Adam Dodd, Vice President for Campus Technology and Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Backgrounds at Southwestern Seminary, preached from Psalm 19 in SWBTS Chapel on September 17, 2024.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
R. Adam Dodd 4:31
Just full disclosure, me preaching and Chandler presiding. This thing can go sideways any number of ways. So now is the time to make the exit, if you want to, if you want to make a move. I should probably mention a few things before we jump in. Chandler didn’t have an opportunity to mention that [it] would be helpful for you to know about me. Managing expectations, setting expectations. Questions. They’re important. Number one, I’ve got, like, one way that I know to talk to folks directly and transparently, and that’s it. I’ve got one gear in this transmission, one station on this radio, that’s all I know. And so that’s probably the way things are going to go this morning, I don’t have a massive stage presence. I don’t have a lot of rhetorical flair. If I alliterate anything, I’m just going to walk down the stage and sit down and you guys come up and we’re going to close. I thought about wearing my “friends don’t let friends alliterate sermons” t shirt, but I thought that might be just a little bit too far this morning. Number two, I love to teach. I love the classroom. The classroom is sacred space for me, but that’s where dialogs happen. That’s where exchange of ideas go back and forth. I don’t typically like to monologue. I’m not a monologer. And so, if I revert to asking a question, it’s probably not rhetorical, so you guys have permission to fire back and pop off with an answer. I’ll probably appreciate it in the moment. So all that to say, this may be a little more casual than normal, and I’m okay with that. I hope that you’re also okay with that.
R. Adam Dodd 6:19
And since I’m standing up here, maybe I should say something about my purple Bible. So it dawned on me last week that I use the CSB on a regular basis, but apparently I always use it in digital form, and I like the small, little compact Bibles whenever I’ve got to use a physical one, and I didn’t own a physical CSB in the small form. The only ones I owned were the hardcore Southern Baptists, and it’s a little bit different. And so my daughter was kind enough to let me borrow her CSB. So, pink shirt, purple Bible. You guys just have at it. All right, with that said, let’s jump into Psalm 19.
R. Adam Dodd 7:03
dAnd I didn’t think about this ahead of time. 14 verses doesn’t seem like that [much], but whenever you’re trying to actually expound 14 verses in the time we have, that’s a decent challenge. So we’re probably going to fly at a fairly high altitude. There are a lot of different ways we could go and a lot more we could say, but we’re going to cap ourselves at what we say this morning. Alright? So verse one, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour out speech. Night after night, they communicate knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words. Their voice is not heard, yet their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens, He has pitched a tent for the sun. It’s like a bridegroom coming from its home or from its chamber. It rejoices like an athlete or a warrior running a course. It rises from one end of the heavens and circles to the other. Nothing is hidden from its heat.
R. Adam Dodd 8:09
This psalm breaks up into three different sections. We could argue that it breaks up into two. I’m halfway persuaded that it breaks up into two, but it fits a little better heuristically this morning to think about it in three different phases, or three different sections. This first section goes from verses one through verses six, and here it’s summarized in the first phrase, The heavens declare the glory of God. The heavens have something to say, The heavens declare the glory of God and expanse the work of his hands. They have a message. Now this is not unique to Psalm 19. We could go just a few Psalms backward into Psalm eight, and we can see another expression of God’s embedding His praise within creation. And the psalmist, in that Psalm, after reflecting on that, then says, Despite the fact that the creation is so majestic, why do you give a second thought to man? What is man and the son of man that you even think about him? We’re puny compared to the magnitude of the creation. But then he follows up with and yet, you have put us in a position to rule over them. We are your ambassador here, we’re your image bearer. Here, your imager here, it’s our stewardship to represent you on this earth. And so we see the contrast between the magnitude of the creation and the punyness of mankind. And yet our the expectation [is] that we somehow steward over it on God’s behalf. We can go to the end of the Psalter to Psalm 148 and see another example of the creation, in particular, the heavens, declaring or praising the Lord. The Lord has praised from the heavens and from the heights, from the angelic hosts that live there. But not only that, but [also] from the sun and the moon and the stars.
