The Manufacturer's Manual

Sermon

August 2, 2026

God’s Special Revelation:

The Manufacturer’s Manual

 

Today we continue our series in Psalm 19. Last week we looked briefly at the first four verses which speak of God’s general revelation of Himself to humanity. I mentioned also last week that verses 7-11 speak of God’s special revelation in Scripture, in which He communicates with us through the Scriptures about sin, judgement, redemption, and eternal life.

 

We saw last time how the science of astronomy, human anatomy, and biology clearly demonstrate the existence of God to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. We also saw, but only briefly, the spiritual COSTS of refusing to hear what God says to us. Those costs have a terrible price tag. First, our refusal hurts God’s heart, He who has lavished and continues to lavish His love on each person on this planet.

 

The other cost is that we harden our own hearts, even to the point of permanent spiritual blindness. The apostle Paul after having spent considerable time declaring to the Jewish community of Rome the clear evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, said to those who continued to scoff at God’s truth: “You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; And you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; For the heart of this people has become dull, and with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes; Otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them.”’ (Acts 28:26-27)

 

So, while “The heavens declare the glory of God,” His full revelation of Himself is not complete without His SPECIAL revelation – specifically, His revelation about Christ Jesus as He unveiled it throughout His holy Scriptures.

 

For the sake of time, we turn our attention today only to verse 7. We will leave the remainder of this section for the weeks to come. Here is the entire 19th Psalm for context:

 

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament [e.g. the skies] shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat. 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. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward.

 

“Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted 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.”

 

God repeatedly tells us through His Word that no one can come to know Him without His first awakening in our heart the desire to know Him. St Paul tells us in that second chapter of his letter to the church at Ephesus that all humanity is dead in their trespasses and sins. And as we all know, dead people can’t do anything but lie there and slowly decompose. 

 

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He continues: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:1-5)

 

For us to know God, He must come to us. Unless He does, we can only grope our way in spiritual darkness. As He tells us through Isaiah: “[Our] iniquities have made a separation between” us and God and our “sins have hidden His face from” us that He does not hear . . . We grope along the wall like blind men, we grope like those who have no eyes; We stumble at midday as in the twilight.” (Isaiah 59:2, 10)

But the Lord Jesus, whose mission was – and is – to save anyone who wants to be saved, He tells us: “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12)

 

I think it’s noteworthy that David uses the phrase “of the Lord” six times in this section of God’s special revelation. He writes: The law of the Lord . . . The testimony of the Lord . . . The precepts of the Lord . . .The commandment of the Lord . . The fear of the Lord . . .The judgments of the Lord.”

 

There is good reason for this repetition, and we are all well advised to pay close attention to that reason. Paul tells us, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

 

All Scripture, from Genesis through Revelation, is inspired by God. The word ‘inspired’ means that God directed – not dictated – God directed the human authors to write what they did under His full and infallible guidance. Listen to St Peter tell us: “No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (New English Translation)

 

So, back to our text in verse 7, the first part which tells us: “The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.” Other translations render ‘restoring the soul’ as ‘converting the soul’ – which I think is a better rendering because that’s the idea of the Hebrew word, a turning of the heart to God.

 

Anyone with an open mind and who knows the history of America’s Christian origins recognize that one of the reasons our nation’s morals are swimming in a demonic sewer is because so many of us have forsaken God’s word or reinterpreted it to fit into our own desires.

 

Case in point: Seven of the eight Ivy League schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, were each founded for one purpose – to train pastors to bring the word of God to their congregations and to the world. But as authors Peter Greer and Chris Horst report in their book, Mission Drift, many one-time evangelical institutions have “slowly, silently, and with little fanfare, [drifted] from their original purpose, and most will never return to their original intent.” (Decision Magazine, July-August 2026, p. 10)

What happens when pastors imbibe training in seminaries that reject the full inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible? They lead whole congregations down a very wide road to perdition. They become the blind leading the blind into the pit. Watch the filth on television for five minutes and tell me I’m wrong. Listen to the pastors who preach under the Rainbow flag and tell me I’m wrong. Take note of the multitude of pastors who remain silent about the demonic cult of abortion which slaughters more than 2,000 babies in the womb each and every day in America and tell me I’m wrong.

 

And what happens to individual men and women who reject the Bible as God’s infallible word? You’ll find many of them practicing a lifestyle closely following what Paul warned about. They become “lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” (2 Timothy 3:2-5) 

 

We must not minimize this truth inherent in verse 7 of psalm 19: The restoration or the conversion of the soul is not a one-time event done at an altar or in a baptismal. If we are not daily being restored and converted to the godly lifestyle He created us for, then we will find ourselves drifting from Truth.

