Our Worldview from the Psalms

By Jay Wegter

Biblical worldview—not merely a Christian intellectual pursuit—it is a God-centered, soul-rejoicing unification of Christian truth (which is intensely practical—it emboldens our witness and deepens our confidence that God’s truth is total truth about all of life).

I teach Christian worldview against the backdrop of our culture—because, as believers, we are called to engage culture with the truth of the gospel. For the better part of a century, secularism has been shameless —making modern science its apprentice (or should I say Darwinism—which is a religious philosophy—and not true science). Biblical worldview so needed because we live in an age in which culture denies God’s work in creation and providence.

The secularists have said in effect: “We will tell you what reality is—what the universe is—you Christians will yield the floor to us—because science is the only reliable way to explain the universe. You keep your beliefs to yourselves (private, inward) out of the public arena; out of government and education. Sadly, (for our kids) for the most part, the church has knuckled under (allowing itself to be intimidated by the academy).

The secularists have promoted a worldview which says that the universe is CLOSED. That means they regard the universe to be self-originating; self-contained; self-sustaining; and self-interpreting (no God needed). We read our Bibles and discover that the exact opposite is true: the universe is not closed; but OPEN: because God is at work in it. The transcendent God of the universe is its: Creator; Upholder; Ruler;

Definer; and Interpreter.

The culture war between Christianity and secularism represents a ‘collision’ between competing cosmologies.

And what I want you to see is the immensity of the ‘train wreck’ that takes place when these two worldviews, or cosmologies, collide.

Well, it is easy to see that these two cosmologies are absolutely antithetical. There is no middle ground between them. Both claim to explain reality. That means there is an immense ‘train wreck’ occurring in our Western world—a deafening collision between these two worldviews. This morning we are going to look at the contribution of the Psalms to life view against the backdrop of erroneous worldview. This has everything to do with how you think, live, view education, choose your friends, converse, and raise your kids. (EX. Young people—without biblical worldview, where’s your discernment grid to evaluate pop culture/movies?)

Biblical cosmology is that branch of philosophy which deals with the origin and structure of the universe. At the heart of biblical cosmology is the Creator-creature distinction. Biblical cosmology includes the creation of male and female as the image of God (with the sub-themes of the dominion mandate; and biblical anthropology).

Central to biblical cosmology is that God is Creator and ‘Definer’ of what He has made. As Creator He gives designations, definitions, categories and relations of what He has made (Why is homosexuality wrong? Because creation structures declare who God is. Moral reflector.)

The absolute truth of cosmology is essential in interpreting the universe.ⁱ God’s relation to the creation is the ordering principle of the universe and of reality (Acts 17) (EX. Cal Arts students and prime reality question). Because God is the sustainer and definer of all that He has made; there is no such thing as a reality greater than God—or a reality in which God is but a component (note this error in deism and pantheism).

Thus, biblical cosmology is the sole vantage point ‘high enough’ to provide the foundation for a unified cohesive worldview. Biblical cosmology alone provides a wide angle lens broad enough to see man’s place in the universe. Biblical cosmology is a totally unified ordering principle—without it, worldview has no foundation. (And, reason without divine revelation ultimately leads to intellectual suicide.)

Consequently biblical cosmology is the foundation of the gospel—for the gospel only makes sense in a world in which our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God is Creator, Owner, Upholder, Lawmaker, Ruler, Redeemer, and Judge. The gospel has no point of contact in a world in which pagan (or materialistic) cosmology has replaced biblical cosmology. This is why there is an increasingly desperate need to define categories as God does—that He is Ruler, Sustainer, Owner of His creation—and that the designations and definitions He has made concerning His creation are absolutely essential for accurately interpreting reality.

(EX. Edwards sermon—“The End for which all Creation exists” states that the activity of the kingdom of darkness will not thwart God’s plan to glorify Himself. Sin is not equal to a new reality. Proverbs 21:30, “There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel against the Lord.” God shall have the last word, for even “The wrath of man shall praise thee” (Ps 76:10).

We have to understand how secularism has helped produce a post-Christian culture. Like an immense wrecking ball, secular humanism has been moving through society for the better part of a century. It has left destruction in its wake. The ‘wrecking ball’ of naturalism has systematically broken down the boundaries set by God. (Note that humanistic cosmologies seek to destroy the distinction between God and man; man and animal; man and woman; and right and wrong.) Philosophic naturalism has so thoroughly permeated our culture—it has for all intents and purposes become our national worldview. (EX. Every nature program; interpretive center; national park—are all shoving Darwinism at us; it’s become our country’s national worldview!)

