Psalm 19 – 150 Days of Purposeful Meditation (Day 19) Part 1

The glory of God is our greatest good! More precisely, the glory of God shining forth through us is our greatest good. In this Psalm, David prays “let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (v 14).

In Psalm 18, I asked the question, what does our soul need more than God? Here David answers the same but expands his answer. What does our soul need more than the glory of God? And much more what should the soul crave more than the glory of God? The message of this Psalm is that when the soul is affected by the glory of God and thus redeemed, it becomes both the repository and reflector of the glory of God. The redeemed soul then particularly pours forth speech from a heart filled with the glory of God unto the glory of God.

In typical Hebrew Poetic fashion, David provides us with an analogy from nature to illustrate his point. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork” (v 1). That is a bold statement but is well attested to in other passages of scripture (most notably Psalm 119, Romans 1). The heavens declare the glory of God. But how? “Day to day…night to night” both “pour forth speech…[and] reveal knowledge” (v 2). He acknowledges that they do not use actual words or voice but that what they communicate is spread “through all the earth…to the ends of the world” (v 3-4a). But again, how? How does the heavens do this kind of communicating? How is it essentially gushing forth the declaration of the glory of God?

“In them He has set a tent for the sun…” (v 4b). Here we come to the crux of the analogy. The thing in the heavens that most perfectly declares the effect (I’ll explain) of the glory of God is the Sun. Immediately we should all understand where he is going. But again, how? Think about it, David says, the Sun “comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber…and like a strongman running its course with joy“…”its rising is from the ends of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them” (vs 5-6). How does it reach the whole earth with its communication? The point should be clear, as he says in v 6 “there is nothing hidden from its heat” (v 6).

How then do the heavens “declare the glory of God…and proclaim His handiwork?” There is a song that I have been listening to frequently by the Getty’s, “Consider the Stars“. It is a beautiful song that I believe is referencing Isaiah 40:26 though I cannot help but to think of it now. Consider how the Sun has such a tremendous influence on all of life on planet earth. In reality there would be no life on earth, earth would not be suitable for life without the effects of the Sun. Moreover life on earth would not continue without the ever present embrace of the Sun.

Do you consider how important the Sun is for life on earth? This is not a lesson in astronomy, nor is it intended to stoke that wicked human tendency to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. But rather it is intended to point your thoughts in the direction that David intended. The heavens that were created by the hand of God were made in such a way to tell us something about His glory. He built into His creation, His handiwork, a signature or watermark that tells both that He is God and that He is good. And that as the good Creator God that He is, He provides life and sustains life as no other. We absolutely need and should crave His creating/sustaining power daily for life. Creation pours forth the message of His glory in a way that nothing else can!

If the created order, the stars in the heavens and particularly out of those stars, our Sun can give glory to God, shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t we earnestly desire to bear and reflect His glory? Consider the stars beloved. May we, like them, seek to live our lives for His glory! Unlike the stars, we out of all of God’s creation have lips to praise God for His creative wisdom! We have lips to praise God for His creative provision! And as we shall see in the second part of this Psalm, we have lips to also praise God that He didn’t leave us with just a general message of His glorious-ness. But much more, through His Word, He makes it possible for us to partake in His glory through the beauty of redemption.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom. 1:18-20 ESV)

25 To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isa. 40:25-31 ESV)

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Ps. 8:3-4 ESV)

A Prayer of Paul’s – A Meditation on Ephesians 1:15-23 (Pt 2)

“I…do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.”

Paul’s prayers are always oriented towards the God of our Lord Jesus.  This may go without saying but Paul was completely unapologetic as to whom he addressed his prayers.  His prayers were clearly directed to one God and no one else.  There was no mistaking who Paul called upon in prayer.  He says it in slightly different ways at times, but his focus was undeterred.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor 1:3), “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3) and “we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you” (Col 1:3).  And there are many other times when Paul simply refers to Him as “the Father” (I Cor 8:6; Gal 1:1; Eph 2:18; 3:14; 5:20; 6:23; Phil 2:11; Col 1:12 to name a few).

Paul’s prayers were always directed towards Him, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul did not direct His prayers to “God” in general terms, nor to a “higher power”, nor to the “man upstairs”.  Paul was clear that the One to whom he made his petitions was the God of Jesus Christ.  He prayed to Him alone.

In a day when it is politically incorrect to mention the name Jesus, to claim allegiance to Him, the name God has actually flourished.  It is still acceptable to call upon God. It is still acceptable to pray to God in a public setting.  Many in our society call upon some god in the course of their life and worship, thus they have not yet completely abolished Him from the public arena.  However to call upon God in general is a very different thing than to call upon the God and Father of the Lord Jesus.  Jesus Himself divides, thus anyone associated with Him also brings division.  Biblically, Jesus came to glorify (to honor and exalt) His God and Father.  And His God and Father is the same God to whom all of the prophets from the Old and New Testaments refer.

