Summary
Guest speaker Steven Calloway walks through Psalm 19, emphasizing God's revelation through nature and His written word. He highlights that while nature reveals God's glory, it is through Scripture that we come to know Him intimately as "Yahweh." Calloway encourages the congregation to recognize their need for repentance and to share the "words of life" found in Christ with others, applying the message to their daily lives and relationships.
Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. That usually helps as well.
So, good morning, and it's good to be with y'all this morning and bring the message.
I was glad that James, when he said he was going to be out, he was like, well, hey, you want to preach? And I was like, well, you don't have to ask why. So, I'm not cool like James, though. I don't have any, like, fill-in-the-blank notes.
So, y'all have free reign this morning. If you want to play hangman or tic-tac-toe, you do what you want.
Color with it, make stick figures, whatever. So, we're going to be looking at Psalm 19 this morning. So, if you want to make your way over there, since we're in the Psalms right here.
But before we just get into our text this morning, though, I did want to take just a few minutes just to say that,
you know, since we're talking about Psalms, just to give some praise. You know, a lot of things, at least I know for me, have changed in the last year. You know, of course, I'm not teaching anymore.
You know, I'm going to seminary, trying to get through that, and hopefully we'll complete back here soon. And at this point, you may have noticed, me and Michaela, we haven't been here for a few Sundays. So, I've had the opportunity to preach and bring the message other places.
So, mostly a place called Buffalo Baptist Church, and it's a little church up above West Jefferson.
You know, they haven't had a pastor since November, and invited me to come, and it's just been a joy to go up there, share with them, and worship.
And, you know, when I think about it, and again, this is just me giving praise, because here, me and Michaela, we have prayed just so much for, you know, the opportunity to go, to witness, and spread God's word, and the Lord would just, you know, answer that.
And he has, in his own good time, and it's so good. And, you know, I just want to give praise for our church this morning. I know James isn't here, so I'm going to brag on him. And that's it.
I mean, I'm like one of y'all here, you know. We've, in the last three years, y'all, think of where we've been, and think of where we are now. It is just being by God's good grace that he has delivered us here. You know, I told Michaela,
I said, you know, it's quite amazing, because the first time that me and Michaela met,
and I don't know, this is probably not the obvious conversation starter you want when you're dating somebody, but, you know, we were trying to figure each other the way out. I figured out she went to church and all of them, but I was like, you know, hey, I'm Stephen.
I go to Pleasant Grove. I really don't know how to say this, but I'm just worried about my church. I don't feel like it's in good health. I don't feel like it's in a good place.
And I really just don't know what to do, but I want to help it somehow. And, you know, and we've just been praying so hard for y'all, so hard for this place, that God would just honor it, that God would just send people here, and he has. And, you know, and that's James.
And so I'm just so thankful to see that.
I'm so thankful for Dwayne when he was here, just that the way that he just bridged the gap and just helped us heal as a church.
And so I think that's just a time for praise and worship. You know, I mean, that's our song to God right there, is that he has just been so faithful for us.
And I just think about how he's worked in our lives right now and is still working. So anyway, I just want to share that with y'all this morning. I just want all of us to just feel the joy of that and seeing answered prayer all along right here.
So if you will, if you're willing and able, you want to stand, we're going to read Psalm 19 right here. It's just 14 verses. It says this,
It comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
God's Word and Its Power
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, and 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. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
And let's pray. Lord, I just want to thank you this morning, Father, for just being so good. Lord, that Father, you have just answered so many prayers here in this church, Lord.
You have, Lord, just kept this church together to be a light in this community, Father.
And Lord, I just pray that you would just work through us and that we would just be your hands and feet, Lord. I just pray that we could just have the same prayer here as the psalmist, Lord, as we just realize the beauty of your word, Lord.
I just ask that you would just humble our hearts this morning, that we would just be changed and sanctified by your word, Lord. And that if there's someone that doesn't know you,
Father, they would just come to have a relationship with Jesus and serve him. For it's in his name I pray. Amen. You may be seated. Amen.
And so as we dive into the text this morning, you know, and this is why to me it's just so wonderful that we can have just a very meaningful, worshipful service.
You think about the song the choir sang this morning that we muddled through, but I don't know if you recognize this, but if you were paying attention,
there was a line, and it's taken straight out of John chapter 6, where many of the people following Jesus had turned away, and Jesus turns to his 12 disciples, and he asks them, well, do you want to go too? And Simon's Peter response is this,
Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God.
And I want you to ask yourself this morning, do you have the words of eternal life? Do you have the word living in your own heart this morning?
