Psalm 19. Revelation, condemnation & salvation.
By. Maykell Araica
There is something incredibly special about Psalm 19. Not only is it written in a poetic style that speaks to my creative sensitivities, but it also contains a massive wealth of spiritual truth. I relate to David in many ways (Yes, I know, I’m not David), but the way he writes about God is not one of them. This man was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit, and even though that is a core doctrine of our faith, I still find it incredibly profound that God would have this kind of relationship with his servant, empowering him to write in such a way.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
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 commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
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 fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is 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,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
When I was a child, I was obsessed with the account of creation. I loved watching nature documentaries, especially ones depicting the way the world was created. Of course, I was fed the “big bang theory” and the “theory of evolution.”
At school, our science classes were all presented from a secular point of view. Evolutionary biology and Darwinism were the bread and butter of Miss Guadalupe’s science hall.
One day, we had a debate at school where a fellow named “Darwin,” of all names, proposed that creation was divine in nature and that God was responsible for the world we see today. This was the first time I recall being exposed to creation according to the word of God.
He talked to us about scientific facts that proved the Big Bang was a theory that held no water. I remember taking a bag of marbles and illustrating the creation of the universe with them, explaining the physics in a way that made sense to a young me.
I learned what the Law of Angular Momentum was and how mathematically improbable all of this was, how perfect creation was because we had a perfect Creator. Years went by before I read Psalm 19 for myself as a believer, and man… it floored me. How could it not?
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
This is where I’m going with all this. Psalm 19 should be an arrow in your quiver as you go forth to proclaim the gospel, brothers. I want us to read Psalm 19 and understand that the intent of the writer is to reveal something to us that is painfully evident, yet we “sinners” fail to see. But God, in his great mercy towards us, has revealed it in his word. So we are going to take Psalm 19 and break it into two parts with the hope of seeing the main point being “God’s revelation to us.”
The first is the Unwritten revelation or General revelation
The second one is the written revelation
So let’s read again from verse one to verse six:
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
What we see here is that the psalmist wants to make it abundantly clear that God’s creation and perfect work in it constantly point back to the creator. Ray Comfort often points out to the people he interviews that the fact we have creation is enough to point to a creator, and he frequently uses the image of a painter. He says in his wonderful Kiwi accent, “When you see a painting, do you not immediately know there is a painter even if you have never met or seen the painter? How did the painting get there?”
What I love about this part of Psalm 19 is that David goes after the most obvious piece of creation, one that you cannot miss. Where Ray Comfort may paint his picture with trees, people, and the environment, David uses the sun. Why?
Well, because #1 it’s impossible to miss, and #2 every human relies on the sun to sustain us.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
What does that mean?
It means that there isn’t words or speech to describe the glory of it, yet we saints and sinners alike can understand what we can see and not understand where it came from.
Let me explain what I mean by that. We understand the majesty of it, yet we can’t fathom its glory. So the psalmist uses language that we can relate to, that we cannot miss!
HE who put the sun in the universe is even greater than the sun.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Isn’t it curious that for the longest time, especially in the ancient world, humanity believed that the world was the center of the universe? So seeing the sun “run its course across the sky” made sense. Some flat earthers might rejoice when they read that, but rest assured, the earth is a sphere. While it appears that the sun stands still at the center of our solar system, we now know that our rotation is what gives us days and nights, and the sun is, in fact, moving across the universe at about 500,000 miles per hour and is in an orbit around our galaxy that would take around 230 million years to complete.
Take a look at a micro example of that, something more personal, like your eyes. Your eyes are incredible. They have the ability to see from the brightest area of a scene to the darkest. For example, you can stand inside a room looking out the window, and your eyes can still see the colors and brightness outside while simultaneously making sense of the dimmer light and colors inside the room. We humans have attempted to create a device that can capture such scenes, like a camera, but even the greatest camera can only pick up so much of the colors and light our eyes can. Hence why “pictures don’t do creation justice.”
The more I learn about creation and the universe God created, the more I am in awe. And isn’t it so cool that time and time again, as humanity gains knowledge, the word of God is proven more and more? I love that. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 3:19:
"For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness.'"
This is the general revelation of God, the one that is available to all. According to Romans 1:20-21:
"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
WITHOUT EXCUSE.
This revelation is enough to condemn the world to hell, yet he gives us more.
*BUT GOD* and so we arrive at verse 7.
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 commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
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 fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is 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,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
This is God’s written revelation, His special revelation, made available to all who will believe it. One revelation was enough to condemn you; the other one was enough to save your soul. Without the written revelation of Christ, available to us through the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, we wouldn’t know the gospel. The law written in our hearts, the revelation of God through creation, is enough to condemn us.
BUT GOD.
through verses 7 - 9 we have six incredible lines
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 commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
When we read the first part, the unwritten revelation we are given a picture of the creator whose handy work is incredible and can be seen by all.
in the statements from 7-9 we see the psalmist say “of the Lord” in everyone of them…why?
why does he use God’s covenant name? Why does he say Yahweh?
This is because now we are talking about the one who exercise authority over all it. Over all of creation and the order of it.
John MacArthur said in his commentary of Psalm 19
“There are people who would like us to think the Bible is dark and muddy, and ancient and out-of-date, and even irrelevant, and we can’t grasp its meaning because it’s far too old a book. There have been many movements in more modern times against the clarity of Scripture, and yet our Lord expected the unbelieving Jews of His day to understand their Old Testament because He repeatedly said to them, “Have you not read? Have you not heard? Have you not read? Do you not search the Scripture?”
It was all there, it was all clear, and they were all responsible for it. And the writers of the New Testament wrote these massive epistles that we love and cherish, take the epistles of Paul and sent those epistles to Gentiles with no religious history and no Old Testament knowledge and wrote them these profound epistles like the book of Romans and Galatians explaining the intricacies of the doctrines of grace and salvation to a bunch of first-generation believing pagans. There are no excuses for people who don’t understand Scripture, especially those who have been redeemed, and sanctified, and set on a right path, and who are now illumined by the Holy Spirit. No, the commandment of the Lord is clear. It’s clear and it enlightens our eyes. We see. We see the truth.”
Conclusion
We have these two revelations: one that can condemn you alone, and one that we cannot be saved without. What do we do with them? We must boldly proclaim the Gospel—through our words and actions, stepping out of our comfort zones. Like the psalmist, we are called to declare God’s general revelation and point to its source for salvation through the written Word.
Back then, I didn’t realize it. Darwin, the speaker who came to my school to defend his faith grounded in God’s revelation, would impact my life over 20 years later. I hope his message resonated with you as well. Darwin served as an instrument in the Master’s hands, using God’s general revelation to illuminate His written Word for God’s glory and my salvation.
Article by.
Maykell Araica
