Sermon Tone Analysis

*6 Attributes of the Nature of Scripture*

*Psalms 19:7-14*

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When the guys from Samara contacted us and said that they wanted to join us today, they asked if I would preach on one of my favorite Psalms because they thought this would be a special encouragement to the men there and the pastors there who were gathered.

And it is Psalm 19.

Through the years, I have preached many times on this Psalm, many places in the world.

And it is certainly one of my favorites.

My problem with this Psalm, however, is that we have a little bit of an abbreviated time this morning and I don't have an abbreviated message on it.

But we'll make due with whatever time we have.

And again, I want to say, what a joy it is to have this service with our dear friends in Samara and I'm happy to draw your attention to this Psalm.

You could sort of divide my life up into little segments in which I have battled for the Word of God.

First great battle was over the inerrancy of scripture.

The inerrancy of scripture - that is that it is without error.

Spent about ten years in that battle in the inerrancy council.

And the end of that was a Chicago statement on Biblical inerrancy which has become the definitive statement on inerrancy.

After battling over the issue of the inerrancy of scripture, we then fought for a number of years on the completeness of scripture, battling all of those new revelations and new visions and new words from the Lord that characterize the charismatic movement and wrote on that subject extensively and interacted and engaged myself in trying to defend the fact that the scripture is the only revelation of God, not to be diminished and not to be added to.

Anybody adding to the scriptures added the plagues that are in it.

And then there was the issue of the relevance of scripture and it is really relevant.

Psychology swept into the church and the scriptures seemed to need to bow its knee to the relevancy of psychology and so we were engaged in that.

And then it was the sufficiency of scripture - is it really enough?

Does it contain enough to do all that's needed in the life of an individual.

And now there's another war raging on the clarity of scripture.

There are many who say it's not clear.

We can't know what it means, so let's not get carried away trying to explain it.

Seems like, as Thomas Watson said, "The devil is always trying to blow out the light of scripture one way or another."

And there is, in Psalm 19, this massive testimony to the glory and the power and the relevance and the comprehensiveness and the sufficiency and the clarity of scripture.

And if anyone is going to live the scripture and particularly going to preach the scripture, you need to do so with this confidence in mind.

And this text is the greatest summation of the power of the Word of God anywhere in the Bible.

It is really a small condensed version of Psalm 119 which has 176 verses, saying essential what this text says.

Now I want to look, because our time is limited, beginning at verse 7, beginning at verse 7.  In the opening six verses, you have the revelation of God in creation.

Verse 1 the heavens are telling the glory of God, their expanse is declaring the work of his hands.

God has revealed himself in creation.

Every day, day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor are there words, yet where their voice is not heard.

In other words, God declares himself in his creation every day and every night relentlessly.

The vastness of the universe, all the life that it contains, all the laws that cause it to operate inexorably are a testimony and a manifestation of the glory of God.

It even goes on to talk about the sun moving from one end of the universe to the other.

The sun has its own orbit and with it drags the entire solar system.

This massive testimony to the existence of God, to his eternal power and godhead as Romans 1 puts it.

This is general revelation theologians call it.

But beyond that, is the necessity of special revelation.

Only in special revelation can we know the gospel.

General revelation is in the creation.

Special revelation is in the scripture - in the scripture.

And we see that outlines for us beginning in verse 7.  "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring 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 clear, pure or clear enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

The judgment of the Lord are true.

They are righteous altogether."

Six statements - two in verse seven, two in verse eight,  and two in verse nine.

Six titles for scripture, law, testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, and judgments.

Six characteristics of scripture.

It is perfect, sure, right, clear, clean and true.

Six effects, it restores the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, endures forever and produces comprehensive righteousness.

Here again, God, with an astounding and supernatural economy of words sums up everything that needs to be said about the power and sufficiency, the comprehensiveness and completeness of scripture.

I just want to take you through these six statements and then the responses that begin in verse 10.

Notice please, first of all, that all six have the phrase, "of the Lord".

Six times, "of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord," just in case someone might question the source.

This is the law of the Lord.

This is the testimony of the Lord and so forth.

This has divine origin.

It is the inspired revelation of the Lord God himself.

And as you break it down and look at each of these phrases, you begin to accumulate a sense of the power and the greatness of scripture.

Take the first one in verse 7.  "The law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul."

The word law looks at scripture as God's law for man's conduct.

How we are on this earth to live our lives.

If you will, this is sort of the manual on maximum human behavior.

In other words, if you want to enjoy life in the fullest sense that God has designed it, then you follow his law.

His law is the binding standard by which we are to live.

He says it is perfect.

Many years ago, I looked that Hebrew word up and traced it around a bunch of lexicons trying to figure out what was really there.

I think I spent about three or four hours on that one word.

And at the end of it all I decided that what it really means is perfect, that the translation was exactly accurate.

But perfect has to be defined a little bit.

Perfect, not in the sense of flawless, although that is absolutely true, but perfect in the sense of completeness.

That is to say it is all-sided.

One lexicon calls it all-sided so as to cover all aspects of something.

That is comprehensive.

It leaves nothing out.

It's purity comes later in these statements.

It is clean and it is clear.

Those are indications of its purity.

But here it's its comprehensiveness.

It is sweeping and complete and leaves nothing out.

The effect of this is to restore the soul.

The word restore basically means to transform.

In fact, it can mean to totally transform.

And the word soul, nefesh, is in contrast to another word which means body.

This means the inner person.

You could take the Hebrew word nefesh and trace it through the Old Testament and you will find that in the typical English Bible, this word is translated by anywhere depending on the version you're using from say 18 to 22 different English words.

Sometimes mind, sometimes person, sometimes soul, but it always means the inner person.

It always means the inner person, the eternal person, the you that never dies.

And so what is the statement saying?

Scripture, here called the law of the Lord - that is one way to view it.

That is one of the facets of the diamond of scripture.

Looking at it as God's instruction for man's life, this is fully complete and comprehensive so as to totally transform the whole inner person.

That's what it's saying.

It is a sweeping statement about the Bible's power to convert, to transform, to regenerate by the work of the spirit of God through its own testimony.

1 Peter 1 says that we have been begotten again by the word of truth.