospel tract.
• 25:34
  The silence of the heavens drives us to the speech of the
• 25:37
  Law. The terror of the law drives us
• 25:39
  into the loving arms of the Redeemer.
• 25:41
  So we've traversed 3 books today.
• 25:43
  Really. The Book of Nature which
• 25:45
  declares glory. The book of Scripture which
• 25:48
  converts the soul. And the Book of the Heart, which
• 25:50
  is exposed as desperately needing cleansing.
• 25:52
  And we have to read all three. We cannot be the scientist who
• 25:56
  studies a beautiful poem of creation but ignores the poet.
• 25:59
  That is just foolishness. And we can't be the Mystic who
• 26:02
  seeks God in vague whispers and feelings, but ignores the
• 26:05
  perfect and sure law he has given.
• 26:08
  That is rebellion, plain and simple.
• 26:10
  And we cannot be the moralist who tries to be blameless by his
• 26:14
  own effort without the Redeemer. That is legalism, and it ends in
• 26:18
  death every single time. The heavens declare God's glory,
• 26:22
  but they cannot declare His name.
• 26:24
  For that you must open the book and meet the man who is the
• 26:27
  Word. Amen, oh Lord, my rock and my
• 26:29
  Redeemer. Thanks for listening to this
• 26:31
  deep dive into Psalm 19. We will see you next time on
• 26:34
  Reformed Thinking.