Sermon Tone Analysis

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/*Psalm 19:7-9* - "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 pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether."/

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Turn in your Bibles with me to Psalm 19, and we’re going to return to our study of verses 7-9.

Now, we were discussing the last time we were together that the truth is under attack—it has been ever since Satan, in the garden, tried to get Eve to question the very truth of God’s words, and the plan worked, and mankind plummeted into sin.

And that really marked the opening battle of a war that’s been raging in every century since.

And I don’t have to remind you that there are only two sides to this war—you’re either fighting to defend truth, or you’re fighting to attack it or deny it.

There are only two sides, and in this war, there are no noncombatants.

There is no neutral side in the war for truth, no Switzerland here.

You’re either for truth or against truth, but nevertheless participatory.

This is why Jude wrote in his epistle that all Christians—all those who have accepted the truth of Jesus Christ and have trusted in Him and Him alone, that His sacrifice on the cross was sufficient to pay the price for their sins—all Christians are called in Jude 3 to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”

Now I can’t assume that each one of you here tonight is on this side which is contending for the truth, but for our purposes here, I’m going to focus our discussion tonight towards that group.

You who have made a clear decision for Christ are soldiers in this war, and we must admit from the start that this is a strange war.

It’s unlike any other war man has fought, because we’re fighting not “against flesh blood,” right?

Who are we fighting?

We’re fighting “the rulers,” “the powers,” “the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

So already we have a rude awakening that this war isn’t against man.

It’s not a fleshly war, rather it’s spiritual.

It’s on a different dimension.

What’s more, the nature of this war is totally different.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, “though we walk according to the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

And these fortresses, Paul tells us, are in the /mind/.

“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.”

So our battle is for the minds of men, and the weapons we’re given are used like cannons, firing at the walls of these ideological fortresses which man has erected for himself in his minds...fortresses which stand to oppose and keep out the knowledge of God.

So when we talk about our warfare as spiritual, we’re not speaking of fighting demons, although they, too, are combatants as well.

This spiritual warfare is a battle for the mind of men and our mission is in verse 5 of 2 Corinthians 10: “taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

Now Paul mentioned that our weapons are “divinely powerful” weapons, meaning that they aren’t earthly at all, but because we’re God’s soldiers, we’re issued these weapons from God…from his arsenal.

What, then, is our “divinely powerful” weapon?

It is, as Ephesians 6:17 states, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”

Success only comes in this spiritual war if we use spiritual weapons, and our weapon happens to be the very words of God!

And it is this divinely powerful weapon which is able to smash down the fortresses of men’s minds and bring them captive to Christ.

But, like all good soldiers, success on the field of this great war demands the proper wielding of this weapon.

If we are contending for the truth with the truth, then we need to be careful to make sure we know the capabilities of our weapon.

We need to know how to handle it, what it’s capable of, and how to defend with it as well as attack with it.

And so, carrying on from last week, I want to take us through a passage that will help us understand our weapon.

It’s not the only passage we could turn to, but because it’s so concise and at the same time so comprehensive, it really is the perfect passage to give us a fundamental grasp of this weapon.

Now I want to very briefly review what we learned last week so we can build upon that foundation tonight.

In our passage we find three verses, and in them six short, parallel statements about the Word of God.

Each one gives a name for the Word, such as “the law,” and “the testimony,” and so forth.

And then there is given a description or characteristic of the Word.

It is “perfect” and “sure” and so on.

And finally there is given an effect, or an accomplishment.

The Word “restores the soul” and “makes wise the simple.”

It “rejoices the heart” and “enlightens the eyes.”

And tying these all together is the phrase “of the Lord,” we saw last time is really the unifying element of this passage.

For one, it is relating to the beginning of the Psalm by saying that God can be known /of/ through His creation because his creation testifies to His glory, but in order to /know Him/, He must reveal Himself to us, and He’s graciously done that by speaking to us through His Word.

And this means, then, that God’s Word is a reflection of God’s character.

We saw last week that the Bible is sufficient.

