Well, we are through our series in Acts, and we're not quite ready to start our next series in Ecclesiastes, so sometimes it's helpful simply to remember that the best way to impact people to submit to the Lord is for us to see His glory and then to show his glory to others. Last week we talked about Isaiah 6 and how it was quoted by both John in his gospel and by Paul at the end of Acts. When Isaiah saw the glory of God, what did he realize? He said, I am an unworthy man of unclean lips. And when the apostle John saw Christ in his glory in Revelation chapter one, John fell down as if dead before him. So in light of that, I would like to take you through a passage today that reveals for us the glory of God. This is Psalm 19, Psalm 19. To the choir master, a Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 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. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. 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. 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. Well, you can see here, as I already said, the theme of this psalm is the glory of God. And we see this in three mini sections within the psalm, verses one through six, which display God's glory revealed in creation. Then verses seven through 11, which display God's glory revealed in his word. And then verses 12 through 14, which is how the psalmist responded in prayer as a response to that revelation of God's glory. Now, before we dive into the details of how Psalm 19 reveals the glory of God, I do want to show you briefly where this Psalm sits in the structure of the Psalms as a whole. You might never have realized this, but the Psalms are arranged in our Bibles with an intentional structure. They were almost certainly compiled this way after they'd all been written and compiled perhaps by someone like the priest Ezra upon the Jews' return from exile. There are five books contained within the Psalm. You see at the very beginning of Psalm, if you turn to Psalm 1, you'll see it says Book 1. Well, you'll also see if you go to Psalm 42, it then says Book 2. Book 3 begins at Psalm 73, Book 4 begins at Psalm 90, and Book 5 begins at Psalm 107. And at the beginning of all that, you have the first two Psalms, which sit as both an introduction and a messianic orientation to the entire book. And I can't take time today to go over the structure of the whole book in any more detail than that. I might consider doing that if I decide not to jump into Ecclesiastes right away. I might consider doing another psalm or two and we'll see if we can talk more about the structure. But that's enough for now. Let's focus in just a little bit more on the smaller section that Psalm 19 is a part of. And Psalm 19 sits at the center of what we call a chiasm. A chiasm is just simply a fancy name for a poetical structure that comes in from two ends and focuses on a center and then goes out again. And it's named that way because it looks just like the Greek letter chi, or chi if you want to say it that way, which looks just like our letter X. It moves in towards the center and then moves out. This sits at the center of a chiasm whose outer ends are Psalm 15 and Psalm 24. So if you were to compare, say, the first three verses of Psalm 15, which begin, O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right. Well, compare that to say verses three through five of Psalm 24 on the other end, Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart and so forth. So if you compare the rest of the Psalms moving in from those two endpoints, you will continue to see somewhat similar themes that pertain to different aspects of the life of David and David's deliverance by the Lord, his role as king, and then at the center of all that, At the center of the section of Psalms about David's life and kingship, we see Psalm 19, a psalm extolling the glory of God. The glory of God is at the center of David's rise to the throne. And we can't really talk too much more about the structure of the Psalms, but I wanted to orient you that way. This is already going to be a little bit of a longish message. We're going to camp for a little while in the first six verses, the glory of God revealed in creation. You'll see why a little later, and then we'll start going through it quite a bit quicker after that. So, the glory of God in creation. Well, verse 1, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Well, how do the heavens declare the glory of God? Because God created them. We know Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. John Calvin, in his famous work, The Institutes, calls God's creation the theater of God's glory, the theater of God's glory. But it's not just some generic God, and it isn't even just the Father. We learn in the New Testament from scriptures like John 1, verse 3, that all things were made through the Logos, the Word of God, Jesus. Without Him, nothing was made that was made. We see it also in Colossians 1.16, which Rob read for us earlier. By Him, by the beloved Son of God, the image of the invisible God, by Jesus Christ, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. So all things were created by Jesus Christ and through Him and for Him. But as we talked a little bit about last week, since all the acts of our triune God are of one inseparable will, there's not three wills in God, there's one, even though there are three persons, the Spirit was involved in creation as well. And we see that in Genesis 1, verse 2, where it says the Spirit was hovering over the waters. The Spirit of God was present and active in the act of creation, that divine act. In theological terms, we say that the Father acts through the Son and by the Spirit. The triune God acting as three persons completely sharing one nature and one will. But not only did He create all things, the New Testament likewise reveals that God's glory and His power are displayed in His creation. If you would like, you may turn with me to Romans 1. And I'll just caution you that I'm going to be returning a bit to this material more than once. And I'm gonna read just these first three verses of Romans one, sorry, not first three, but verses 18 through 20 of Romans one. 