R. Adam Dodd 10:03
So this theme of the heavens in particular, creation at large, but the heavens in particular, praising the Lord and saying something about him. It’s not unique to this psalm, but this psalm goes at it a little bit differently. It goes on that they don’t just declare the glory of the Lord and proclaim the work of his hands. Note the declaration, proclamation, but day after day, they pour out speech, and night after night they communicate knowledge. Verse four, their message has gone out to the whole earth and their words to the ends of the world, the heavens have something to say. The heavens are not the focus of this section. Their speech is the focus of this section. Their message, what they have to say, is the focus of this section, and what they have to say doesn’t stop. It happens day and night, day after day, night after night. They are not nocturnal and they are not diurnal. They don’t take a break. There’s no commercial break in this after school special. Do you guys remember several years ago the show “Lost?” How many are my lost fans in the room? So I know some of us have have picked up Lost again and started watching it. In the first season, somewhere around the second episode, you’ll remember that they, after they’ve crashed on the island, they’ve got a radio in their possession, and they’ve got to go find better reception. And I don’t remember if they’re trying to send a signal or receive one, but they’ve got to go find some better reception. So they go into the jungle, and they find this place of altitude, they turn on the radio, and they receive a transmission. It’s a repeating transmission over and over and over again, and at the end of that repeat, there’s a number that’s given, and it’s the number of times that transmission has repeated. And so they can calculate backwards how long the transmission is and how many times it’s repeated to figure out, how long has this transmission been repeating and running? That’s the way it is with the heavens. Ever since they were made, they have been repeating the refrain of God’s glory over and over again. They take no breaks, and not only that, but there’s nowhere that you can escape it. That transmission goes to the whole earth, to the ends of the world. You might say, to the ends of the inhabited world. Anywhere you go, you cannot escape this transmission of the declaration of God’s glory by way of the heavens, they are constantly preaching to us.
R. Adam Dodd 12:43
What are they saying? Well, let’s look at verse four and five, or the rest of verse four and five and six before we answer that question. At the end of verse four, we transition from the heavens in general, down to one particular body, one particular heavenly body. It says in the heavens, he, that is Lord, has pitched a tent for the sun. He hides it at night time. It’s over there, somewhere else in its tent at night time, not shining. But then when it comes out at the sunrise, whenever that happens, day after day. And one of my teachers, many years ago, helped me remember, and I have not forgotten, to this day, that every day the Lord makes the sun rise. Don’t take it for granted. The Earth does not just rotate on its axis. Every single day, the Lord makes the sun rise. Now don’t take from that I’m a flat earther, please. But in any case, he hides the sun in its tent, and every day, when it comes out, when it rises, when the sunrise happens. It’s like a bridegroom coming from his home or from his chamber, either to go into the wedding event or the day after the wedding event, whichever one both work, and it’s debated which is in view here. And that’s all I’m going to say on that. You can connect the dots on what the image is. But then also, after the sunrise, when it moves across the sky, it rises from one end of the heavens and circles to the other, completing its circuit. When it does this, it’s like an athlete running its course, or maybe better, a warrior on its course or on its path, just as a mighty warrior, there is nothing that’s going to escape its fury. When the sun is running across the sky, there is nothing that escapes its heat. So in the night time, the number of the stars that you can see […] they display the glory of the Lord, and in the daytime, the power of the sun does this. But in either case, this message happens day and night.
R. Adam Dodd 14:45
What is this message? The message is from the heavens. We have a maker, and you can detect what he is like by looking at us, by looking at the expanse of the heavens, the expanse of the sky, by looking at the number of the stars, by looking at the heat and the power of that fireball that moves across day after day, you can discern something about God, and if you can recognize our complexity and our expanse and our power, that’s just a shadow of that of our craftsman, we’re His handiwork, but the craftsman is in a whole other category. That’s the message of the heavens. The heavens have a sermon that they are preaching to us constantly, and you cannot escape it. They say there is a God, and he is like this. If you listen to us, you can see what he is like.
