Psalm 19

There was a day when God walked with man in the garden, and man heard the voice of God. In that day, there was perfect peace between man and God. Man understood what his Lord said, and God was pleased with man.

Then sin entered the world, and with sin came death. Death did not come as a matter of mechanical necessity or as a force of nature. Death came by the judgment of God. The world that we live in now feels a portion of the weight of divine displeasure that has come against us because of Adam's sin. A significant aspect of our current trouble has to do with our separation from God and His Voice.

Yet God has left us more than one testimony from His own glorious place of sovereign rule that we can and must listen to. The first testimony we call natural or general revelation. The second is special revelation, now given to us in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

No one can miss the natural revelation of God. It is all around us. The heavens declare the glory of God. They speak a question to every human being on the planet: “Who made us?” There is a story that the oceans tell. We could hear from God in the variety of the creatures and environments that He has created and sustains. But above them all we have the stars and the planets, and they speak to us. They insist that the proudest man who is most convinced of his own great abilities must confess that he could not do what God has done.

We should be humbled by this great Voice of natural revelation, and we should seek the Author of all things. The song of the stars is easily ignored by the busy man who has no time to look up at the sky and to consider. After years of ignoring the message that would have added depth to his being, now he has learned the habit of not seeing, not feeling, and not thinking.

He cheats himself out of so much joy. A wonderful story is being told over and over again, but he will not listen. God is continuously proclaimed in the things He has made, but who has time to hear? Perhaps there are those who listen in far-off lands. There is no doubt that the same story is being brilliantly told from pole to pole.

Consider the sun around which the earth revolves. Because of our planet's rotation on its own axis in space, we see the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. He is like a strong warrior, a runner, a bridegroom seeking his new bride. He leaves his tent in the morning and does not stop until he has arrived at his destination. Everyone knows him, but no man can stop him. He goes forth every day with confidence and joy. We are blessed by his light and heat as he pursues his daily assignment. But who made him, this sun, that does us so much good? And this is just one star in the vast skies.

This natural revelation is not the only way that God testifies to us of His existence and His glory. Since the days of our ancestors, the voice of the Lord has come to those who worship God. That voice came little by little and in various ways when God spoke in the Old Testament era to the Hebrews through appointed messengers. God gave Israel the Law, He recorded their history, He spoke words of profound wisdom, and He gave them prophets who taught of a Messiah and a better kingdom that would be established.

In these covenant documents recorded for His people in written form, God was pleased to reveal answers to them that they never could have discovered by examining nature. What has gone wrong with this world? Will God fix the problem? Will the ultimate plan of God touch my life? The Lord has revealed precious promises to those who worship Him. In doing this He has taught us about Himself, and about His plan to unite all things in His Son, things in heaven and things on earth.

After the coming of this great Son and the establishment of the worldwide kingdom of God in His church, God has given us a new revelation. The completed Scriptures confirm the fulfillment of the promises revealed earlier to Israel. The One who is the Word of God has come, and He has brought us salvation through His blood.

Together these testaments are the authoritative documents of the church. Whatever else may seem to divide us in our varied religious traditions and philosophical and practical debates, we have sixty-six books from heaven given through men.

This revelation of the Lord is perfect. It is a great help to the downcast. It brings wisdom to all kinds of people everywhere. It is what we need to make broken hearts rejoice again. Through these words of prophets and apostles we have something beyond the opinions of men. We have the written Word of God. In that Word we see the way of purity for the redeemed of the Lord. How can a man be declared pure in Jesus? How can he grow in his experience of purity? The Scriptures will give him the answer.

Better to have the authoritative message of our Savior through the Scriptures than to be the richest man on earth. But we need this Word to be living and active. We know how skillfully we learned to ignore natural revelation. Won't we just do the same thing with the Bible? The Son of God, who is the Word, enlivens the special revelation of God through His own Spirit. In Him we learn to love the truth that we would run from because of our sin.

May the Lord cause us to hear His voice in nature and especially in the Scriptures, and may we rejoice in the One who is the living Word, who is our only hope in both life and death. And may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in the sight of our Rock and our Redeemer.