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 in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. Well, it's been incredibly popular in Western culture for the past two centuries to deny God's role in creation. We could talk about scientists from the past two centuries like Charles Darwin and others who insisted that the earth had to be millions of years old. Now they say billions. And humans must have descended from other lower life forms like chimpanzees and so forth. More recently, you have popular astronomers like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson and others who have promoted an atheistic Big Bang that supposedly occurred, well, it's increasing now, 18, 19 billion years ago, they say. What's the purpose of ideas like these that have been promoted for the past 200 years? The purpose is to deny God the glory due him in his creation by attempting to deny his role as creator. Romans 1.18 says such people are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness because God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in his creation. Well, if you think about this, isn't it interesting that two people, same, they can be standing in the same spot, looking up into the same exact sky, see whatever, you know, we just had a full moon a few nights ago, see the stars, you might even see the comet that's been around recently, you see all that, and one of them can say, I see the glory of God. And another person can say, well, all I see is that everyone and everything is just a tiny, meaningless speck in a vast, overwhelming, impersonal universe. Why do we see such a difference? Well, one of them is rightfully acknowledging the glory of God. The other has been led down that road of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. And as we just read in Romans 1, they've been willingly led down that road. I mean, some more so than others, more willing than others, some are less aware of it than others, but still, according to God's word, they've been led down that road of suppressing the truth willingly. So that's what it means in verse two, when verse says, day to day pours out speech. and night to night reveals knowledge. I'm gonna skip over verse three, then the first half of verse four. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. The revelation of God's divine nature and his eternal power are all right there for everyone who has ever lived to see and therefore to give glory due. No man has an excuse for denying God as creator. This happens day after day, night after night. There is no day when the sun doesn't rise, traverse the heavens, and then set. There's no night when darkness doesn't reveal stars and the changing of the seasons. Why can you depend on all that happening tomorrow? Because God has ordained it that way. God set it up that way. Now, and I know we've talked about this recently, but it bears repeating again, especially in this context, just because it's always happened that way in your past experience, that's no sure foundation for your assumption that it will always continue to happen that way. The only good foundation, the only possible foundation for that assumption is that God has ordained it to be so. That's how he's created the universe to run. And we see this in scripture. We see this way back in Genesis 8, verse 22. God is speaking to Noah after the flood. He says, while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. The only reason you can count on that progression, that day and night, the sun will come up tomorrow. Winter will progress after summer, which is after spring. Excuse me, after fall too. God has declared it to be so. See, you knew what was wrong with that. Why? Because it always happens that way. And actually, as we begin to feel another winter setting in, rather, than get discouraged, which it's so easy for us to do, certainly easy for me to do, to be discouraged by these temperatures and ice on the roads. Well, let's remind ourselves, as I reminded myself two days ago, winter once again following after fall and summer, that is a sign of God's faithfulness to his word. Additionally, it's a sign of his sovereignty over his creation. He's the one who has all control. That's how we know he can keep his promise. Winter setting in upon us is a sign to us of God's faithfulness and his sovereignty. I hope that's as much of an encouragement to you as it is to me. So, continuing on then in verse four, going through verse six. In them, in the heavens, he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. 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. Well, up until this point, the psalmist has spoken just about the heavens in general, but now we see a shift here to a specific focus on the sun. Well, that's understandable. From the perspective of the earth, the sun is the most dominant object in the heavens. When it's visible, you can't hardly see anything else. in the sky, no stars, no planets, nothing else in the heavens. Sometimes you can just kind of see the moon depending on where the moon is. Nothing else in the heavens is visible when our sun is in the sky. And we know that the sun brings warmth, it brings the necessary heat and light for us to survive on this planet. It's obvious that the sun is the most prominent aspect of the visible heavens. And nothing is hidden from its heat, nothing on earth. All the earth experiences the heat and light of the sun to different degrees and different proportions. But that's why so many ancient cultures worshipped the sun itself. But because of God's revelation, we see God created the place for the sun to dwell. He has pitched a tent in the heavens for the sun. God's the one who set