 

Listen to the psalmist implore God – as should we all: “Do not let me wander from Your commandments;” (Psalm 119:9) and the hymn writer who humbly acknowledged: ‘Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” 

 

I must also say this once again: Anyone who is able to read, study, and memorize God’s word and remains lazy about doing those things is at ever-increasing risk of drifting from the Christ of the Bible. Those who ignore the history of those in the Church who slowly abandoned their faith are doomed to repeat that history for themselves.

 

Mark Twain is a tragic example of that point. Raised by devout Christian parents, in later life turned away from what he once knew to be true. It should be no surprise that he remarked: “It’s not what I don’t understand in the Bible that troubles me, It's what I do understand that troubles me.'

 

God created you and me; And the Bible His manufacturer’s manual for life. His Word works through the supernatural influence of God the Holy Spirit to convert the soul to be ‘born again’, to turn from godlessness to godliness. It is the Holy Spirit who, through our knowledge and obedience to the Word, delivers us from the domain of darkness and transfers us to the kingdom of His dear Son. (See Colossians 1:13)

 

It’s impossible – impossible – to be born again, to be transferred from Satan’s domain to God’s without paying heed to God’s voice. THAT’S why Satan works so relentlessly to impugn the full authority and inerrancy of the Scriptures. From the time he seduced Eve into doubting God’s instructions to this very day in seminaries and churches throughout the world, Satan continues to whisper: “Has God REALLY said?” And “Did God REALLY mean what He said?”

 

So, back to verse 7 of Psalm 19: The second part of that verse continues, “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” God’s testimony – His statement about Himself as found only between the pages of Scripture – tells us of His character, His faithfulness, His mighty works, His judgments, and His will for humanity – all of which is 100% reliable, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. It is the Creator’s testimony alone that imparts wisdom even to those who lack experience or discernment.

 

James tells us in his short epistle: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5). And the psalmist reminds us: “Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.” (Psalm 119:98-100)

 

Many of you have probably received Christmas cards which portray the Three Wise Men bringing their gifts to Baby Jesus in the Bethlehem manger. (Yes, I am aware that there were likely many more than three men who traveled from the East. I also know that when they arrived to give their gifts to Jesus, the Holy Family were living in a house – likely a year or perhaps two since Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:11)).

The inside cover of many of those cards reads: “Wise men still seek Him.” And that’s the whole point I want to make about this seventh verse in Psalm 19.

 

If you were here last week, you may remember I quoted from the 14th Psalm: “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)

And what is the remedy for being a fool? Psalm 19:7 “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”

 

In other words, when people believe what God says and they obey what God says, He converts even fools into wise men and women. Listen to pastor and author R. A. Torrey: “The one who studies the Bible, if he does not study any other book, will know more of real wisdom - wisdom that counts for eternity as well as time, wisdom that this perishing world needs to know, wisdom for which hungry hearts are starving today – [will have such wisdom more] than the man who reads every other book and neglects his Bible.”

 

God’s testimony is sure, meaning it is without error. Therefore, we can be certain that the Holy Scriptures we read every day is incapable of being wrong. It is not and cannot be wrong about history, morality, or anything else it speaks of. It is without error regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is completely trustworthy when it promises an eternity in heaven for those who follow Christ, and of an eternity in torment for those who reject Christ.

 

The totality of God’s word is simple enough for a child to understand, yet it is so deep that the most brilliant minds can never plumb its depth. As one of Job’s so-called ‘friends’ recognized: Job 11:7-9 “Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? They are high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.”

 

There is an important reason why Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:13 

 

What’s so important about that? Look again at that last clause: God’s word “performs its work in you who believe.” Faith in the Bible’s inerrancy and infallibility is the prerequisite for conversion. God’s word will not change the one who does not believe it to be always true about all things, but it DOES change and continues to change the one who DOES believe it.

 

Well, I must bring today’s message to a close, and so I will do it in this way: Just as we cannot know God unless He reveals Himself to us, neither can we love God or His word unless He enables us to do so.

 

The psalmist recognized this truth. Listen to part of his prayer in Psalm 119: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law . . . Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes . . . Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law . . . Make me walk in the path of Your commandments . . . Incline my heart to Your testimonies.” (Psalm 119:18, 33-36).

 

It’s all about what GOD does in us and for us, and not at all about our ability to love Him or to even seek Him. A genuine love for God’s Word is ultimately a supernatural work of God’s grace. And although we are commanded to read, meditate on, and obey Scripture, those same Scriptures encourage us to ask God for a supernatural longing and appetite for His Word.

 

It would be good for us to imitate the apostle Paul’s cry for God to work in his heart: “[Oh!] That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Philippians 3:10

 

I quoted earlier from the epistle of James: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5). Don’t think for a moment that God is not well pleased to do the same for us when we ask Him to increase our love for Him and His word. “Call to me,” God invites us through Jeremiah, “and I will answer you.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

 

The heavens declare God’s general revelation of Himself to humanity. The section of Psalm 19 we began to look at today declares God’s special revelation of Himself through the book best known as the Holy Bible.

We will delve further into this psalm next Sunday.