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Psalm 19

BYT-15

Our world[1] is filled with mysteries. For thousands of years humans have lived, left their accomplishments and died. Only in our day of global travel and television has the magnitude of these ancient mysteries been confirmed.

  • Who constructed the megaliths of Europe that number in the tens of thousands. Each stone weighing 20 plus tons?
  • How were the 16 to 65 tons faces of Easter Island moved and raised?
  • How were the Pyramids built of 2.3 million blocks totaling 6.5 million tons of stone, 481 feet high without modern machinery?
  • How did Herod move 30 foot long and ten foot wide, dressed stones of up to 120 tons into place for his Jerusalem temple, so perfectly a knife blade can’t go between them?
  • What happened to the lost colony in early colonial America, that was found deserted without a trace?
  • How did TWA Flight 811 explode in 7/96?

 

These are only a few on the Mysteries of the world. None were witnessed well enough to explain the mysteries that surround them.

 

 

The source that gives ultimate light is the sublimely described Scriptures. Psalm 19:7-9 has six synonyms for God’s Word and twelve qualities ascribed to it. Each of these 18 descriptions of the Word of God is an inspired photo of the Divine power of God’s Word. It is sufficient. It can absolutely meet its purpose! That was until just recently. Up to modern times the Scripture have comforted, encouraged and kept God’s people going.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

2 ‘Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

3 ‘When thro’ fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

4 ‘The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, tho’ all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!’

 

In Psalm 19:7-8 we find Six masterpieces of word painting. Each with a three part description. How does the Power of the Scriptures change me? In one place in the Bible the Powerful Scriptures are most clearly displayed.  In six masterful strokes the eternal author etches his character and sufficiency toward us. We are introduced in this passage to the first of six synonyms for the Word of God.  In fact there are three sets of truths:

  1. There are Six TITLES given for the WORD: law, testimonies, statutes, commandments, fear, judgments.
  2. There are Six ATTRIBUTES given for the WORD: perfect law, sure testimonies, right statutes, pure commandments, clean fear, true judgments.
  3. There are Six EFFECTS given for the WORD: perfect law restores, sure testimonies makes wise, right statutes rejoices, pure commandments enlightens, clean fear endures, true judgments vindicates.
  1. All of these reveal the Word in a whole new, powerful and refreshing way. They give us God’s purpose and plan for His Word. They are His review on this new product He has manufactured. They give us the operator’s manual for this new high powered instrument.
  • The CHARACTER of the Word of God
    1. HIS PERFECT LAW RESTORES (v. 7a) = The Word of God is the Divine Teacher. THE DIVINE TEACHER: The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul:  God’s truth that totally transforms
    2. HIS SURE TESTIMONY MAKES WISE (v. 7b) = The Word of God is the Divine Witness. THE DIVINE WITNESS: 9 the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. God’s testimony absolutely trustworthy
    3. HIS RIGHT STATUTES REJOICES (v. 8a) = The Word of God is the Divine Directions  (perfect joy) THE DIVINE DIRECTIONS: The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart. God’s statutes giving directions to only secure  place in the universe
    4. HIS PURE COMMANDMENTS ENLIGHTENS (v. 8b) = The Word of God is the Divine Decrees (seeing God) THE DIVINE DECREES: : the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.  God’s commands giving a clear portrait of  God’s non-optional absolutes
    5. HIS CLEAN FEAR ENDURES (v. 9a) = The Word of God is the Divine Conditions (eternal life) THE DIVINE CONDITION: The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever. This is fearing God, lovingly acknowledging by my actions God sees me
    6. HIS TRUE JUDGMENTS VINDICATES (v. 9b) = The Word of God is the Divine Decisions (REV.19).   THE DIVINE DECISIONS: : the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether . God’s judgments, His final word on everything! Non-negotiable living

 

 

Now, the second claim to Divine sufficiency? Psalm 19:7b     The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. (KJV)

So in Psalm 19:7     The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. (KJV)

“Sure” nemanah in Hebrew means ‘firmness, certainty , pillar, support’. It is also passive in form so it conveys not just firmness but confirmedness! Genesis 42:20 But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. (KJV)

What is God’s Word  saying? It is worthy of being absolutely followed! Something happens when a person at last finds a firm object to hold onto. Remember the frightened disciples? Frank Morrison[2] describes them for us. “Yet the material from which we have to derive this dynamic force consists of a habitual doubter like Thomas, a rather weak fisherman like Peter, a gentle dreamer like John, a practical tax gatherer like Matthew, a few sea faring men like Andrew and Nathaniel, the inevitable women, and at the most two or three others.”