the sun in its place. God's the one who, by the sunlight, created the process of photosynthesis so that plants on earth could receive that very sunlight and turn it into energy for their own nourishment. God's the one who designed plants to take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, while we take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. In this beautiful living feedback cycle, it truly displays the silliness of things we see in our culture today, like carbon capture. Using carbon dioxide that has been produced in the energy processes and spending an ungodly amount of money and energy to compress it and to ship it by pipeline, to bury it under the ground, when God has created the very plants that do that for us. They clean the air and also then provide us with oxygen. If you reject God's word, you immediately drift into foolishness. That's just one example. God created that hydrologic cycle, we call it, so surface water could evaporate and form clouds and then the water would return to the earth in the form of rain and snow and so forth. Example after example after example, everything you know about nature that seems just incredibly coincidental or like amazing good luck, God's the one who did that. God's the one who created it and he created it intentionally and with a purpose. It didn't just happen that way. So friends, don't let anyone ever persuade you that science has proven the Bible false, or that science has shown that God is unnecessary. Statements like that are complete rubbish. They're nonsense, and they really should not scare you in any way. As a matter of fact, the very fact that we do science, that couldn't be even possible without God. Why do I say that? Even though the creation is fallen and subject to the curse, you can't use the scientific method without having an orderly universe created by Almighty God with a purpose. There were many brilliant scholars and brilliant mathematicians throughout all of ancient history. All you have to do is see history of the Egyptians, the Greeks, many brilliant mathematicians, but science never really took off until after the Protestant Reformation, when Christians began to see studying the universe, studying God's creation as part of the creation mandate, part of the dominion mandate, God's command to Adam in Genesis 1.26 to subdue and rule over God's creation. In fact, in Psalm 8, verse 6, as we heard Rob read earlier, we see the same Hebrew phrase as we see in 19, verse 1, the works of your hands. You have given him dominion, that being mankind, over the works of your hands. This passage underscores that dominion mandate. Mankind is supposed to be the ruler over creation. An intrinsic part of ruling over creation rightly is understanding it rightly, and you can't understand it rightly if you don't study it. So once Christians began setting their minds toward understanding God's creation as a fruitful exercise, Entire branches of science developed at the hands of people who actively believed in the biblical revelation. You have men like Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler and Isaac Newton and others who revolutionized the branches of physics and astronomy. You have Robert Boyle and John Dalton who revolutionized chemistry. Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell who practically invented the branches of electromagnetics and electrodynamics. I could go on and on and on in other fields like biology and genetics and anatomy and antiseptic surgery. The list goes on and on in branches of science that were invented or completely revolutionized by Christians who believed in the testimony of scripture about nature. In fact, in the 20th and 21st centuries alone, there's more confirmation than ever of God's immense power and majesty in creation. From the telescopic views of the enormous galaxies that show his majesty on that macroscopic scale. to the microscopic world of the human cell and the voluminous amount of information contained in just one strand of DNA, there's never been more thorough confirmation of God's power and design in creation. So the scientist today who works using an atheistic worldview that excludes God He has no foundation for his work. He's got no foundation for that very method that he uses and aspires to, because he's expecting order and predictability out of a world that he believes exists entirely because of chance random processes. This is what Romans 118 means when it says people suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. They pretend not to live in God's world, but their world would be entirely arbitrary, entirely absurd without the God who created and sustains it. There would be no meaning and no hope for meaning. Their scientific method and their very way of life, again, assuming the sun is going to come up tomorrow, and assuming that when you run an experiment multiple times that you can predict results if you hold variables constant, all these assumptions contradict their own belief that God doesn't exist. So going back to verses five and six here, we see a couple extremely poetic images about the son. The first of those is as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber. Well, this image is His language is like a newlywed husband coming forth from the marital bed on the morning after his first night with his new wife. This is the way the psalmist describes the sunrise every morning. The sun bursting forth with joy and energy and anticipation about life and radiance and purpose. That's the sunrise every morning. And then we have the second image, the son rejoicing like an athlete running his course. Well, many of you might be too young that you don't remember this movie from the 1980s called Chariots of Fire. It's actually based on a true story from about 100 years ago, actually just almost exactly 100 years, 101 years ago, of an athlete named Eric Liddell, Liddell, Liddell. He was a star athlete in Scotland, both