The God Who Speaks

Intro

Say something, I’m giving up on you

I’ll be the one, if you want me to

Anywhere, I would’ve followed you

Say something, I’m giving up on you.

Those are the lines to a pop song written by “A Great Big World” and later recorded with Christina Augilera. ANd the song is about a relationship that’s coming apart and communication has been replaced by silence. And there’s this final attempt to reconcile to fix it, if at all possible—Say something I’m giving up on you

THere’s a lot of people that echo those sentiments when it comes to God— “God if you would just say something!”

Speak to me! Isaiah the prophet said “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.” Have you ever felt that in your Christian life?

Well in Psalm 19 David says “God has spoken and God still speaks.” Now the structure this Psalm is basically in three parts. We’re given two ways that God speaks—in the skies and in the Scripture, and then we hear what David says in response.

Basically David looks up to the heavens. He looks down to the Word. Then he looks into his soul. But as he looks, he’s also listening, because God is speaking. And so we need to listen as well.

Sometimes we’re too busy shouting “Say something” to notice that God is saying “HEAR SOMETHING!”

But when we stop to listen, this is what we’ll hear: In the voice of the heavens we hear of his glory. In the voice of the Scriptures, we hear of his goodness, and in the voice of the servant we hear of his grace. So let’s look at each of those things in turn.

The voice of the heavens

For thousands of years people have wonder “Is there anybody up there, and if so, who is he?”

A few years ago in the news there was this segment about how mankind is listening to the universe and they have this huge “ear” this radio telescope. It’s the largest on earth. It’s called the Green Bank Observatory.

It’s so huge that you could drop a 60,000 seat stadium inside of it. Enormous. ANd it’s listening to frequencies from outer space to get some kind of signal. And to make sure they don’t miss anything, it has to be exceptionally quiet in the Green Bank area. So for miles around it you can’t use a cell phone, you can’t use wifi you can’t turn on a radio in your car.

One of the workers was being interviewed and they said “You know, you wonder how all those stars got up there. And why are they there? And where did they come from? WHich leads you to ask, “Where did I come from?” ANd those are all great questions. And those are the kinds of questions that the heavens—the sky and the stars are meant to have you ask.

In Psalm 19 David says the heavens are declaring something, they’re preaching a cosmic sermon. They’re preaching on the glory of God.

The root behind the word for ‘glory’ has to do with ‘weight,’ and so used of a person could refer to someone who is ‘weighty,’ i.e., important and impressive. But ‘glory’ can also refer to the evidence and outward display that goes with such importance . So the heavens tell us how weighty and impressive and powerful God is and the skies speak of ‘the work of his hands.’

This points us to what philosophers call the “Teleological argument” for the existence of God. That when you see the design in something, when you see the purpose of something, then there must have been a “Designer” or a “Purposer”

A few weeks ago, we looked at Psalm 8 and there David ponders the stars. In Psalm 19, he ponders the sun. So let’s just think about the sun for a moment. The surface of the sun is 12,000 degrees fareheit. And planet earth is 93 million miles away.

Do you know that if Earth, were any closer or any further from the sun, we’d all be dead. We’d be too close and we’d burn up or we’d be too far away and we’d freeze to death.

Is that just a coincedince? Just a fortuitous accident? No. The sun in the sky and all the heavenly bodies, planets, stars, etc are preaching to us of the glory of God. That as amazing as they may be the one who made them must be greater.

The heavens are preaching one constant sermon.

It may not be easy to tell in our English translations, but the verbs in verse 1 are participles which mean it’s continuing action. As if to say “The heavens keep on declaring” and the sky continues to proclaim, which is confirmed by verse 2, saying 365 days a year and 365 nights a year this goes on. This sermon keeps “pouring out” It’s like Creation cannot contain itself. Its constantly proclaiming the glory of God.

Psalm 19:2 ESV

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

Even the number of days in a year proclaims God’s greatness. 365 days our earth rotates as it revolves around the sun. You ever wondered why 365? Why not 30?

Well if it only rotated 30x the days and nights would be 10x longer and there would be alternate freezing and cooling and carbon based life as we know it could not be sustained on this planet. Again, this reveals the glory of God in his incredible design.

It’s not just constant. It’s comprehensive.

Psalm 19:3–4 (ESV)

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.