It says, “the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.”

It is perfect in that it is complete and whole, and nothing is missing, and what’s more, it speaks to every part of man’s life.

Nothing falls outside its purview.

And for that reason it is capable of doing what no human effort can do: it restores.

It is able to transform the inner life of a man, bring him back to where he should be.

And this accomplishment happens because it is God working through His Word.

It is sufficient because He is sufficient.

Next we saw that “the testimony”—that is, God’s witnessing of Himself—“is sure”, or reliable, “making wise the simple.”

Scripture is trustworthy.

It is a firm foundation, and so the simple man, the man who is incapable of making sound judgments and exercising discernment can put His trust in the Word of God to give him the know-how to make sound decisions and exercise wisdom.

Scripture is trustworthy, but only because its author is trustworthy.

And thirdly, we saw that “the precepts”—the guidelines—“of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

We can have joy in our hearts because we know that the principles God has laid out in His Word will not lead us down a path toward destruction.

We can be confident that if we walk according to His words, we’ll be walking that straight and narrow path that leads to life.

This is to say that the Word of God is infallible.

It is an inerrant guide, and this, once again, reflects the nature of God.

And so tonight I’d like to finish up this passage by looking at the last three characteristics of Scripture which are given in verses 8 & 9.

So, number 1: *“The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”*

Scripture is called “the commandment”.

Notice, for one, it’s singular.

It’s not talking about the commandments of God that are /in/ Scripture.

It’s talking about the Bible as a whole being a commandment from God, and what this is really pointing out is the Bible’s authority.

These are not mere suggests…they are divine commands that have come from the very mouth of the creator God.

And the characteristic of this commandment from God is that it is pure.

Really the better way to translate that is “clear,” or as one translator has said, “the commandment of the Lord is radiant—it is lucid and clear-cut and straightforward.

It is not ambiguous or obscure, but understandable and clear, and for this reason, it e/nlightening the eyes/.

It brings correct understanding to a darkened mind and heart.

It clarifies and makes light of the truth because it is so clear.

In other words, Scripture has clarity.

There were many important and critical doctrines which were hammered out in the 16th century, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, and one of these doctrines dealt with the clarity, or the perspicuity of Scripture.

That is to say that, in the words of Wayne Grudem, “the Bible is written in such a way that all things necessary for our salvation and for our Christian life and growth are very clearly set forth in Scripture.”

In other words, “the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it” (Grudem).

James Patrick Callahan, in his book, /The Clarity of Scripture/, wrote, “Scripture can be and is read with profit, with appreciation and with transformative results.

It is open and transparent to earnest readers; it is intelligible and comprehensible to attentive readers.

Scripture itself is coherent and obvious.

It is direct and unambiguous as written; what is written is sufficient…Scripture is clear about what it is about.”

What Callahan’s saying is that, understood plainly and normally, taken at face value, God’s word can be clearly understood.

Its commandment, summed up in the greatest commandment to love God with everything you have, has been clearly presented.

This is not to say that Scripture is always /easy/ to understand.

There are many difficult passages in Scripture which demand that readers think about it and meditate on it.

But difficult passages in Scripture don’t negate the clarity of Scripture.

We see this perfectly well in 2 Peter 3:16, when Peter says that even the apostle Paul writes things in his letters which are difficult to understand.

Paul had an amazing mind, and what he wrote was incredibly profound and not always easy to understand on the surface.

But Peter never says they are impossible to understand, only difficult.

In essence, Peter is affirming the importance of Paul’s writing while at the same time admitting they are weighty and profound, but nevertheless important to get right.

And the Peter says the people who distort Paul’s writings do so to their own destruction.

They are culpable for their twisting of the truth.

But this brings up a difficult and important question.

Why do Christians disagree?

Why do we misinterpret Scripture?

We can understand why the natural man doesn’t understand, because he doesn’t receive spiritual things because they are spiritually discerned.

But why do /Christians/, those who have been imparted with the Holy Spirit for the purposes of personal teaching and counseling, still get Scripture wrong?