He is the Alpha, the Creator God of Genesis 1:1 “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  And He is the Omega, the final Judge and King over the new heavens and earth which He will create in Revelation 22.  He is the self existent One, the “I am” of Exodus 3:14.  He is the God who sees and provides of Genesis 22:14.  He is the Savior of Isaiah 43:11.  He is the One from whom no one can deliver in Isaiah 43:13).  And He alone is the one true God of Deuteronomy 4:39; Isaiah 45:6-7.

All that Paul prays in this section is directed to this One.  Praying to or in the name of any god save the God and Father of the Lord Jesus will fall upon deaf ears.  Praying to the True and Living God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus will always yield great reward.  Later in the book of Ephesians 3:20-21, Paul will end his second prayer with this brief doxology “now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”  These verses mark the central theme of the book which is the glory of God in the church.  But they also highlight the believers confidence in prayer to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, namely God’s passion for His glory.

Without rehashing what so many other more learned men have already declared concerning the glory of God, it is clear from the very first chapter of Ephesians that the work of God in the church is a work that He does “for the praise of the glory of His grace.”  The chief end of God is to bring glory to Himself and He must do so (it is not arrogant for Him to do so) because He is in fact the most perfect in every way, the most glorious, the most high.  And by virtue of His perfections, He must perfectly value all things.  Thus He must perfectly value His perfection above all other things and must see to it that His perfections are exalted above all.  Thus again, in all of His doings, even in His work in the church – which is for our good – He aims to bring about His glory knowing that our good glorifies Him.  And if we pray to Him, that we grow in Him, to be like Him and love Him (which in essence is what Paul prays here in chapter 1) then we know that He will indeed answer for the end of those things are hearts and mouths more adequately equipped to proclaim His excellencies!

May the LORD, the One True and Living God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, grant you joy and confidence as you pray without ceasing to Him alone, trusting Him to answer for our good and His glory.  May He grant you boldness to proclaim His excellencies without apology, to call upon the name of the LORD, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus for all to know to whom you pray.

¹⁰ But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation.¹¹ Thus you shall say to them, “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”¹² It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.  (Jer. 10:10-12)

⁶ Now I know that the LORD saves His anointed; He will answer him from His holy heaven With the saving strength of His right hand.⁷ Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God.  (Ps. 20:6-7)

² “Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it, the LORD is His name, ³ ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jer. 33:2-3)

“And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD Will be delivered…” (Joel 2:32)

Psalm 2 – 150 Days of Purposeful Meditation (Day 2) Remix

God is laughing hysterically at the state of our Union.  We celebrate this day as our independence day.  The day that our nation declared independence from the authority that then ruled over it.  Since then, we have been on an increasing decline drifting farther and farther away from all authority…except our own.

The Kings of Psa 2 “take their stand together against the Lord and His anointed…[so that they may] tear [the Lord’s] fetters…and cast away [His] chords from them.”  They want the right to rule and govern themselves apart from God, their creator.  They want to make their own decisions about what is right and what is wrong.  They want to make their own standards of law and morality.  They want to write their own commandments to live by.  They do not want the Lord or His Anointed sticking their noses into their business.

Sound familiar?  Our own nation, as many freedoms as we boast of (even the fact that I am able to write this without threat of open persecution is indicative of the freedoms we enjoy), as much relative good as we pursue; it is all ultimately for the expressed purpose of pursuing our own standard of “happiness” apart from any outside ruling authority.  This agenda is very clear, though its hard to know where to begin the discussion.  Marriage, abortion, homosexual “rights”, even the blurring of gender and gender roles.  These are among the many issues that our government is in the process of redefining and legislating according to its own agenda (admittedly the agenda of the “people”), apart from the expressed agenda of the Lord and His Anointed.  We quibble about gun control, taxes and privacy while as a nation we collectively thumb our noses at our Creator and His chosen King.  We have nationally rejected His law, His way and His chosen One.  The message of this Psalm is for us, today.

How does the Lord respond to the state of our union today?  Is He worried?  Is He afraid of where we may go next?  Is He concerned that we used to follow a morality consistent with Judeo-Christian values and have in recent days made every attempt to distance ourselves from those values?  No.  This Psalm tells us that as He looks down from Heaven upon the United States of America with its “In God we trusts” and “God bless America’s”, He sits back and laughs hysterically.

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them. (Psa 2:4 NAU)

He laughs and He mocks us as we seek to redefine morality in our own image.  Autonomy is the god of our day along with his children, relativism and tolerance.  These have become our championed values, the new morality and anyone who resists this morality is counted as treasonous.  And since the Lord and His Anointed One are decidedly against the gods of our nation; we seek to sever our connection with Him at any costs.  And yet this is the very thing that moves God to hysterical laughter, even mockery.