Are you allowing the word to dwell within you? You know, when I was thinking about a psalm to choose, I know James had kind of had it to go out in like sequential order, and I was thinking, well, what could I? And I was like, the law of the Lord.
To me, it's a wonderful psalm, and of course, I found the quote by one of my favorite authors, C.S.
Lewis, who is one of the greatest Christian theologians of the 20th century, and in reference to Psalm 19,
this is what he said. He said, I think this is to be the greatest poem in the Psalms, and of the greatest lyrics in the world.
Another quote right here I think really works well for what we're looking at this morning is from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and he made this statement.
God's Revelation in Nature
He says, And as we look at our text, I think that Kant's quote works very well because we'll see that there's two big movements in our text this morning, and one is God's wordless revelation of himself throughout the
world and beyond. And the other is the clarity of his written word that he's given to us. And this psalm is just a praise of God's word and of God's revelation of himself.
If we look at verses 1 through 6 right here, we see that God has revealed himself through nature.
And of course, this makes perfect sense because if any of y'all have, and I know all of us have been outside and have taken time to observe nature, but, you know, you see the splendor of the leaves in the fall here.
You know, I've got pictures, and I know Caleb takes wonderful pictures of nature on his phone, like the eclipses, and,
you know, and I've taken a few pictures of some sunsets before, and they're just beautiful. They just all struck you when you look at them, and you just look and have to say, Wow, there's an artist here. There is somebody. There is something at work right here creating this.
And that's what David is saying here in this moment, that God has revealed himself to everyone through his work. Look at verse 1 right here. And it says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Another psalm that referenced Psalm 19 is Psalm 97,
verse 6, and it says it this way. It says, The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.
In verse 2, it tells us that this revelation is constant. Right there where it says, Day to day, it pours out speech. What it literally means is to utter or to bubble up.
Constant revelation. In other words, God is constantly revealing himself to us. In verses 3 and 4, it tells us that this revelation is a wordless revelation.
Verse 3, it says, There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. But then in verse 4, it says it goes throughout all the earth. In other words, so this wordless revelation that we see, you know, it's going throughout all the world.
And then in verses 5 and 6, David uses the imagery of the sun, the most powerful and the most visible object in God's creation, to point us towards this revelation.
He's saying, you know, excuse me, he's saying, you know, it's impossible for you not to see God's glory. It's impossible for you not to know that God is here.
And, you know, whether, you know, you're a Christian or not, we've all had moments where we've been struck by the magnificence of nature,
where we've seen it, and again, just been struck by its awe and glory. And that's it. As Christians, we all understand that nature,
we understand that God is in nature, and we understand this also through the fact that God has created order. When we think about it, God created the world and all that's in it in six days, right? And then he rested.
When we look at nature itself, it shows us the order. What do things do? They grow, or they're born, they grow, and then they decline and die.
Seasons come in cycles. We know that planets travel around in orbits. There are order. There's a hierarchy to the animal kingdom. If you're the mouse, you get eaten by the owl. You know, again, there's order to it. It's not chaotic. It makes sense.
And as Christians, we recognize that God is sovereign over all things, and that he has created this order.
Understanding General Revelation
And I'm going to switch gears here, and go to Romans 1, if you want to follow me here for just a moment, because when we look at this this morning, I think that while David puts God's revelation in
poetic terms, I think Paul does a really good job of just laying bare what we're talking about right here. In other words, David does this in poetic verse.
Paul just comes out and says, this is what this means right here. And so in Romans 1, if you look at verse 18, it says this, and it says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived.
Ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creeping things.
Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen.
And as we just look at that, what David is saying, what Paul is saying, it's the same thing. That God has revealed himself through nature, and that we can all see his glory.
But that also comes with a heavy weight. That means that, as we have known God, and as we try to suppress and reject God, we are also condemned. We have enough knowledge of the truth to be judged, but not to be saved.
And what's worse, not only do we know the truth, but our hearts are darkened to the point that we have rejected this truth, and we seek to suppress it. What does this mean?
It simply means this. No matter if you're in Wilkes County, as a friend of mine used to say, we're in the belt buckle of the Bible belt, or, you know, if you're in some far distant third world country, we can all see God's glory.
It's revealed. And because of that, we're all subject to God's righteous judgment. It also means that even though we may recognize this, because we're born into sin, our hearts are darkened, and seek to suppress the truth.
And we do this in several ways. People come up with false religions, and idols to serve, and we see this. People deny the existence of God completely, and just outright reject Him.
Or, in a more modern way, a lot of us, people like to come up with sophisticated ways to explain God away, and they do this using human and life sciences. The German philosopher I quoted earlier, Immanuel Kant, he was one of the greatest thinkers.