Thee they sit, shivering with fear, seething with doubt, overcome by despair. John 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. (KJV)

 

Now look at Acts 2:14 Acts 2:14     But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: (KJV) Look at the change!

Again Frank Morrison says: “Now the peculiar thing about this phenomenon is that not only did it spread to every single member of the party of Jesus of whom we have any trace, but they actually brought it to Jerusalem and carried it with inconceivable audacity into the most keenly intellectual center of Judea, against the ablest dialecticians of the day, and in the face of every impediment a brilliant and highly organized camarilla could devise. AND THEY WON!

Within 20 years the claims of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish church and impressed itself upon every town in the eastern coast of the Mediterranean from Caesarea to Troas. In less than 50 years it had begun to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire.

When we have said everything that can be said about the willingness of certain types of people to believe what they wants to believe, to be carried away with their emotions, and to assert as fact that which originally reached them as hearsay, we stand confronted with the greatest mystery of all, WHY DID THEY WIN?”

Of course we know! They had come face to face with the divine Witness. A sure testimony, they saw the risen Christ!

 

From John 19:19’s gloom, to Acts 2’s boldness and confrontation at all costs.

You hold the same Divine Witness in your hands this morning. And by faith it lives in your heart. It is God’s Word and it is sure.

 

Now back to Ps 19:7 and the last stanza to the Divine Witness. Those 4 words: “making wise the simple”. This is profound.

First of all ‘pethi’ is a person that is naïve or literally, one who has an “open door mind”. He goes with whatever hits him just them. And changes with the next wind. What can the absolutely true testimony of God on any topic do for the inexperienced, open door minded person we all so often are?

God can take the open door and with His sure testimony make them wise shakam “skilled in the art of holy living”.

In the Scripture God is always the source of this shakam wisdom. To Greeks wisdom was facts; to Hebrews it was EXPERIENCE!

So God by His sure testimony can make all who come skillful in the art of Divine Living!

How? by bowing before the Author, the Divine Teacher, and yielding to His Testimonies as the Divine Witness!  Here we meet the Divine Witness. This witness is giving a testimony in court (that is the sense of this Hebrew word). This word “testimony” is always and only used of the Lord. It speaks to the reality of the Almighty God being the best witness of any event. What are some events that He has witnessed about?

  1. THE BEGINNING (Genesis 1-2) No theory, no mystery, God was the Divine Witness of what happened at Creation. Listen to he Divine Witness as He speaks as an eye witness you can absolutely trust.
    1. FROM THE DAWN OF THE UNIVERSE (Before time began, before matter existed, before the forces that bind our cosmos together were instituted by the Creator  – HE SPEAKS)   Genesis 1:1-4 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. (KJV)
    2. FROM THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARTH[3] That doesn’t sound like much until you penetrate the thin skin of the earth. In proportion the shell of an egg to the egg the crust of the Earth is a thin skin. Beneath the crust of only 30 to 90 miles in thickness, the Mantle made up of a rigid lithosphere, a plastic like Asthenosphere, a semi solid Mesosphere and then the foundations. The Core of the Earth is a mystery still. Probably made up of an Outer Core of liquid nickel and iron and then an Inner Core of solid nickel-iron. Now the wonder. The Core of the Earth is hotter than the surface of the Sun at 6,000 degrees centigrade. Another fascinating fact is that oceanographers mapping the ocean floors found a continuous 46,000 mile long mountain range (the Mid-Ocean Ridge)  snaking[4] through all the seven seas of the planet.
    3. FROM THE THRONE OF THE ALMIGHTY Isaiah 40:12-31 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

 

If you don’t listen to Him now, you will later.  Poem Luke 6:46 (*) Ye Call Me Lord And Master And Obey Me Not. from cathedral in Lubeck, Germany:

You call me Master, and obey me not;

You call me Light, and see me not;

You call me the Way, and walk me not;

You call me the Life, and live me not;

You call me wise, and follow me not;

You call me Fair, and love me not;

You call me Rich, and ask me not;

You call me Eternal and seek me not.

If I condemn thee, blame me not!

 

[1] World’s Last Mysteries, Readers Digest Books, p.

[2] Who moved the Stone?

[3] Exploring Our Living Planet, NGB, p. 39>

[4] Exploring, p. 30.

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