He’s saying the voice of the heavens, the glory of God is heard in every language. There’s no distance or difficulty that keeps the sun from communicating.

Is there anyone who doesn’t see the light of the sun? It shines on every corner of the globe with such power that we can’t look at it.

The earth receives 120,000 terawatts of energy from the sun every day. How much is that? Picture Niagara Falls flowing at full force.

Now multiply the height of the falls by 20—over half a mile of falling water.

Now multiply the flow by 10—instead of 30 tons of water falling over each meter of the falls every second, picture 300 tons of water per meter.

Finally, widen the falls. Stretch them until they span a continent, with trillions of tons of water falling over them every second. And don’t stop there—widen them until they stretch all around the equator: a kilometer-high wall of water thundering down incessantly, cutting the world in half.

That is what 120,000 terawatts looks like.6 That is what the sun constantly pours out on our planet every day. And God created it!

But it’s also incomplete.

David notices something as he listens to this voice of the heavens. He says you know the heavens speak, but they don’t tell you everything you need to know. It doesn’t tell you the whole story. There are certain things that the heavens can’t tell you about God. They can’t tell you about his love, they can’t tell you about his grace, can’t tell you about his mercy or judgement. But when we look into his word, that’s where we learn of those things. So listen now to the voice of the Word.

The Voice of the Word

I mentioned last week that because the Psalms are poems, you often find poetic imagery. There will be images described that are less interested in giving precise definitions for things, but are intended to evoke emotions or feelings. Well there’s another literary feature that you find in the Psalms and it shows up in this Psalm frequently.

Where in English poetry, it’s often structured around rhyme, (Jack and Jill) Hebrew poetry, like you find in the Psalms is structured around restatement.

So what you often see is like what you find in verse Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” You’ve got one line that gives an idea and then a second line that restates it but in slightly different words. And the restatement gives a little more flavor or nuance. But then sometimes you don’t just have a pair of lines that center around one idea, but you have several pairs of lines.

Psalm 19:7–9 (ESV)

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.

Each of these phrases “Law, testimony, etc” is referring to God’s word. No as David’s writing these things, he doesn’t have the whole Old Testament, because it’s not all been written yet. And he certainly doesn’t have the NT because it hasn’t happened yet. So what he’s got in front of him is the Law, the 5 books of Moses. But that’s enough to tell him some very important things about God.

The word of God tells us of his character.

If you see each of those aspects of the word of God and you see how they’re described here you notice something very special is happening. If you were to just look at those descriptors at the end of each line, you’d have to ask yourself what are those words describing?

PERFECT. . . . SURE. . . RIGHT. . . PURE. . . CLEAN. . . TRUE. . .RIGHTEOUS ALL TOGETHER. If you didn’t know those words were describing the WORD of God, what or who would you think they were describing? God, himself. He’s the one perfect, pure, sure, etc. . .

That’s the whole point, this is the law of the Lord, this is the testimony of THE LORD, the commandments of THE LORD. This is HIS WORD TO us to tell us of himself.

In revelation (whether it’s the general revelation that comes from creation or the special revlation of His word), God is the agent as well as the object. It is not just that men speak about God, or for God; God speaks for Himself, and talks to us in person.

J. I. Packer

A lot of people think that the Bible is just a bunch of rules for goody-two-shoes to stay on the right side of God, but it’s so much more than that. It tells us of his character, his grace, his mercy, his justice, and love. In a word, it’s his goodness—his rightness and kindness.

And we see that not just in the character that’s revealed in his word, but also in his care.

Look at what David says the word does, what it’s purpose is:

Psalm 19:7 says it “revives the soul”

Verse 8. The testimony f the Lord is sure, to what end? Making wise the simple The wisest creator of the Universe has given us directions. I know its an oversimplification, but it’s not false when people say that B I B L E is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

The precepts of the Lord are right, to what end? REJOICING the heart. Isn’t it something that God gives us his word, not simply to strengthen us, not merely to show us what is right, but that we would have joy. I wonder if you think of God’s words as a means to your joy?

The Psalmist goes on, the Word of God enlightens the eyes, it endures forever, it warns us. It says walk this way and not that way. It says if you live like this, here will be the consequence. It keeps us from sin. I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said one of two things will happen. Either the Bible will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the Bible.