rugby and track. And for the 1924 Paris Olympics, he qualified as one of the runners for the 100-yard dash. The movie tells his story, and of course it embellishes things and makes up some things. But he also, as I said, was a devout, actually I didn't say this, he was a devout Christian as well. And he believed that it was God's command that we should not be doing things like running, like doing sports on the Sabbath day. Well, if you know anything about track and field, the track is only so wide. So if you have too many contestants, they have to run what they call preliminary heats, preliminary races, to determine who the racers will be in the final. And as he was going across the channel to the Olympics, he found out that the preliminary heat for the race that he would run was going to be on Sunday, on the Sabbath. And that moved in him a crisis of conscience. Well, it wasn't really a crisis for him. He knew he wasn't going to run. But he had to convince everybody else why, you know, they brought to him before the Olympic Committee for England, they brought before him the, well, at least in the movie, I didn't check to see if this was true, you know, they bring him before the Prince of Wales, the Crown Prince, you know, trying to persuade him to run for the honor of his country. And he's like, I've got to put the honor of my Lord ahead of this. His convictions, his deeply held convictions about the word went ahead of that. And I'm not going to tell you the whole story of the movie, but the way God honored him for honoring his word was that another runner from his team, who had already run in a different race and won a medal, and who had qualified for another race, said, I've won my medal. You can have my spot in this other race, and then you don't have to run on Sunday. It was the 400 yards. Liddell had never run it before, and he won the gold medal, setting a world record in the process. Well, Little was not only a devout Christian, but he was also a missionary. His family were, they had a mission in China. And there's a little, this is part of the movie where they embellish quite a bit of it because his family didn't even know that he had qualified and run in the Olympics until he had already won after the fact. But in the movie, they make it out that his sister thinks he's just got too caught up in athletics and he's not focused enough on the mission. And he says this in the movie, he says, I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. When I run, I feel his pleasure. Now, I will tell you that that movie line has been abused and misused over the last decades by hordes of people to justify all sorts of nonsense. But I am bringing this up to you because this is what the psalmist is talking about when he says the sun rejoices like an athlete as it runs its circuit around the heavens. feeling the pleasure of God, displaying the pleasure of God as it makes its circuit in the heavens, declaring the glory of God. The Son does the bidding of God with pleasure and can do no else. Now please, let's not have anyone trying to claim, I doubt anyone here is gonna do this, but you will hear people who say this, see, the Bible's wrong because it says the sun traverses the sky when we all know now that the earth revolves around the sun. Yes, we do know that now, ever since Christians like Copernicus and Galileo, that the earth revolves around the sun. But even today, we all still use terms like sunrise, sunset. Show me one TV meteorologist that doesn't say the sunrise today was at such and such, the sun will set at such and such a time. The biblical language here is centered on the perspective of the earth. for very good reason, because that's where humanity, the pinnacle of God's creation, dwells. Even still, even still, it is still a true statement that the sun does indeed traverse the heavens, because it spirals around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Truthfully, the sun does make a circuit around the heavens. So I promised I would return to verse 3. On the surface of verses 2 and 3, It appears that there's a little bit of a contradiction. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Well, like most seeming contradictions in the Bible, there's usually an extremely simple explanation, and this situation is no different. The simple explanation is that the sun, the heavens, all of God's creation are communicating a message. A message that we read about in Romans 1. They're communicating the knowledge of God's divine nature and eternal power because it's evident that none of this could exist without God. But nature cannot actually communicate that message in words with an audible voice. We don't hear the sun exclaiming as it rises, here I am again, bursting forth from my chamber. God set me here in space and placed me here on this course. We don't hear that. We don't see written in actual language on the stars at night. God stretched out the heavens like a tent. We don't actually see those words. Nature doesn't communicate in language the way humans do. Humans have the ability to communicate with what we call propositions. Propositions is just a simple definition of that. It's just a statement or an assertion. For example, the sun will rise tomorrow is a proposition. God is Lord over the entire universe. That's another proposition. A third proposition is there is no God. Now that's a false proposition, but it's still a proposition, still an assertion, right? It's still a statement. Nature cannot communicate that way. The message that has gone out to the whole earth in nature is not a propositional message. This knowledge of God that is available through nature We call it general revelation and we call it that for two reasons. First, it's available generally as we heard to all mankind. All mankind, no one has excuse because this general revelation is available to everyone. Secondly, it's not specific enough. It's the opposite of specific revelation. It's