A Prayer for Revelation

Last week we started a series titled Prayers in Psalms.

We focused on Psalm 8 and on the fact that that while God’s glory is above the heavens, He is involved with His children.

He treasures you and He thinks about you all the time!

In Psalm chapter 8 David prayed “A Prayer of Wonder”

A Prayer of Wonder meaning to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel.

When he prayed he said 2 things:

1. God matters more than anything (1-3)

2. You matter to God more than anything (4-9)

Psalm 8:1 says,1 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

David talked about God’s glory.

David is overwhelmed by the majesty and greatness of the Almighty, and recognizes God’s global glory.

David concludes verse 1 by saying that God’s glory is way beyond the heavens.

The word “glory” encompasses all of His attributes.

The word literally means, “heavy” and refers to the fact that God is weighty, or awesome.

Today I want to take us to Psalm 19 where David talks once again about God’s glory.

Psalm 19

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

1  The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork.

2  Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge.

3  There is no speech nor language, Where their voice is not heard.

4  ||Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,

5  Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

6  His going forth is from the end of the heaven,

And his circuit unto the ends of it: And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

7  The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

8  The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

9  The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

10  More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

11  Moreover by them is thy servant warned: And in keeping of them there is great reward.

12  Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.

13  Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me: Then shall I be upright, And I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

14  Let the words of my mouth, And the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork.

The word declare speaks to revelation as declaration is a synonym for revelation.

Revelation:

1 a: an act of revealing or communicating divine truth

b: something that is revealed by God to humans

2 a: an act of revealing to view or making known

b: something that is revealed especially : an q enlightening or astonishing disclosure

shocking revelations

c: a pleasant often enlightening surprise

Please keep that in mind as we talk about this Psalm of Revelation.

The beginning of this Psalms reads the witness of creation and the witness in scripture.

The witness of creation is general revelation or natural revelation.

So the revelation of creation is referring to the “world book”.

However, the witness of scripture is referring to almighty God power in creation, it is the “word book”.

Literally the words that god has revealed, which we have in a book which we call the Bible.

We are blessed not to have a suggestion only of his character but his actual words and commands to guide us through his word, through the scriptures.

The Bible gives us specific, accurate information about God; from it, we learn about all his commands for life and fellowship with him.

There is powerful communication by God prior to and during his revelation of scripture.

We have that included in Davids words when he speaks about the witness of creation.

Here it is in Psalm 19:1-4

1  The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork.

2  Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge.

Now how many would agree with me this morning that there is nothing quite like the beauty of a clear sunrise.

As the darkness of night begins to drift away, the first race of the sun peeks out over the horizon, filling the sky with unique colors of light.

It makes you hopeful and renewed as the new day begins.

Now we need the sun to live, see the world around us, and cultivate the land.

It is beautiful but also necessary for our survival.

Possibly inspired by the beautiful nature of something like a sunrise, the Psalmist declares that God's work is so evident in nature, and it is very overwhelming.

Even those who have not heard of God must acknowledge there is a divine creator of all this knowledge who transcends all language and cultural barriers.

God is revealed to us through his creation.

It reminds me of a night when I looked up at the sky and seen the stars.

They looked like they were as far as the eye could see and it was absolutely incredible.

I could imagine David many times as he set there at night keeping the sheep looked up and see the incredible manifestation of God’s glory in the Milky Way.

So in these scriptures he is referring to the vastness of God’s glory in creation.

David goes on to say in verse 3,

3  There is no speech nor language, Where their voice is not heard.

Basically what he is saying, is that when we look up into the stars there is no speech or language as we hear it.

There is no voice as we hear a voice speaking words.

But he goes on to say, there message goes out into all the earth.

Though there are no voiced words, there is a message and that message is that God exists.

Listen to verse 4,

4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,

This is what is called general revelation.

David goes on to correlate that in this Psalm.

But I want to go back to the scripture from last week from the Apostle Paul, I almost think he was thinking about this Psalm when he wrote these words.

Paul wrote this words in Romans 1:20: “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 men are without excuse.”

When I think about this passage I can’t help but focus on God’s eternal power.