Do you see how in revealing his glory in his Word, God is revealing to us his heart? It’s shows us his character, it shows us his care.

There was a youth pastor sometime ago who wanted to impress his students with how much the word of God speaks of his care. So he gathered the teens in a circle, put a chair in the middle, and handed out Bible verses printed on cards to everyone in the circle.

The person sitting in the middle chair was blindfolded and asked to tell the group some problem he or she was experiencing. Then, someone in the circle was supposed to read an applicable Bible verse that dealt with the problem.

The idea was that because the person in the middle chair was blindfolded, he or she would perceive the verse being read as though God himself was speaking through the words of Scripture. The youth leader thought this was a really clever idea. The kids thought it was really dumb. None of them would talk about a problem more significant than how to get an A on Mrs. Bailey’s math quizzes—and there really wasn’t a good Bible verse for that. The whole thing was going miserably, and giggles rather than the voice of God predominated.

Then a new girl, who had been sitting on the outskirts, volunteered to sit in the middle. The giggling subsided a bit as she was blindfolded because no one knew her well enough to tease her.

Then she spoke: “I am so miserable. I don’t know if I can stand my life anymore.” No one knew what to say or do; most just looked down in embarrassment. But one boy looking down saw the verse in his hand and read, “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Cor. 10:13 NIV 1984).

“No one cares for me,” said the girl. But then another girl in the circle read, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jer. 31:3 NIV).

“You don’t understand,” said the girl in the blindfold with a voice now desperate. “My parents kicked me out last night and said, ‘Never come back!’” Then someone read, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).

They took the blindfold off the girl. She was crying and through her tears asked, “Why doesn’t God really talk to me that way?” The youth pastor responded, “He just did. Because the Bible is inspired, it is God’s very Word. God did really speak to you with those verses.”257

So many people say things like “I just wish God would speak to me.” I wish I could hear what he wanted me to do . I wish I could hear how he wanted me to live. And all the while their Bible sits at home. Or in their car. Or on a desk and it collects dust and they say “I guess God just doesn’t speak.”

Friends do you want to hear God speak? Open your Bible. Read your bible. You wanna God speak in an audible voice. Read your Bible OUT LOUD. Or use the Bible app that will play it out loud. I mean you can have James Earl Jones read the bible for you or somebody else if the words themselves aren’t enough to impress you.

But it goes the other way too. Somebody says “I hear God speak all the time.” Really? How do you know? Well, I just know his voice. how do you know its his voice? Does it challenge you to love in sacrificial ways? Does it call you to holiness that requires dying to your selfish ways? Or does he say things like “Do what makes you feel good.” Does he say “You be you.” Or “You only live once.” Or some other gibberish?

If it defies the word of God, I can tell you it’s not God’s voice. He’s not going to tell you to do something that opposes what hes already told you to do in your word. If it’s not something opposed to what his word says, IT MIGHT BE GOD’s Word. But it might just be you talking. The only way that you can be 100% is if it comes from God’s word.

Now somebody might say, “Well I don’t need the Bible, I’ve got Jesus.” And whenever I live for him or live like him or love like him, I hear him speak. Ok But do you know what JEsus said about the Bible?

He said in John 10 that Scripture CANNOT be broken.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19 ““Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

How do we know Jesus—what Jesus is like, what Jesus has done, what Jesus expects without the Word of God? You can’t get that from the stars. You can’t get that from the sun or from creation or from any of his creatures. They only way we can get this is from His word.

And if all this is true—if in the word we hear the voice of God—we hear of his character and his care of us. And if it’s there that we learn of his Christ who is for us. And if this word revives us, if it redirects us and rejuvenates us it warns us, then verse 10 makes perfect sense.

Psalm 19:10 (ESV)

More to be desired are God’s words than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey

and drippings of the honeycomb.

How much of God’s charcter do we need to see? How much of his care do we need to read of, how much of what Jesus said do we need to know before we value God’s word more than gold more than food more than entertainment or success or serenity or anything else? This is the voice of God’s word.

The Voice of the Servant

Now notice what happens in this Psalm. David has commented on the voice of the heavens. He’s been captivated by the voice of the scriptures. And now we actually hear his voice. His response to what he’s heard.