R. Adam Dodd 15:47
Well, does this God have something to say for himself? Yes, as a matter of fact, he does. And that’s the next section. That’s what the psalmist addresses next in verses seven through 11, the instruction of the Lord is perfect, renewing one’s life. The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise, the precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad, the command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinance of the Lord, are reliable and altogether righteous. Pay attention here. They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold, and sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them, there is abundant reward. Does the maker of the heavens have something to say himself? Yes, he does, and it’s quite valuable. Let’s start at the end of this section. In verse 10, it says they–that is, the ordinances or the instructions of the law or the of the Lord–they are more desirable than gold than an abundance of pure gold. If you got some gold, you should trade it for some instruction from the Lord. And not just if you got a little bit of gold, if you got a lot of gold, you should trade it for some instruction from the Lord. If you got a lot of the best gold there is, you should trade it all for some instruction from the Lord. This is the way that the Proverbs speak about wisdom, and it’s the way this psalm speaks about the instruction of the Lord. It’s a good deal if you trade whatever your resources are for a little bit of instruction from the Lord.
R. Adam Dodd 17:29
At one point in time, someone somewhere told a parable about a treasure that was hidden in a field. And there was a wise man that sold everything he had to go by the field because he knew the value of the treasure inside the field. And it was a good business decision for him. That’s a good parable. You should go check it out. This is the Old Testament precursor to that parable: sell, sell what you’ve got to get a little bit of instruction from the Lord. It is valuable. And if you get a little bit, if you taste it, it is sweet, like honey, not just date honey, but like bee honey, the good stuff, the honey that’s dripping from the honeycomb, it’s sweet. It will impact your life. The quality of your life will improve with instruction of the Lord. It will be better if you will get a little bit of instruction. Lord, savor it, take it in, linger in it for a little while. It’s like honey. It’s sweet. This is the quality of the Lord’s instruction in one’s life.
R. Adam Dodd 18:33
And then lastly, he says, In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them, there is much reward, or abundant reward, or significant reward. We heard last week about the one who meditates on the law, or the instruction, the instruction of the Lord, day and night, and things go well with him. This is something that we see over and over in the scriptures, in the Psalms, in Joshua, and elsewhere. This is the idea here. If you get a little instruction from the Lord and you savor it and you heed its warnings, then you will have some reward. You will have success. Life will go well for you. Now, let me pause here and refer you back to the sermon on Thursday, you got to play the long game here. This is the long arc that we’re talking about. This is not this is not short term blessing here. We’re talking about long term, okay? But if you heed, you will have great reward. Now, what is it that’s so valuable and so sweet and potentially so rewarding about the Lord’s instruction? Well, now let’s back up, and let’s go see what verses seven and eight in particular have to say. If you read verses seven and eight, you will note a very strong formula in these verses. The instruction of the Lord is perfect. The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, the precepts of the Lord are right, the command of the Lord is radiant. You see four different phrases here, each referring to the Torah or the instruction of the Lord. This is as we looked at on Thursday. This is a singular image. This is parallelism. This is the same thing in view, spoken of in different ways, and in each time, it is modified by an adjective that is giving either a quality of the instruction or a quality of the one who heeds that instruction. And in each of these cases, there’s a subsequent participial phrase that is going to tell you the value or what will what will come about from this instruction. It renews one’s life. It makes the inexperienced wise. It makes the heart glad. Go figure, it makes the eyes light up.
R. Adam Dodd 21:06
Let’s look at each of these just in turn, one at a time, for a brief moment, the instruction of the Lord renews one’s life, or it turns around one’s soul, or it revives one’s soul, or it changes one’s soul or one’s life. The idea here is a shift in direction, a return, or even repentance, of one’s nephesh, of one’s self, of one’s being, of one’s soul. So whenever you heed the instruction of the Lord, there’s a change, a repentance, a redirecting that happens, and that’s a good thing, according to this psalm. That’s the first thing that you can count on whenever you heed the Lord’s instruction. Secondly, it makes the inexperienced wise. Now the inexperienced here, this isn’t the fool. This is the one who is a little young, a little naive, maybe a little wayward, a simpleton, one who is not committed to the way of wisdom, but hasn’t gone headlong into folly. For that individual, the instruction of the Lord is able to give him wisdom, that one can actually obtain wisdom and move on to the track of the wise one with the instruction of the Lord. So you change direction and you can obtain wisdom from this instruction. Next, it makes the heart glad. You can find joy. You can find the light in heeding the instruction of the Lord. You actually can gain gladness in your life. It’s a better path to heed the instructions of the Lord and reap those things than it is to be on the alternative path, and that should put a smile on your face, you could find gladness in this. And then lastly,they make the eyes light up. Now, whenever the eyes go dim, death is nearby. Whenever the eyes light up, death is not in view. The life is extended or restored in some way.