We love the idea of “free will.”  There is a doctrine in the world of men that speaks of free will as that which is an inalienable right, an innate quality of mankind.  And yet in this we have deceived ourselves.  There is no such thing as absolute freedom among men.  We are created beings and by definition are subject to our creator.  Thus there is no absolute freedom.  And even if there were no creator and we came into being solely on the basis of chance (which the probability of such a theory, though widely held, flings one headlong into insanity); then it would be chance to whom we are subject and not we ourselves.  Thus again, leaving no room for absolute freedom.  Either we are subject to a Creator or we are subject to chance.  Nevertheless, we are created beings and as such are ultimately subject to the divine will.  We may not acknowledge that, but God certainly knows it to be true.  And He no more needs to convince us of that than we need convince an ant that the underside of our boot is able to crush them.  It simply is.  Thus we may mock the futile attempt of an ant to run away in terror as we approach it with the expressed purpose of crushing it knowing that it will never be anything more than a futile attempt.

Clearly that is the nature of the message of this Psalm.  Our attempts to throw away His fetters, to disconnect ourselves from the Sovereign will of God are futile.  We may feel that we do well to run far away from the approach of the iron rod that is coming but it will never be anything more than a futile attempt.  This Psalm is forward looking.  It predicts the time in the future when the Lord’s Anointed will literally reign upon the earth and when the kings of the earth will literally reject and rebel against His authority.  And yet none will escape His Almighty judgments against their rebellion.

 9 ‘You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.'” (Psa 2:9 NAU)

Yet while the prediction of this Psalm will ultimately not be fulfilled until that day, we know that the judgments of the Lord may also be given in the present day.  There is no promise in scripture for the United States of America.  There is no promise for its endurance, for its remaining prominence, for its future.  There is really no mention of the United States in any of the prophetic writings, no matter how some bible teachers stretch and twist the words of scripture to attempt to place her on the map.  Either she will fall prior to that day or she will be so greatly diminished that she is not worth mentioning.  Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

What does that mean for us?  Even as we celebrate the day that our nation took on its own international identity, we should set realistic expectations about our place in His world.  We can either ignore prophecy and assume that it doesn’t apply to us or acknowledge that His word is true and valuable (Psalm 1) and act accordingly.  If you choose to acknowledge the truthfulness and value of God’s word you would do well to consider the following warning:

10 Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take warning, O judges of the earth.
11 Worship the LORD with reverence And rejoice with trembling.
12 Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! (Psa 2:10-12 NAU)

The real issue facing our nation today is a matter of worship…and obedience.  Who will we worship and who will we obey?  Do we continue to worship our independence and seek to obey the god of autonomy?  Or do we return and worship the Lord with reverence and seek to obey His Son, the King whom He has chosen?

The cost is real.  “Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled.”  The warning is that this Son, the divinely chosen King, may become angry and cause the rebelling nations to perish.  This is the same perish from Psalm 1, mentioned in an earlier post.  These two Psalms were meant to be taken together as an introduction to the whole book of 150 Psalms.  Thus the identity of the blessed One of Psalm 1 and this One mentioned here as the Son who is installed as King are one and the same.  The reason why He is chosen above all others is clear from Psalm 1, because of His love for and delight in the will of God.  Furthermore this connection to that which will perish is another indication as to His duty as the blessed One, the chosen King.  He is sent forth with a “rod of iron” to “shatter” those who have rebelled against the Lord of Heaven.  His anger is a righteous anger, a holy anger, a God sanctioned divine anger sent down from heaven against ungodly rebellion.  This day is coming.  The King has been chosen.  Indeed scripture testifies elsewhere:

having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed (Act 17:30-31 NAU)

“Do homage to the Son…”  “Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.”

We seek freedom in the arms of the god of autonomy.  We seek to cast away the sovereignty of our Creator but instead cast ourselves headlong into subjugation to our own devices and the consequences that result.  And yet there is the offer of true freedom remaining.

How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! (Psa 2:12 NAU)

the Lord Jesus Christ,
4 who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, (Gal 1:3-4 NAU)

It was for freedom that Christ set us free (Gal 5:1 NAU)

True blessing.  True happiness is found in the One who gave Himself up for us to deliver us from the evil of this age (even the evil that we have conceived as a result of our quest for independence).  True freedom is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, the truly blessed and happy One, the chosen King, the Son to whom homage is due.  True freedom is found in Him and in Him alone.

As you celebrate this Independence Day, rejoice in the One who died for you to deliver you, not from political, social or moral oppression, but from the oppression of your own lawlessness.  If you haven’t trusted in Him yet, this can be your independence day.  This can be a day of reverent worship and rejoicing over the One who is truly worthy if you cease striving and humble yourself before His rule.  If you have trusted in Him already then independence day should have a fuller meaning for you.  For you it must go beyond the stars and stripes.  For you it will be a time to remember the stripes and shed blood that He bore on the cross for you…and the resulting freedom from sin that you now enjoy as one who takes refuge in Him.

Maranatha!