We recognize our sin

Or here’s another way to think about it. He looks into the heavens and goes “WOW!!!!” He looks into the Scriptures and goes “AMAZING!!” And he looks at himself and says “YUCK!!” After seeing the glory of God in creation and the goodness of God in the Word, he looks at himself and he recognizes something in himself.—his own need for grace.

Psalm 19:12-13 “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.”

In verse 12, I want to be careful to point out, he’s not talking about God’s errors—he’s talking about the servant’s errors. He says in verse 11 by the word of God, the servant is warned. Then in verse 12 he says “WHo can discern the servant’s errors.

He recognizes that his life is characterized by errors, by faults, by sins. Some faults that are hidden—hidden from his own mind—sins he did without even thinking about it or being aware of it. You can pulled over for speeding even if you didn’t know you were speeding. Did you know that? You probably knew that right. Not by personal experience but by something a friend told you… You can sin against God without knowing it was a sin.There are wrongs that we simply have not detected; they have not come up on our conscious radar. I am simply not sharp enough to see and expose all my guilt. Once you recognize this you won’t be plagued by the fantasy of perfectionism. The truth is you have no idea how sinful you are.

But there’s also presumptuous sins as the ESV describes them. Or arrogant sins. Or haughty sins. Sins that you knew were sinful but you did them anyway. Or things you knew you should have done but didn’t do.

So what does David say “Pardon me from secret sin and protect me from willful sin.” Why does he say that, because he recognizes his sin. He knows he’s guilty even if he doesn’t know everything he’s guilt of. He knows the power that sin can have—even willfull, high handed sin.

The sin we think we could never stoop to.

Or that sin we tell ourselves we would never do again.

We repent and want to please God.

Once we recognize what’s going on. When we stop shouting “GOD SAY SOMETHING!” long enough to hear him say “I have. Hear something! I’ve already spoken. I’ve been speaking. I will continue to speak.” When we hear the glory of God in the heavens. When we hear the goodness of God in the Word we recognize that more than anything, we need the grace of God. So we cry out in recognition of our sin and then what do we do? We repent. We want to please God. David says Psalm 19:14 “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” I’ve heard your voice and I’ve seen your heart and I want to be like you. I want to speak like you speak. I want my heart to reflect your heart. I want to care about the things you care about.

Let me illustrate really simply and then I’ll be done.

You ever listen to the radio in the car? Not XM satelite or some pre-recorded podcast or playlist but like a local radio station? And you’re driving in the car and the music’s going but the further you get out of town, something happens (STATIC). And the further you get from that radio tower the more you hear it. And before long, that’s all you hear. White noise. That ever happen?

If you want to finish the song, what do you? you have to turn around. Repent, that’s the Bible word. You have to turn around and drive toward the signal. And as you drive toward the signal, the music gets strong again.

It’s the same concept here. The further you drift from God, the weaker the sound. You’ve probably heard the old saying “If you feel far from God, WHO’S MOVED?” You’ve been driving the other direction. So you turn around and you drive back toward the signal. Or in the words of James “You draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”

Imagine for just a moment, I’m preaching this morning and there are two teenage girls sitting in the back of the room and theyv’e been talking and laughing the whole service and at some point I just sick of it. And so I stop what i’m doing and say “THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE HERE THIS MORNING WHO HAVENT HEARD A WORD I’VE SAID.” Now the rest of you don’t see those two girls in the back. You dont know what’s going on and you just hear my frustration. There’s a couple people who haven’t listned to a word I’m saying. And after the service I’m out in the lobby and a few of you come to me and apologize for falling asleep during the message.

I might be a pro at putting people to sleep, but what I say isn’t important. What God is telling you is ALL IMPORTANT. It is always all-important when God is speaking. What is God saying?

I look at the heavens—Awesome! God is glorious.

I look at His word! Incredible! God is oh so good.

I look at myself and i see the need for his grace. So I turn the car around and move toward the signal.

Some of you this morning, you’re right where you need to be. The signal is strong and clear. You hear God’s word, you’re marveling at his goodness and you’re moving in grace.

Others of you, the signal’s coming in poorly. You’re a long way from where you need to be. The truth of God’s word is just white noise to you and you’re still headed in the wrong direction. You need to turn around.

But to everyone of us, the voice of glory and goodness and grace is speaking to us. Whereever you are and is simply asking. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?