R. Adam Dodd 23:24
And so in the second section of this psalm, we see that God does have something to say. The maker of the heavens does have something to say. And when He says it, if you will heed it, you can change direction, gain wisdom, find joy and extend or renew your life. So the heavens have something to say, and if you will listen, you will find what God is like. God also has something to say. And if you will listen, then you will learn what you can be like. So then we come to the last section of the Psalm, where the psalmist says, Do I have something to say? The heavens say this. And if we listen, we learn what God is like. God says this, and if we listen, we learn what we can be like. What does the psalmist say? And it’s his turn. He says […] Help. He’s concerned with two things, two types of sin: the unintentional sin and the willful sin. Now at this point, the association with Levitical regulations comes pretty apparent. If you go read your book of Leviticus and your book of Numbers, you will. Familiarize yourself with various sorts of sins or offenses and various sorts of offerings to remediate or correct or cleanse from those sins and those offenses, one of those is the kind that’s committed inadvertently, either out of ignorance or unintentionally. I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t intend to violate God’s holiness, but I did nonetheless, either because I wasn’t aware of that particular regulation, or I didn’t realize I was violating it. There’s still an offering that’s required, there’s still right standing that has to be acquired again, but it’s a different category than the one that’s the high-handed sin, as Numbers 15 will describe it, the one that is blatant and willful, shakes the fist in God’s face. It’s a different sort of offense. He addresses both of those in this last section.
R. Adam Dodd 25:56
Of the first he says, who perceives his unintentional sins? Implied answer, no one, no one is aware of this. What does he request? He requests that God cleanse him from his hidden faults. Now the cleansing here, we can talk about what is in view. He might be asking for God to acquit him, alleviate any punishment that’s warranted by this from me, that might be the case, that is possible. It’s in view, but I prefer the understanding of the verb here that has more to do with freeing or emptying or liberating. And I think what he’s asking is, will you alleviate this from me? Will you liberate me? Will you empty me of this sort? Will you free me from this sin that is unintentional, that is not intended. Moves on to the next category. Says, Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins. Do not let them rule me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed from my blatant rebellion or my severe wrongdoing or great sin. He doesn’t ask for cleansing for this one. What does he ask for? He asked to be empowered, to be able to resist it, to not be ruled by it. This is like the Lord’s instruction to Cain in Genesis four, where he says, Hey, hey, Cain, sin is crouching at your doorstep, and its desire is for you. It’s after you, but you must rule it. You must rule over it. You must master it. That’s what the psalmist is asking for. He says, God, will you empower me to not be ruled by this sort of sin? Free me from the unintentional sin, and empower me to not be ruled by the willful sin.
R. Adam Dodd 28:16
And then we reach the culmination of this final section with his prayer. And I think this is the thrust of the song. He says, May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord my rock and my Redeemer. We can say a few things about this verse alone. First of all, this word, “acceptable to you.” This is the word that one obtains when they offer an appropriate sacrifice to the Lord. When they offer that sacrifice, and it’s appropriate sacrifice, the status they gain is acceptance or being pleasing before the Lord, or favor from the Lord, it’s also the quality of the sacrifice. It’s that offering that actually gains them that status. That’s what he’s asking for. He’s saying, May my words from my mouth and the meditation of my heart gain this status for me. May it be acceptable and pleasing to you in giving me that status of being pleasing and acceptable, to use the same word that’s used as sacrifices in Leviticus in this particular instance. And he’s asking that it’s his words and the meditation of his heart that obtain this.