Students imbued with Darwinism find themselves ‘metaphysically lost’ in a materialistic/chance universe without a fixed point of reference (75% of American college students are looking for the meaning of life. And no wonder—how to you find meaning and rationality in a meaningless and irrational universe?).

The secularists have used the above philosophy of materialism to target and shoot at the divine ‘blueprint’ given by God by which His creatures are to interpret the world, and order their lives and society. Naturalism has been ‘shredding’ the divine blueprint and leaving broken lives in its wake because of its lies. Secularism views man as a biological machine and not the image of God. (Create your own identity/reality!)

Secular humanism’s “wrecking ball” has redefined creation as a mass of raw material awaiting our efforts to shape it. The secularists think of the creation as matter, motion, and impersonal forces with no rational purpose—as if we import all rationality and superimpose it on creation (consider the folly of assuming that mankind has no personal origin—but then demanding that life has purpose, and significance).

With the rise of modern science came a fascination with quantities—with measuring things. Accompanying philosophies suggested that all reality may be reduced to a kind of mathematical formula. Concreteness, empiricism, and precision became the most valued attributes of knowledge. In other words, people began to think that the scientific method was the only really valid way to understand the world around us—“real knowledge” was scientific. “Real knowledge” was empirically verifiable, measurable, and quantifiable.ⁱⁱ

Says Christian sociologist, Ken Myers, church leaders, in an effort to remain relevant, and worried about losing their market share, began to reframe traditional Christian teaching in terms that fit the times. The church pushed its message through the grid of science. In essence, “[t]he belief became common that only science could make the world intelligible. . .”ⁱⁱⁱ (Ken Myers, Contextualization).

What was the net effect, in the minds of most, of replacing biblical cosmology with philosophic naturalism (the worldview of Carl Sagan)? In the minds of most, God as personal, transcendent, involved with creation was eclipsed and demoted.ⁱᵛ God’s direct involvement in the lives of His creatures was increasingly ruled out. God was no longer linked to all the details of reality. God had been marginalized—retired to a private or sub-cultural role (God had been eradicated as a shared basis of thought and experience). The bulk of modern thought simply dispensed with God. In contemporary culture God has been marginalized as a figure doing nothing of real significance.

Though evangelicals stressed personal faith and piety, evangelicals also began to divide (bifurcate) God’s role—they saw Him as active in redemption; but allowed science to define the creation. And we all accept this as benign as long as we have Jesus in our hearts. But the fallout is deadly serious.ᵛ

When one allows the Bible to describe salvation and science to comprehensively describe the creation; it produces a tear, or rend, in our thinking. The reason why is the salvation-science dichotomy pictures God as having two radically different faces—the side of God that dealt with creation was far less personal than the side of God that dealt with salvation. As a consequence, the Jesus of salvation became very other worldly and sentimental.

“Believing students on university campuses are able offer Jesus as ‘friend’ but have no clue how to proclaim Him as Lord of the cosmos.”ᵛⁱ This prevalent dualism welcomes Jesus as ‘mascot’ but cannot conceive of Him, or proclaim Him, as majestic Lord of the universe. This is the dilemma our Christian students face today on the secular university campus. The loss of biblical cosmology forces them to live with an immense ‘disconnect’ between faith and life.

Modern culture has encouraged and deepened this dualism. The yawning chasm which has divided creation from redemption has separated the physical from the spiritual in the minds of many believers. Through popular culture our youth are bombarded with this dualism. The wonder of creation as the revelation of God’s majesty has been erased, and with it God’s rule and reign. Reality is nothing more than what you make it. The creation is but raw material by which one may construct the self.

The electronic media is dead set on having us forget our Christian worldview. Nearly every television program operates with an agenda of displacing Christian worldview.ᵛⁱⁱ

The net effect is a palpable separation of our everyday life from our spiritual life.ᵛⁱⁱⁱ Spiritual truths are regarded as only abstract expressions of our inner life. They are divorced from the objective reality of everyday life.

How does this dualism manifest itself in evangelicalism? Redemption tends to be viewed as a private, subjective, personal, preference without an objective basis. Salvation exists in the mind and the heart—as if concrete reality is the physical universe and salvation belongs to the private and the subjective (salvation is less real than the physical elements of the universe).