I can look at the universe and I can think about his eternal power in creating all of this.

The more you begin to think about this and that beyond the realm we are in, there are millions of galaxies, our mind can’t comprehend the vastness of God’s ability, his mind, or his power in creation.

It’s eternal, his knowledge and power is never ending.

His creation of this earth, day and night, the beast, the fish, the birds, the trees and vegetation, and humanity reflects God’s power because through his spirt, his word, his hands, and his breath he created all that we see around us.

Then this scripture speaks of his divine nature.

How is his divine nature revealed through his creation?

This is my thought, every time a child is born into this world, God is speaking again through creation.

What he did when he created Adam and Eve.

When he created humanity.

Because when you look into the face of a little child, and you look in to the eyes of a little child and you connect soul-to-soul you will see purity and the image of God.

Now it doesn’t take long for the of this world and the innateness and sin begins to reflect itself.

But every time a child is born God is using that child to reveal to us his nature but sadly we often ignore that.

So in this scripture we have the witness of creation but that has it’s limitation.

Because of the witness of creation has it’s limitation, God begin to speak with words which we call scriptures.

There at Mount Sinai he spoke and recorded the 10 commandments.

Then God called and inspired Mose to record the first five books of the Bible.

Then God spoke through the prophets, all the prophets in the Old Testament.

Then Go spoke through his disciples, the Apostles to give us the New Testament.

God did all of this because he wants us to have His full revelation, not just in nature but through his written, his special revelation in scripture.

All of this revelation points to his special revelation in Jesus Christ.

That is God’s greatest revelation.

You say what is that revelation?

That revelation is that God fully manifested himself through Christ to his creation for the purpose of redemption.

That through the first man Adam sin entered into this world but through the second man Adam, Jesus Christ, who was almighty God the creator manifested in the flesh, Jesus was the living word made less and he destroyed sin because of his blood sacrifice and his death burial and resurrection.

Now the only way to understand this revelation and the only way to understand the character or attributes of God we have to pray for revelation.

What do we need to pray for God to reveal to us?

We need to pray and ask God to revel himself to us through his word, through scriptures.

Through the scriptures he wants to reveal to us his law which is his instruction and his testimony.

7  The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

Through the scriptures he wants to reveal to us his laws and his commandments.

8  The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

Through the scriptures, he wants to reveal to us his judgements.

9  The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Now through his scriptures he wants to understand that there is beauty in the revelation of scripture.

He said in verse 7 that the instruction God’s lawis Perfect and his testimony is trustworthy.

He said in verse 8 that his law is Right and his commandments are Pure and eye opening.

He said in verse 9 that his judgements are true.

Then David goes on to give us the purpose of the revelation of God’s word, the scriptures.

Why do we need scripture and revelation.

What is there purpose and how do they impact our lives?

Verse 7 says it converts our soul which means it renews our life.

Verse 7 also says it will make the the wise simple which means he will take those things that are difficult to understand and make them simple through revelation.

Verse 8 says that revelation will make the heart glad and our eyes light up, meaning it will bring us joy.

All of this reminds me of the scripture Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

That means revelation.

Hebrews 4:12 echos this, when it says, 12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

That is a powerful reference to God’s specific revelation and why God revealed himself to us in a book called the Bible.

He did that in order that we might come to know him and learn to walk in his will.

That is the whole purpose of God’s word.

He doesn’t want it to be hidden from us, he wants to reveal it to us.

When we have a revelation of God’s word we become to realize that we are not perfect and yes we sin, but we can have eternal life!

The word of God gives us answers to life that no other book, no other philosopher, no other message can give.

So how do we get that revelation?

Well I am glad you asked.

Let’s read the rest of the chapter.

10  More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

11  Moreover by them is thy servant warned: And in keeping of them there is great reward.

He is talking about God’s law or instruction, God’s testimony, and his commandments.

He says they should men more to us than any provision in this world.

He says they should be more desirable than anything else in this world.

He says if we keep them we are warned against falling into the trap of sin in this world and if we keep them we have a great reward.

That reward is eternal life with him in heaven!

12  Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.

13  Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me: Then shall I be upright, And I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

14  Let the words of my mouth, And the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.