R. Adam Dodd 29:37
Now let me ask you, how’s your speech? How is your speech? How’s your speech about God, how’s your speech about people? How’s your speech to other people? How’s your speech to God? How’s your speech to yourself? Is it acceptable to him? Is it pleasing to Him? Is it honoring to him, or does it require some sort of atonement? Now, before I lose you, this is not a matter of self-help or inspiration or therapy. If your categories do not allow for your words to be of significant theological importance, then I would challenge that you need some readjustment of your categories, because after the psalmist has dealt with the speech of the heavens and the stars, and then the instruction from the Lord, from his mouth, he comes, and his petition is, God, will you make my speech, my words and the meditation of My heart to be acceptable to you. That’s where he lands at the end of all this. Now note that he asked that his words be acceptable to God, for sure, words are important, good. But he seems to understand that there’s a really close relationship between the things that come out of your mouth and the “inter” stuff, the between-me-and-God, the between-me-and-you, the between stuff, that’s really important. But he understands that there’s a really close relationship between that and the the “intra” stuff. This is…he’s anticipating Jesus’s instruction in Matthew that from the heart the mouth speaks and his admonition to the teachers of the law that, hey, you’re like whitewashed tombs because you deal with the outside and you tend not to the inside. This prayer flies in the face of any attempt to characterize, in contrast to the New Testament, an ancient Israelite faith of externality only and stagnation, and in contrast to some exclusively internalized faith and standard in the New Testament. That rubric, it does not hold water. And this prayer and this psalm is Exhibit A [proving] that the psalmist understands the close relationship between […] his words and the meditations of his heart, or his maybe better his mind, his thoughts, those two things. He says, Lord, may these be acceptable to you.
R. Adam Dodd 32:39
And then he addresses the Lord. He says, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Now we’ve already seen one transition from the first section to the second. In the first section, it’s the heavens declare the glory of Elohim, of God. In the second section, we move to the covenantal name of the Lord. In the third section, the Psalmist retains that, but he makes it extremely personal. First person pronoun on the backside of this my rock and my Redeemer, the one in whom I find protection or refuge from whatever is out there, whatever is, whatever storms or adversaries I have my rock, the cleft in which I hide myself. My Redeemer, the one who restores my familial status. He makes this very personal. This isn’t just covenantal. This is familial. He is God. You are my Goel, you are my kinsman redeemer, you are the one who restores my status in this family, that’s his concern after reflecting upon the declaration of the heavens and the speech of the Lord.
R. Adam Dodd 33:51
Now, the Psalms are intended to be rather communal. We’re intended to relate to them. They’re expressive. They’re written to relate to us and for us to adopt their perspectives and then articulate those back. So I’m going to lean into that. So what we have seen is…we’ve seen that the heavens have a message. The heavens have something to say. And if you will listen, they will tell you what God is like. And then if you ask, Well, does God have something to say? Yes, he does, and it’s quite valuable. And if you will heed it, then you will see what you can be like. You can gain wisdom and find joy and renew your life. And when the psalmist then says, What do I have to say? We see the speech of the heavens, the speech of the Lord now, the speech of psalmist, what do I have to say? He says, God, cleanse me from my hidden sins and keep me from my wilful ones. And I pray that my words and my thoughts gain me acceptance, or are pleasing, to you.
R. Adam Dodd 35:04
So let me ask you again, how is your speech? Does your speech declare the glory of the Lord? Are your thoughts focused on that, day and night, like the heavens? Because that’s the psalmist’s concern. He’s comparing his speech, his words at the very end, with that of the heavens with which he started the song, The heavens are so vast, and I’m the image bearer. Shouldn’t I be as faithful and as consistent with my messaging as the heavens are with theirs? So how is your speech? Can one discern from your speech, from your thoughts that you are a follower, if we apply it to our context of the carpenter from Nazareth, can they discern that you yield to a king who gives up his life for his enemies? Can they discern from you that you actually put your hope in a God that has all authority and has given that to his Messiah, who has all the resources in this world and in this creation. Do your words reflect that? Can people discern what God is like from your speech the way they can the speech of the heavens? Does your speech, does my speech, do our words and our thoughts declare the glory of God and His Son, S-O-N, better than the heavens that were made through Him and by Him and for Him? That’s my question, that’s my conviction from the Psalm, and that’s where I leave us today.
R. Adam Dodd 37:06
Let me pray for us, Father, we bend the knee, we acknowledge that you are our King, and we confess that we want to speak and think about you rightly and in ways that portray and represent your character in us, so that truly we can live into our role of image bearers the one true God. We ask for your help in this, through Your spirit. Pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.