not specific enough to save anyone. General revelation is only enough to condemn all mankind. As we read in Romans 1 20, it leaves all mankind without an excuse. It's not enough to save us. So if you're listening to me right now and you've never submitted your life to the Lord, listen closely. You stand condemned before God. That's bad news. We talked about that already in Romans 1. There is good news to be had. We'll get to the good news in a minute. But I want you to feel the weight of that bad news. You need to know your situation is desperate. If you died today, and if you haven't submitted your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, the condemnation you have earned, the death sentence you have earned, is eternity in hell. experiencing forever the eternal wrath of God, that's really bad news. But friend, if you're in that situation, listen on, because as I said, there's good news on the way. To be saved, we need what we call special revelation, special revelation. That's the knowledge revealed through God's living word, Jesus Christ, and his written word, the Bible. Some people would, some people call it specific revelation as the opposite to general, but frankly, the theological term is special, special revelation. Only this kind of propositional knowledge can reveal enough about God to save anyone. And so it's to that kind of revelation that the psalmist turns to in verses 7 through 11. Now, back in August, when Derek preached for me out of one of the stanzas of Psalm 119, he did speak substantially about some of these verses here in 7 through 11, so I won't go into a ton of detail. And this is already getting to be long, but I don't want to end this message without covering this, because this second section of the psalm, it continues logically from the first. This continuity, it's necessary. It shows the necessity of God's special revelation in his word beyond that general revelation that he provides in creation. Now these five verses, they could be described as almost a miniature version of Psalm 119. It's that grand Psalm about God's law. And in Psalm 119, at least eight different Hebrew words are used to refer to God's law in some fashion. Well, here in these five verses, we see six of those near synonyms for God's law. So first of all, in verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect. That's the word you might be familiar with, Torah. The instruction, the overarching general instruction of the Lord. What is it? It's perfect, it's flawless, complete, and it revives the soul. That's a context, not only just a physical, natural refreshment, but a spiritual renewal. Think of Psalm 23, verse three, in this same section of the Psalms. He restores my soul. Same word, revives the soul. Have you ever experienced a time of spiritual dryness? Metaphorically going through a spiritual desert? Well, that's what's spoken of in Psalm 23, verse three. The Lord will restore your soul, revive your soul. give you refreshment and spiritual renewal as well, make you spiritually alive again. Psalm 19 verse 7 tells us it's the instruction of the Lord that restores and revives your soul. We then see the near synonym testimony. God's testimony we learn is sure, it's trustworthy. And his trustworthy testimony makes wise the simple. 1 Corinthians 1.27 declares God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And in the gospel accounts, we see that God has chosen to hide his truths from the wise and reveal them even to little children. Moving on to verse eight, we see another near synonym, the precepts of the Lord. The precepts of the Lord. I won't go into all these little nuances of what the near synonyms mean, but the precepts, they're right. It says they're straight. They're not crooked. They're direct. They don't meander around. And they rejoice the heart. They gladden the heart. Well, how does that happen? We learn in Psalm 119, verse 15, I will meditate on your precepts. It's meditating on the precepts of God that rejoices the heart. If you're feeling downtrodden, if you're going through a time where you're feeling depressed, meditate on the precepts of God. They have the power to gladden your heart. That's greater than any antidepressant drug like Prozac or Zoloft could ever do. We see then another near synonym, the commandments of God. The commandments, they enlighten our eyes, they give us wisdom. And this wisdom comes not just from reading, hearing the commandment, that's true, but also and especially from obeying God's commandment. We see that in Psalm 111, verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who obey it have great understanding. Verse nine, we see the fear of the Lord is clean. A clean, pure word is going to lead to a pure response from God's people. That fear of the Lord, remember, it's not a trembling in terror, not from God's people, it's a reverent response to these pure words from the Lord. That response is clean. It's not a spirit of fear, but as the Apostle Paul says, it's the spirit of a sound mind. Only a fool in the biblical sense would not fear the omnipotent creator and Lord over the whole universe who holds your very life, your breath, your existence in his hand. This clean fear of the Lord will never die. It endures forever. It can never be snuffed out. We see also then these rules, judgments, decrees, ordinances, they're firm. They're not to be appealed, they're final. God is not some human judge who's corrupt and who can be bought and bribed. The Lord's judgments are firm because they are righteous, because he is righteous. There's no change or shadow of turning in him. We never have to fear God is gonna change his mind. What an immense comfort that is to us who have thrown ourselves on his mercy. We don't have to wonder when and if God might turn his back on us. He's not capricious like the mythological gods of the Greeks and Romans. And this especially can be a great comfort for anyone from a Muslim