Evangelicalism’s accommodation to the modern, or dualistic view, has pushed redemption further into the ‘upper story.’ Christians are living in a state of détente with the open ‘gash’ of dualism. Consequently the majority of professing Christians have lost the cosmological foundation for redemption. The resultant attitude in much of evangelicalism could be stated as follows: “Facts in the created realm shouldn’t get in the way of bringing people to Jesus.”

Christian students often live with an immense ‘disconnect’ between their professed beliefs and their life experiences. “At one Christian high school, a theology teacher . . . drew a heart on one side of the blackboard and a brain on the other. The two are as divided as the two sides of the blackboard, he told the class: the heart is what we use for religion, while the brain is what we use for science.”ⁱˣ

This dualism leaves knowledge utterly fragmented—spirituality is partitioned off from the remainder of life. The secular/sacred dichotomy tends to restrict Christianity to the realm of religious truth—this creates double minds and fragmented lives.ˣ

(EX. From Pastor Newheiser: a huge disconnect exists between their ethical life and their professed belief—truth and everyday life are ripped apart. The ‘gash’ is deepened through the message of popular culture. This is a deadly symptom of a worldview that separates the physical creation from redemption.) (A divided Christ is Friend; not Creator; Ruler; Lawgiver; Judge.)

The book of Psalms is a very powerful corrective to dualistic thinking. It overturns the two level view of truth. There is no dualism between creation and redemption in the Psalms. Christians for the most part have allowed themselves to be intimidated by the agenda of the secularists—as if Christian truth is an inward matter severed from objective fact. We will not be able to prepare the next generation to define the faith and defend the faith if they have no response to the secularist argument that the creation is nothing more than matter and motion, and natural laws and processes. The book of Psalms overturns the irrationalism of the secularists. Let’s turn to the book of Psalms and discover the abundance of worldview “building blocks” therein.

When we study the Psalms we find a perfect co-mingling of the physical created order and the moral order in the universe (Ps 19).

The Psalms are given to us to sink our foundations deep into the truth of God’s relation to the world. These truths are meant to control our understanding of reality. God is active in our lives; He is active in nature; He is active in history.

Throughout the Psalms are the twin themes of creation and moral order. Creation has order to it that is maintained by God (Ps 96). God is the ruler over what He has made. The Psalms assert that the fixity of creation is simultaneously physical and moral. The Psalms describes the whole creation as the worshipping chorus of God.

Not only does the creation praise God for His power, wisdom, goodness, and handiwork, the creation praises God for His justice. The Psalms proclaim God as establisher of an unbreakable continuity between the physical world and moral order—the world is pictured as delighting in His righteousness. “. . . and the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge (Ps 50:6; 72:3).ˣⁱ

This is Yahweh’s world. He created it; He owns it; He rules it by His goodness and for His own good pleasure. The world operates in a particular way because it is God’s world and He rules it and guides it. (EX. The unbeliever has created an illusory/fantasy world in his mind; but he keeps “bumping up” against reality—against God’s creation structures—beauty; conscience; hunger for love; the fact of crime and punishment.) God delights in the exhibition of His glory—this is the chief end for which all things exist, including knowledge (human and angelic sin do not thwart God’s plan that all things exist for His glory). The aim of all creation is that God’s glory and excellent perfections should be known, esteemed, loved, and delighted in by His creatures (Jonathan Edwards).ˣⁱⁱ

Regarding our moral universe which God governs: God’s precepts keep us from self-destruction. To fear and reverence God is to hate sin and turn from it. The proportion of our fear of God is revealed in our level of our hatred of sin (Ps 119:9-16; 53, 38, 45). The Psalms tell us that the Word of God is that which produces fear of God. Wise is the man who immerses himself in Holy Scripture. Because this universe is Yahweh’s creation, there is a common ethical system for all humans. Moral and physical order permeates every part of the universe. Therefore the ridiculous advertisement that one may take a ‘moral holiday’ in Las Vegas is patently absurd. Even the “heavens declare His righteousness” (Ps 97:6).ˣⁱⁱⁱ

(EX. My witnessing experience at W. Mich U. “Morals are evolving; they are not fixed; not universal; no standard outside of us.” “Virginia Poly Tech murders were not objective evil.” The students’ perspective is a worldview about the universe; it’s held in faith not in rationality!)

To live wisely in Yahweh’s world is to live according to His justice; and not by fleshly desires, and amoral pragmatism (situation ethics). A life of wisdom is a life of conformity to God’s norm of righteousness—His law. “Blessed is the man whom Thou dost chastise, O Lord, and dost teach out of Thy Law” (Ps 94:12).ˣⁱᵛ Obedience is to be universal—a whole life response to Yahweh. We are to please Him in all areas of life by respecting the divine order He has constructed in the world. Without this there will be moral failure and failure to please God. “Teach me Thy way O Lord, I will walk in Thy truth. Unite my heart to fear Thy Name. I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord my God with all my heart and will glorify Thy Name forever” (Ps 86:11-12).ˣᵛ

God’s Word was given to us to allow us to recall during times of temptation the boundaries God has set. To be conversant with these boundaries helps the man who fears God to do what is right and what pleases God in times of temptation. “I will set no worthless thing before my eyes; it shall not fasten its grip on me” (Ps 25:12-15; 101:3).ˣᵛⁱ

When we embrace God’s blueprint and standard it is not simply an attempt to master a moral code— it is submission to God’s holiness; His loving purposes for us. It is submission to God Himself who is our Source of life. For God’s commands constitute His character in code. Knowledge of God’s holiness and obedience to His precepts are bound up together. “Establish Thy Word to Thy servant as that which produces reverence for Thee” (Ps 119:18, 38, 66).

Wisdom is moral maturity. Wisdom is living life in Yahweh’s world as He intends that it be lived. Wisdom results in stability without fear of harm or misfortune (Ps 4:4-8).ˣᵛⁱⁱ The highest goal of wisdom is the knowledge of God (Prov 3:32). To fear Yahweh is to receive and live by His knowledge and wisdom. God’s purpose; His design in the world is to make us like Him in holiness.ˣᵛⁱⁱⁱ

It is impossible to make a fool out of God. God cannot be mocked. “When the wicked sprouted up like grass, and all who did iniquity flourished; it was only that they might be destroyed forevermore” (Ps 92:6, 7-9; Gal 6:7). The sowing and reaping principle is built into the very fabric of the universe. Moral cause and effect is ineffable. The wheels of God’s justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small. God’s justice is more comprehensive than a sinner can possibly imagine; it extends to the thoughts, intents, and secrets of the heart (Ps 73:18-20; 91:8; Heb 4:12; Rom 2:16).

In a moral universe sin is irrational—it is lawlessness. This is Yahweh’s world; that’s why secret sin is ‘a lie lived out’—there are no compartments in our lives that are not in Yahweh’s world (Ps 26:2; 90:8;139:7-23). “He who fashions their hearts knows all their works” (Ps 33:13-15). Our secret sins are an ‘open book’ in the sight of heaven. “Our secret sins are in the light of Thy presence” (Ps 90:8). (EX. The Psalmist wants to be examined by God.)

Worldview themes in the Psalms: The Creator-creature distinction

• In secular humanist, postmodern, and pagan circles, this foundational doctrine is under attack today. God’s ownership of us and claims upon us flow from the Creator-creature distinction. Biblical theism is anchored in the Creator-creature distinction—God’s absolute right and ownership of us. “He has made us, and not we ourselves” (Ps 39; 50; 92; 100:3; 146). First graders in Sunday school understand what college students today don’t understand—the Creator/creature distinction. College lectern has become a ‘pulpit’ for pantheism (erasing distinctions the Creator has made).

The fiat creation of the universe

• “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Ps 33:6). God spoke the universe into existence. Henry Morris states that these verses in Psalm 33 are the strongest affirmation of fiat creation in the Bible. It was not just by the Lord, but by the word of the Lord that the heavens were made.ˣⁱˣ The universe burst into existence not by scientific laws; not by the ‘big bang’ but by the infinite power of God’s Word. By His Word God has called into existence that which had no previous existence. God made all things out of nothing—God and matter are not ‘co-eternal.’

The conflict of the ages—between truth and error; sin and righteousness; godly and ungodly; chosen nation and heathen; God and Satan

• This present world is filled with groaning, temptations, oppression, conflict, and suffering. The righteous are ever aware that God is their only refuge and that God will assuredly bring to pass His final victory and purposes (Ps 17; 31; 150).ˣˣ The unbeliever looks at the cruelty, death, disease, suffering, and injustice in the world—and because he is a ‘truth suppressor’ he tends to gravitate to the ‘absurdity perspective’ (namely that life is a cruel joke without ultimate meaning and purpose). The psalms overturn the folly of this sentiment stating that “there is a reward for the righteous” (Ps 58:11).

The linear nature of human history

• Increasingly the philosophies of this age are embracing a philosophy of history that is cyclical, “the circle of life” as the song goes in the movie Lion King. But God’s Word is clear—all history is moving toward (hurtling toward) a predetermined end in which God will judge the world in righteousness (Ps 37; 40; 58; 98). History then will prove to be the record of the honoring and the dishonoring of God and the consequence of each in time and eternity. Every person cannot escape the fact that he or she will be an object lesson for ever (Ps 50:16-22; 119:119; 149:4).

(APPL.: Linear view of history put reverential fear into the hearts of founding fathers. Character counts—all history is moving toward an inescapable public judgment in which the secrets of men’s hearts will be revealed—Rom 2:16. Unrighteousness will be vanquished.

Man made in the image of God was made for God. Man was created to be a worshipper. God is our only true home

• Man is always looking for that which is worthy of his praise—the reason why is because God created man to be an enthusiastic spectator of excellence. We cannot stop worshipping—it will either be God Almighty or idols that we worship (Ps 135:14-18).

O.T. believers frequently meditated upon the brevity of life—upon the fact that in light of the eternal kingdom of God, the saints are pilgrims, aliens, transient, sojourners, essentially without a true home until glory.

Regarding God as our home, Tom Wells notes, “A pilgrim feels strange in a foreign land . . . he finds his mind repeatedly returning to home.” Many of the Psalms emphasize the theme that God alone is our true home. “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Ps 90:1). “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God” (Ps 42:1-2)?ˣˣⁱ

The ‘beauty of God’ is the only ultimate satisfaction there is—an eternal increasing satisfaction. We will never tire of looking upon the glory of God in the face of Christ. The psalmist alludes to this pleasure in God when he says in Psalm 27:4, “. . . [My desire is] that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord . . .”

(APPL.: what a litmus test for true Christianity—test ourselves by how vigorous our hope.)

What is the creation? The creation is a theatre for the glory of God (Ps 19); the ‘stage’ for God’s works

• God’s awesome works in creation, redemption, and providence reveal the excellence of the Creator and move the redeemed to praise (Ps 33; 95; 96; 98). Throughout the psalms the believer is depicted as preoccupied with the works of God—the redeemed individual is always extolling, studying, and praising the works of God.

God’s works are diligently studied by believers because the works allow us to ‘see’ and tell of God’s perfections (Ps 66; 67; 105; 145). It is a sin to forget God’s works (Ps 106). We study God’s works to know God, to worship God, to be wise, and to fear God (Ps 111).

The believer has a stewardship in this matter for the study of God’s works equip us to ‘pass on our faith’ to the next generation (Ps 78:6-8). God’s works in Creation, God’s ‘general revelation,’ is joined to the written Word, God’s special revelation (Ps 19) (Sermons without words and sermons with words). How a person treats general revelation (God’s works are sermons without words—19:1-6) determines how they will treat special revelation (God’s sermons with words—19:7-14).

What is redemption? It is the condescension of the Creator of the universe.

Salvation is due to the infinite condescension of the Creator in His incarnation (Ps 40) and His crucifixion (Ps 22; 69). (It is the Son of God reversing the ruin of sin and mending what He has made.) The Son of God is Mediatorial King,(He is priest and King after the order of Melchizedek)—He is installed by God (Ps 2)—He reigns over and represents His people (Ps 110). The Redeemer is the only One who can mend the original perfection that transgression ruined.

No greater condescension is imaginable than that of the King of the universe giving His life blood to make friends of former enemies. It is the Lawgiver bearing the guilt and punishment of the law-breaker (it is Messiah absorbing into His own being the death, wrath, separation, and misery that was due us). No one flees to God for the refuge of salvation unless they fear God. For the penitent knows to the depths of his being that God energizes the moral laws of cause and effect; of sin and punishment.

The penitent regards it as utter folly to reject the lovingkindness of God (as refuge from self and divine wrath) and to face the vengeance of God in one’s own person. The Psalmist captures the irrational ‘heart talk’ of the impenitent in Psalm 10:13, “. . . he has said to himself, ‘Thou wilt not require it.” In other words, the unbeliever imagines that his soul is unconquerable—that God will back down in the end and not prove to be a God of retribution and vengeance. The sinner tells himself, “I have escaped judgment so far; I will escape in the end also.”

God has annexed the honor of His Name to the veracity of His Word.

“Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven” (Ps 119:89). “Thou hast magnified Thy Word according to all Thy Name” (Ps 138:2). His Word is so important—our very faculties were created to receive His revelation (Ps 119) – God’s Word must be the constant occupation of our attention. The psalmist saw his need to be constantly animated by God’s Word lest he stray, displease, rebel, and distrust (Ps 119:11, 105, 118-119). The believer is eager to have his life constantly conformed to God’s will. Therefore he studies God’s Word that he might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Ongoing repentance means that our lives are always being ‘aligned’ to God’s Word so that we love His truth and have our affections continually conformed to His truth (Ps 101; 111; 115). Since God’s reputation is joined to His Word, our response must be unconditional trust in Him (Ps 33-34). (A willingness and desire to be examined by God.)

God’s Word and Lucifer’s ‘Wager’

Unbelievers are hostile to the fact that God’s attributes; His character; His zeal for His Name stand behind His inviolate, immutable Word. God binds Himself to His Word. The unbeliever’s attitude toward the Word of God mirrors Satan’s attitude toward the Word of God—for every unbeliever, like Satan, speculates that God is not as good as His Word—not as good as His threats and promises.

Every unbeliever treats God’s threats and warnings as ‘idle threats.’ Lucifer works tirelessly to make his own wager (about God’s Word) to appeal to sinners—namely that Satan’s own definition of freedom can be theirs. That a ‘master-less’ freedom is possible and desirable (in which case Satan becomes the god of the unbeliever by default (2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2-3).

Sin does not liberate or allow the sinner to transcend his creaturehood. Sin does not create a new reality. What sin does create is a ‘death spiral’ for those made in the image of God (separation from all love, life, light, blessedness, meaning, well-being, and relationship).

(EX. Our earth’s moon has a reflected glory—it does not produce its own light. The moon serves the earth in countless ways. It stabilizes our axis; it mixes our oceans temperatures; flushes our bays and estuaries; sets the reproductive clock of a multitude of earth’s species. In its present orbit the moon serves and the moon reflects—but if the moon left its orbit to wander into deep space it would lose all its glory. It would be useless, lost in the black vacuum of space, a wandering chunk of matter without an orbit; a meaningless undignified pock-marked ball of rock and dust.)

Much of the church today has ‘domesticated’ God—paring off from the knowledge of God such themes as the wrath; burning holiness; ferocity; and vengeance of God. What men are willfully ignorant of is the fact that God is putting His own character and attributes on display in redemptive history (so that every individual will ultimately be an eternal object lesson on where they stand with God’s Word. Those who imitate Satan’s wager will lose all their glory—1 Corinthians 1:19-20—instead of honor and life and blessedness, they will have eternal shame, misery, and dishonor).

Neutral ground in this matter is an illusion. Everyone led by the evil one is also a rebel who has ‘thrown down the gauntlet’ before God Almighty. (EX. Note the story of students from UCSD, I stated to them, “In your denial of the infallibility of God’s Word, is your eternal soul that you are wagering. Your ‘wait n’ see’ attitude conceals your open rebellion against God’s clear revelation. By your actions you are saying that God’s threats are idle threats.” Redemptive history makes it clear that there is no neutrality.

The Psalms constantly repeat that there is a total antithesis between those who are of the truth and those who are not. God will exhibit perfect discrimination between these two groups of individuals when He brings history to its consummation. (The Genesis flood is a paradigm of this perfect discrimination between believer and unbeliever. The Genesis flood completely removed the illusion of neutrality—He takes away all imagined middle ground.) On the last day it will be revealed that there are only two kinds of vessels: vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath—only two destinies: eternal life and eternal death.

What you think of God’s Word is what you think of God Himself. God’s immutable character backs up every word of Scripture. God and His Word are one. God’s Word will be fulfilled—it cannot be broken. Whether in redemption of the believer or damnation of the unrighteous—God will fulfill every threat and promise because He has joined the honor of His Great Name to the perfect fulfillment of His Word. God binds Himself to His Word. God has bound the greatness of His Name to the veracity and immutability of Scripture. God’s honor and glory are leveraged upon the comprehensive fulfillment of His Word. Therefore, for God to not fulfill any part of His Word would mean that He is no longer jealous for the sake of His Name—which is impossible.

The unbeliever pretends that God’s Word is not clear; not infallible; not authoritative. But we must remember that when the unbeliever hears or reads God’s Word there is an instant work of recognition taking place—the unbeliever knows he is hearing the voice of his Creator.

Sinners are willfully forgetful of what God is doing in human history. History is God confirming His Word—bringing to pass every word of it—staking His reputation on the veracity of His Word.

God’s universe is held together, ruled, ordered, and governed by God’s Word. No matter how sincere, zealous, pious, wounded, self-sacrificing, or religious a person is—God will not alter or set aside His Word for you. God loves people by giving them His Word and granting them faith in His Word and the power to be transformed by His Word.

The reality of redemptive history exists so that God may confirm His Word in a public display or demonstration. Nothing is more absurd than to think that God is not as good as His Word. Sin is spiritual insanity. To know anything about God’s purposes for human history is to see the depth of the folly of thinking there may be a chance that God will not fulfill every jot and tittle of His Word.

Repentance is not merely turning in remorse from moral failure; repentance is a repudiation (hatred) of one’s imagined independence (autonomy) from God—and then falling at the feet of Him who is the Word —God incarnate—and from then on to be ruled by His Word. Diligent attention to God’s Word is attention to God’s will—we cannot please and honor God unless our minds and hearts and consciences are captive to His Word (Ps 119).

God is our Sovereign King; He is to be feared.

The Psalms convey a supreme vision of God clothed in majesty, reigning, splendor, awesome in holiness.ˣˣⁱⁱ Says John Piper, “People are starving for the greatness of God. But most of them would not give this diagnosis of their troubled lives. The majesty of God is the unknown cure. Show me thy glory!”ˣˣⁱⁱⁱ God is constantly active in His involvement with the creation. He rules over the nations—He appoints their time in history as well as their destruction. No one can thwart His sovereign decree. He creates, controls, judges, wars, blesses. He subdues nations; He is to be feared (Ps 47:2-3, 7-9; 98:2-9).ˣˣⁱᵛ God does whatever He pleases in the entire universe, “in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps” (Ps 135:6). This is a cause of deep abiding reverence and awe.

The Genesis Flood is the single greatest event to shape earth since creation.

The deluge was a judgment for man’s sin. Because man is the ‘crown of creation’ and the steward of creation (Ps 8); in the flood the creation itself also suffered for man’s rebellion. Because man is God’s appointed steward over the works of God’s hands; as man goes morally—so goes creation (Is 24).

Noah’s flood radically altered the surface features of planet earth—mountains and oceans rose and sunk according to Psalm 104:5-9. God sat as “King” at the flood (Ps 29:10). The earth’s sediments speak of a global cataclysm; not of the origin of life. In the epistle of Second Peter, the Apostle speaks of the willful ignorance of the Genesis flood. In the last days scoffers will abound—denying that God has already judged the planet and its entire population once already in Noah’s flood. The first global judgment was by water the second will be by fire says the Apostle Peter. The first global judgment by water (the Genesis flood) is the precursor and paradigm of the final judgment by fire (2 Pet 3).

In Thy light we see light (Ps 36:9). God’s Word: our authoritative interpretive grid for all reality. God’s Word (His revelation; His ‘light’) is our authoritative interpretive grid—our ‘universal,’ our hermeneutic by which we interpret human experience. God’s Word interprets us! It is a deception to think that we may sit in judgment on God’s Word.

His revelation, the Word of Christ, is the ‘grid’ by which we interpret reality. Without the biblical ‘grid’ of creation, fall, flood, redemption, consummation is the ‘lens’ God has given us to make sense of the world.

When sinful man sets aside God’s revelation, all he is left with is his own autonomous reason (when fallen man observes nature red in tooth and claw, injustice, victimization, war, disease, suffering, he may assume that the ‘law of the jungle’ applies to mankind as well. But in his heart and conscience, he knows that God is his Creator and Ruler. The struggle in nature is not self-interpreting; we need God’s interpretive grid.).

As we stated before, God’s self-revelatory grid, His Word, is self-attesting. By self-attesting, we mean that no one and nothing can sit in judgment upon it. And we also mean by ‘self-attesting’ that the moment the sinner comes in contact with God’s revelation (the Bible) a work of correspondence takes place. The sinner is faced with (in written form) what he has known all along in his mind and conscience—that God is his Creator; that God is good; and that God will judge him some day.

According to Romans one, this is NOT new information! The unregenerate sinner continues to suppress the truth he has known all along when he reads the Word. Even in the sinner’s unbelief there is a ‘train wreck’ taking place between the sinner’s lying grid of interpretation and the interpretive grid of God’s Word.

The Psalms are ‘real to life;’ they speak to every joy and trial.

Says Steve Lawson, in the Psalms we find the godly man dealing with the heart-rending crunch of life. He is chased by enemies, he faces death, and he struggles with depression. Psalms speaks to every season of life—they are utterly realistic about suffering.ˣˣᵛ As Calvin said in his commentary on the Psalms, “[It is] an anatomy of all parts of the soul.” Psalms takes the attributes of God out of the realm of abstraction and into a glorious interface with the believer (Ps 146). The believer in covenant with God discovers that God has “harnessed” His own attributes for the welfare of His redeemed child. God’s dealings with His people are seen in concrete ways such as forgiveness, protection, guidance, provision, refuge, and hope (Ps 78; 103; 147). The Psalms provide a model for transparency in prayer.

The Psalms open the subjects of resurrection and the Kingdom of God.

Regarding the resurrection, Psalm 16 stresses that bodily resurrection is the future hope of the redeemed all because of Messiah’s resurrection. Says Henry Morris, we are justified in using Psalm 16 to support the resurrection. The apostles used this Psalm as the keystone of their preaching that the Scriptures foretold Christ’s resurrection (Acts 4:33; 113:5-37).ˣˣᵛⁱ

At the consummation of history the victory of God in Christ will be celebrated by the entire creation. A day is coming when all of creation will be unified in the praise of God—including the inanimate creation. “Praise Him sun, moon, all stars of light, praise the Lord from the earth sea monsters and all deeps” (Ps 147:3, 7; 148). Celebration of God’s victory will be to the ends of the galaxies. Rivers will ‘clap their hands’ (Ps 98). Trees will ‘sing’ (Ps 96:12-13). God’s coming Kingdom will be involve a celebration of eternal victory and a restored creation that worships God from one end of the galaxies to the other (Ps 150).

CONCLUSION:

Our nation is in trouble (and I’m not referring to the economy; politics; ecology; or energy—but I mean spiritually. And who has the answer? You’ll say the Lord does—and you’ll be correct. But He has designated the church the pillar and ground of the truth. We are stewards of the words of life. We are to open our mouths in boldness and love—proclaiming God’s solution in Christ to a generation enslaved in sin, rebellion, darkness, and fear. We must open our mouths and venture a word on behalf of the Lord. You are salt and light. Only eternal life in Christ is the answer to a nation of individuals facing the certainty of eternal death.

Endnotes:

i Dave Doveton.
ii Ibld.
iii James C. Turner, Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins
University Press, 1985) in Ken Myers, “The Problem of Contextualization in a Decadent Culture.”
iv Myers.
v Ibid.
vi Peter Jones, “Framing the Issues; Finding our Voices” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet,
think-tank, 2007).
vii Peter Jones, “Who Stole our Sacred Canopy?” Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, (www.cwipp.org, newscwipp

42, ).

viii Myers.
ix Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004) 19.
x Ibid, p. 25.
xi Ken Myers, “The Problem of Contextualization in a Decadent Culture,” Gheen’s Lectures, Southern
Baptist Seminary.
xii Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, (Banner of Truth, 1974) 1:104.
xiii Daniel J. Estes, Hear My Son, Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1-9, (Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 22-26
xiv Ibid., p. 36, 38
xv Ibid., pp. 38
xvi Steve Gallagher, At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, (Pure Life Ministries, 1986), pp. 257, 258
xvii Ibid., pp. 69, 75, 83
xviii Ibid., pp. 84, 98
xix Henry Morris, Sampling the Psalms (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, 1978) 49-50.
xx Ibid, pp. 11-12.
xxi Tom Wells, Come Home Forever (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 1992) 57.
xxii Steven Lawson, “Expository Preaching of the Psalms” (2004 Winterim, The Master’s Seminary) Lesson
one, pp. 1, 7
xxiii John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1990) 9, in Lawson, 7.
xxiv Lawson, lesson one, p.17; lesson. two, p. 62.
xxv Ibid, lesson one, p. 22.
xxvi Morris, p. 119.