He was a central figure in what was called the Enlightenment, that started the modern era.
And this is basically what he said when it came to talking about God. He said that there are two planes of reality. There is a lower plane, and there is a higher plane. And what he said, because this is the modern era,
and when you think about it, we're in the, and not to get confusing right here, but we're in the post-modern.
In other words, you know, we don't really think that there is factual truth in the modern era. What they did is they said, well, if you can see it, if you can smell it, if you can taste it, if you can experience it, if you can hear it, then it's real.
But if you can't do those things, then it's not.
And so what Immanuel Kant said is, there is a lower plane, and there is a higher plane. We're on the lower plane. And because of that, if I can see it, if I can smell it, taste it, touch it, it's real. I can experience it.
But he said, the things of God are on this upper plane. And in doing so, what he really said is, there's no way that I can know God. There's no way that I can know who God really is.
And we know that that's just not true. And we know that because, look at what verses 7 through 10 say. It says this. It says, 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 off of the honeycomb. In these verses, God reveals himself with clarity and completeness.
And words are important here, and I want you to see this this morning because I think this really just hits at what we're getting at. I want you to notice that in verses 1 through 6,
David only mentions God once. And when he does, he uses the Hebrew word, El, which is meant to describe God. And this Hebrew word right here is the vaguest term that was used by the Hebrews to actually describe God. It described God as powerful, but it did not describe them as knowing God.
In other words, when you look at verses 7 through 14, notice what changes in the scripture as David looks and describes who God is. Notice that he uses the word Lord.
And when he does that, in your translation, you know, in our modern translations today, they just have Lord in big bold caps. But what does that actually mean?
That's God's intimate name. That's the name that he gave Moses. That is God saying, I am who I am. That is that we can know who God is. And that's what it's saying.
When God, when David was talking about general revelation, he just said El. He just said God, right? We can see God in his, in nature and in its beauty, but we don't actually know God. But in his word, we see Yahweh. We see I am.
And I just think that that right there just captures what we're talking about right here. And when we look at all the adjectives that are used to describe God's word, as I read them, it's perfect, it's sure, it's right, it's pure, it's clean, and righteous.
As God has revealed himself through his word, we should understand that these are words that describe God himself. Not only that, but these words are used to describe Jesus, by which God has most completely revealed himself as the living word.
Think about John 1.1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
The Importance of God's Word
And of course, we're talking about Christ. You may see God has given us words of life. For Christians, God's word is our instruction manual that we use to navigate life.
In it, God reveals to us the order of his creation and gives us the law to direct our daily lives. You see, everything that is not explicitly said in scripture is implicitly implied.
And what do I mean by that? I mean that God has revealed to us how to conduct ourselves in all manners of our lives. And I'll just give you an example right here if we're talking about relationships. God instituted marriage, and he made it between one God-fearing man and one God-fearing woman.
They're not to be unevenly yoked. They're not to be divorced. They're not to be abused or be abusive. They're not to be licentious or lustful. They're not to indulge in such things as porn or to marry partners of the same sex.
They're not meant to find their meaning in some form of gender identity. Because God's word has revealed what he has clearly stated, and this is his model that we should go by. And again, if it doesn't fit that model, then his word implicitly applies that that's not it.
You know, just to give you another example, when it comes to finances, God tells us to be a cheerful giver, someone who pays someone a fair wage for their labor, and one who gives the government what is due them. You know, if God's word explicitly says that, then what's implicitly implied?
It's just simply this. Don't cheat a person. Right? Pay them a fair wage. Give the government what's due.
You know, when they ask you for money on your taxes. Don't give begrudgingly. Right? Don't do it out of just to make yourself look good like the Pharisees or because you feel like you have to.
But what do we do instead? It's just like Paul says in Romans. We suppress God's truth. We try to hide behind our own rationale for the reason that we want to do things. Excuse me.
Getting tongue-tied in my words here. Also, from all that singing, I'm getting just a little bit dry in the mouth. Singing and preaching is a bad combination. You're already done before you started. Anyway, but right here, you know, as we look at this,
you know, we try to hide behind our own rationale and that's just simply to say, you know,
we like to use the guise of science or reason to tell us, you know, well, this is why I do the things that I do or, you know, from a romanticist point of view, we would just say, follow your own heart and of course, we know that our hearts are darkened
or if you're like the atheist, it doesn't matter. You just plan out flat and reject God. If we are condemned by general revelation, how much more so are we that have heard God's word and rejected it?
Last Sunday, I went and preached on Romans 7 and I think that this just fits well with us right here but Romans 7, Paul's talking about the law and when he's talking about the law, he's talking about the Torah or what the Jews would have known to be the Jewish Bible.
So in other words, we're still talking about God's word here but this is what Paul says.
He said that the purpose of the law is to reveal the sin in our lives, to show us the sinfulness of our sin and ultimately to condemn us for it and this is all in order to humble us and to point us to one person.
Recognizing Our Need for Salvation
Christ. Only those that realize that they need salvation realize that God has revealed himself just as the word describes, perfect, sure, right, clean, true, and righteous and they also recognize that they are none of those things.
They need a savior and that savior is the true word, the word of life. His name is Jesus.
You see, ultimately God's word points to Christ and Jesus said as much when he explained to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus about him and the scriptures. He said, you know, he started with the prophets and the law of Moses and explained to them that, guess what? It's about me.
It points to me and that's it. God in his word gave us the law so that by it order could be established and we would be able to live our lives in the liberty of his goodness and we know, we can see that in our own society.
Without order, there is no liberty. God knew from the beginning that we could never keep his law and that God reveals in his word that he had a plan that Christ would come and to redeem us, that Christ would be our mediator before God
when we broke his law and that we would be able to live in the liberty of his grace. Look at verses 11 through 14 with me here. It says this, it says, 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.
And the worshiper is praising God as he searches his heart and he's repentant of the sins he's committed and he says, whether they're intentional or unintentional, you know, he is repentant.
He is, God, forgive me. He is grateful for the warning that God has given him to realize that he has sinned and he's grateful for the reward that he gains through salvation, through Christ. And he knows that it's greater than any riches that he could possibly gain in this world.
In verse 14, the words here are used to describe the words of the worshiper. Excuse me.
The words here used to describe the words of the worshiper are to invoke an image of sacrifice. If you look, it said, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. It's words of sacrifice. In other words, what he's saying is,
Lord, I love you more than I love my sin.
Let me die to myself so that I might live for Jesus. So that I may just lay this filth in my life down, you know, so that I can serve you. And as Christians,
we need to constantly and consistently ask the Lord to aid us from straying into sin,
to humble us in order that we would repent of our sin and profess Christ, that we would be found without transgression, that we would no longer be in fear of God's wrath, but rather that our lives would be a sacrifice to the Lord.
You know, Paul states it this way. He talks about taking the, putting off the old man and putting off the new, but it's the same idea is that whatever, when we were trapped in sin and without God's grace, that, you know, when we were convicted and the Holy Spirit
beckoned us, you know, we've done away with that. Not to say that we won't ever sin again, but we say, Lord, I love you more than I love my sin. I'm going to set this aside, Lord, and I'm going to serve you.
And I'm going to look at your law, and I'm going to know it, and I'm going to love it, and I'm going to worship it, and I'm going to keep it. Because I love you. Because you first loved me.
You know, the words of man, the words of our civil law, they're corruptible. They're fallible. They're errant.
In a culture that claims that truth is subjective, that is a mixture of experience and emotions,
Christians know that simply isn't true. And it isn't true because we have the truth. It's God's word, and it alone is the truth. Only it can bring life from sin.
Humility Before God's Law
Only it can conquer death. And when it comes to God's law, the fact is, we've all fallen short of it. And that should humble us all as sinners, because none of us are worthy of the favor nor the mercy that God has given us. We've all fallen short
in many areas of our lives. Whether it be that we deal with people, our pocketbooks, or our priorities, all of us. However, Christians know that God has also given us the word of life.
And I just love that song that we sang earlier because that's true. We have the word of life. We have Christ, our Lord, who is the living word.
And if we would just repent and turn away from our sin and submit ourselves to His Lordship, we will find life. Michaela's going to come and play Just As I Am this morning and, you know, as she does this.
We're just going to come as we are. And that's it. That's all that we can do, folks. We just come as poor, broken sinners before a mighty, holy, and righteous God.
And I just want you to ask yourself this morning and just think about what I've shared with you and just ask, do I have the words of life in me? Do they abide in my life? And more importantly,
am I doing what Christ commanded? Am I sharing that word of life with others that they too would have it? Think about that. If we have the words of life, how selfish of us to keep them to ourselves.
We need to share it. And I just think about the, you know, I think it's great that James has organized a mission trip that we're going to get to go to Nicaragua and serve and, you know,
hopefully share the word of life with others. And that's wonderful.
We can't keep it to ourselves. And you think about Vacation Bible School and just pray for that, that we would just be able to draw other people here, that they would be able to hear the words of life. If you will,
we'll stand and this will give you a time to respond if you want to come to the altar and pray. If you just want to pray in your pew. If you don't know the word of life, there's no better time than now. Commit yourself to Christ.
Just listen to these words and meditate on them. Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week.
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