background or a Jehovah's Witness background, many other similar backgrounds. Does Allah promise salvation to the Muslim or do they only have a tentative hope? Same thing with the Jehovah's Witness. With Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven by which we can be saved, the believer has assurance that Christ will fulfill his word to complete the work he has begun in us. He is faithful to keep his word. He cannot deny himself. Verse 10, more to be desired are all these commandments and rules and precepts than gold, even much fine gold and sweeter than honey. We see here that David and his very desires have been changed through his exposure to God's word. That's what the power of God's word can do in us. Change our hearts, change our very desires. You see that in Psalm 119, verse 72 as well. Verse 11, we see there's great reward in keeping the commandments of God. Well, and that would apply both to this life, generally speaking, that's the whole point of the book of Proverbs. Do this and generally speaking, you're going to have a decent life. And we understand that as a Christian, we're called and expected to live a life that will involve persecution. But generally speaking, the book of Proverbs teaches the things that are important for living a good life on this earth. Those are the rewards for obeying God's commands in this world. But there's also great reward in eternity. So to those of you who may never have submitted yourself to the Lord, this is the good news I mentioned earlier. to follow up after the bad news you already heard. The special revelation of God that can actually save you. The gospel message of Jesus, you hear it encapsulated in John 3.16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would not perish, but would have everlasting life. In the very next verse, it explains that Jesus didn't come to condemn the world, but to save it. Well, I hope you know, why didn't he come to condemn it? We already stood condemned. The world already stands condemned. God didn't need to send Jesus to come and condemn the world further. Jesus came to save those who were condemned. Now, for those of you, as you've heard so many times me say, those of you who've already submitted your life to Christ, we have the privilege of carrying that message, that special revelation to the lost world. We have the privilege of showing them the reward of honoring God in his glory. So then, verses 12 to 14, closing up the psalm. This is the response, as I said, of the psalmist to God's revealed glory in the past 11 verses. And thus, our response to these verses can be similar. A humble prayer. We can't keep God's law perfectly. We can't do this the way we would like to do. That's the whole point of Romans chapter seven. The things I wish I do, I don't do. What I don't want to do, those are the things I often do. If we could keep it perfectly, we wouldn't need a Savior. So even for those who have been redeemed, regenerated, and submitted our wills to Christ, we still war against the flesh, the world, and the devil. We need the Holy Spirit to lead us, to fight for us, to empower us, to overcome. What do we need to overcome? The flesh, the devil, and the world. And then we need Christ's intercession at the right hand of the Father. Not Christ begging the Father to do something the Father is reluctant to do. What's Christ doing? He's pleading his shed blood for his people. It's a done deal. Now we see a couple points of this prayer. Keep back your servant. Declare me innocent from hidden faults, hidden sins. This harkens back to verse 6, where it says, nothing is hidden from the light of the sun. Well, likewise, nothing is hidden from the Spirit of God. See that in Psalm 139, verse 7, where can I run from your presence? The answer, of course, is nowhere. But I think there's a nuance to this idea of hidden sins. I don't think it's only the fact of those sins we try to keep hidden from others. I think that's a part of it. But we're asking for God to declare us innocent from those sins that are hidden because they're so common to us, we don't even see them as sin. We don't even recognize them as sin. This can be especially evident for those of you who were converted when you were old enough to understand the difference between your life before you were a believer and your life afterwards. How much of our former lives as pagans or how much of the world now around us do we imbibe and not even realize this is sin? How many things that are second nature, well, not second nature to us, first nature to us, they're of our sinful nature, they're so natural to us, they're so common to us, we tend not to recognize them as sin. Well, often, the Spirit can absolutely work on us to make revealed what was hidden to us, but typically, Those kinds of sins are not best revealed in isolation. We need the intimate fellowship of the body of believers to help us. Sometimes it's help us to simply see that those things are sin. Sometimes it's to help us deal with the fact that we know we need to overcome it now. That's one of the purposes of worshiping God among a body of believers. And then, of course, in verse 13, there are also those presumptuous sins, sins of stubbornness, sins that, thinking we've gotten away with maybe those sins that we have hidden away from the rest of the world, we just then openly sin and we don't care who sees it. We also need God's grace to declare us innocent from those and to change our hearts to give us the power to overcome, but also those besetting sins. We know this is sin. Every time I do it, I'm repentant, I'm confessing, I'm struggling with how could I do this again? We receive the forgiveness, we experience the peace of God, and a week later, we're doing the same thing. We need the spirit of God for those sins too. And so to cap that all off, my prayer for us today will be the psalmist's prayer here in verse 14. Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer.