An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 19:1-11, for Sunday, June 15, 2025, with the title “God’s Glory.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRODUCTION:

DISCUSSION QUESTION:
??? Can you share a time when you were in awe of something you saw in God’s creation, and you just praised Him for it ???

(Standing in front of the Grand Canyon was one of the most awe-inspiring moment to me. It’s just glorious. When Theodore Roosevelt saw it, he said: “I don’t exactly know what words to use in describing it. It is beautiful and terrible and unearthly.” 

(Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 225)

But also, honestly, every morning I look out my office window during my quiet time, and see the flourishing elm tree in our front yard, and the grass blowing in the Oklahoma wind, and the Robin hopping in our yard after some worms, and the house finch and others flying up to the feeder; virtually every morning I start off the day, just thanking God for the beauty and glory I see in His creation.)

You/your group can share your own experiences of God’s creation drawing you to Him, and then you can transition into the lesson, saying something like: In today’s lesson, Psalm 19 shows us how the Bible does specifically teach that God’s Creation does indeed point us to the glory of God.

OR: you could open with this QUOTE from John Adams:

“I find my imagination … roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites, and comets, which compose the incomprehendable universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, and the benevolence that sanctifies this wonderful whole.”    (David McCullough, John Adams, p. 630) 

CONTEXT:

We continue our study this quarter of the Book of Psalms with Psalm 19, a favorite and beloved Psalm many of our people are familiar with. 

Psalm 19 is found in the first “Book,” Book 1, of Psalms. As we’ve seen the Psalms are divided into 5 books, perhaps reflecting the 5 Books of the Law, and no one has come up with a conclusive answer as to why they are divided as they are. We do see that in Book 1, most of the Psalms are Psalms of David — though there are Davidic Psalms in the other sections too.

Regarding Psalm 19 itself, it says it is ascribed to David, and there is no reason to doubt that. Its content divides up very naturally into three sections:

I. The Revelation God gives us in His Creation (:1-6)

II. The Revelation God gives us in His Word (:7-11)

III. The Revelation which gives us Purity (:12-14)

OUTLINE:

I. The General Revelation of God’s Creation (:1-6)

II. The Special Revelation of God’s Word (:7-11)

TEXT: Psalm 19:1-11

I. The General Revelation of God’s Creation: (:1-6)

:1 “The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.

3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.

4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
In them He has placed a tent for the sun,

5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices as a strong man to run his course.

6 Its rising is from [b]one end of the heavens,
And its circuit to the [c]other end of them;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

General revelation (or “natural revelation”) is the name theologians have given to “the self-disclosure of God to all rational beings … through the natural creation.” (Akin, A Theology for the Church, p. 71).  In other words, it’s what God’s made obvious about Himself to everyone through what He created.

Romans 1 talks about that “general revelation” of God in creation:

:19-20 says: “because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Paul is saying there that through God’s creation, people can see enough of God to know that He exists, so that no one has an excuse not to believe in God. He has revealed Himself to all of us through His creation. That is what  “general revelation” or “natural revelation” is.  

This “general revelation” is what Psalm 19 starts out describing:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.”

:1 is saying that you can look up in the sky and it will tell you of God’s glory.

:2 says: “Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” In other words, every day, creation just “pours forth” arguments for God!

Now someone may say, “Well, I don’t hear anything!”  (It reminds me of what Russian Premier Khrushchev said of their cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin: “Gagarin flew into space, but he didn’t see any god there.”)

To that, :3 says, “There is no ‘speech’, nor are there words” — in other words, there are not literally “words” up there; God didn’t spell out “I am here” in English letters with stars!  

But :4 says, “Their line (or literally, “their SOUND”) has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world.”  

In other words, you don’t really “hear voices” literally — but all that God created there, is “SPEAKING” in a sense every day, to those who are looking for Him in His creation.  

This is “natural revelation” — the revelation God has given us in nature; His creation.  No, it doesn’t literally “talk” with words — but in a very real way it DOES communicate to anyone who is really watching and listening, that there is indeed a Creator.

DISCUSSION QUESTION:

Verse 1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” 

??? What are some things we can learn about God and His glory from the heavens/creation?  

(We learn all kinds of things:

— We can see that God is a God of order. Everything is in its place, so consistently and faithfully that we can navigate by the stars!  There are laws of creation which are constantly obeyed, which tell us that He is a God of “law & order.”  One scientist said that the only reason we can have scientific “laws” is that God is a God of order, who has put consistency in His creation.  

— We see the seasons return every year without fail, demonstrating that He is a faithful, consistent God.  

— Paul A. M. Dirac, who complemented Heisenberg and Schrodinger with a third formulation of quantum theory, observed that:  “God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”

(Anthony Flew, There Is A God, pp. 105-106)

And/or:

“As Albert Einstein simply put it: ‘The mathematical precision of the universe reveals the mathematical mind of God.’”

(Richard E. Simmons III, Reflections on the Existence of God, p. 184)

— We can also see from creation that He is an IMMENSE God: we are 92 million miles from our sun, and yet our whole solar system is just one little speck in the Milky Way Galaxy, which IF you could travel at the speed of light (no little detail, since the speed of light is 671 MILLION miles an hour!)  IF you could travel 671 million miles an hour, it would take you 100,000 years traveling at that speed, to cross our galaxy!  (To put that in a little bit of perspective, the whole recorded history of humanity in the world is only about 5000 years. So IF you had been traveling 671 million miles an hour since human history began, by now you would only be about 1/20 of the way across our galaxy!  And our galaxy is only ONE of perhaps 200 BILLION other galaxies!  If that’s the creation, then what does it tell us about the GOD who created it?! He is IMMENSE, far beyond our imagination!  

ILLUSTRATION:

“These were exhilarating, disorienting discoveries (made by Galileo and his telescope). The unsuspected vistas revealed by the telescope inspired a fair number of seventeenth-century thinkers to rejoice at this proof that God’s creation was truly without bounds. It was only fitting that an infinite God should have created an infinite universe. What could be ‘more splendid, glorious, and magnificent than for God to have made the universe commensurate with his own imrnensity?’ asked the Royal Society’s Joseph Glanvill.”  (Edward Dolnick, The Clockwork Universe, p. 111)

— Verses 4b-6 talk about the Sun, particularly. In the sun that is the center of our little solar system, we see the glory of God. When Jesus went up on the Mt. of Transfiguration in Matthew 17, :2 says that “His face shone like the sun.”  So from the sun we learn something of the glory of God: that He is radiant, and glorious. John Calvin wrote that sinful man could no more look at the glory of God and survive than a man could land on the surface of the sun and not be consumed. The sun teaches us something of the glory of God. 

So from the heavens we can see that God is a God of order, and faithfulness, immensity, and glory — and much more. The heavens definitely do “declare the glory of God” in natural revelation. Anyone with reason can see that.  

For much of the 20th Century, Anthony Flew was the most influential atheist thinker in the world. He was the president of Oxford’s Socratic Club, and wrote several books promoting atheism. But in 2004, Flew shocked the world by announcing at a debate at New York University that he now believed that there must be a God!  And he believed it on the basis on creation. He wrote: 

— “nature obeys laws” — where did these “laws” come from?  

— and he said that these laws seemed to be “fine-tuned” to be able to support life, when they could easily have not done so. WHY do the laws of nature support life? It leads one to believe in the existence of a Creator.

— But he said that the strongest evidence was DNA. In fact he said he converted “‘almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence’ (p. 75).”

What Anthony Flew was saying is just what Romans 1 and Psalm 19 teach us: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” God is revealing Himself to everyone whose heart is open to see Him, through what He has made in creation. This is the primary lesson of Psalm 19:1-6.

But as great as are the benefits of “natural” or “general” revelation, and how it points us to God, we need to realize that there are also limits to it. A person can look at the sun, and the stars, and at DNA, and know that there is “some kind” of Creator — but what we can know of God through Natural Revelation is limited.  

DISCUSSION QUESTION: 

??? What are some things you CAN’T know about God/truth from Creation?  

(Specific things like: that Jesus is God’s Son; His death on the cross paid for our sins; that we need to repent and have faith to be saved; etc. These things can’t be “seen” in nature in any way; they need “Special Revelation” from God to us which specifically teaches us these things.  

That is where the second category, “Special Revelation” comes in. And that is what we see in :7-11 of Psalm 19:  

II. The Special Revelation of God’s Word: (:7-11)

7 The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

8 The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;

The judgments of the Lord are true, they are righteous altogether.

10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover, by them Your servant is warned;
In keeping them there is great reward.”

What theologians call “Special Revelation” is the particular revelation of God to His people, that goes BEYOND “General Revelation,” and it’s found in His word.  The Bible is God’s “Special Revelation” to us. And it tells us things that General Revelation cannot. 

FOR EXAMPLE:

— As we said, you can discern from Creation that there is “some kind of God.” But in His word we learn that He is a Triune God, who has existed from all eternity as Father, Son & Holy Spirit. You could sit and gaze at the stars every night; you could sit and stare at the sun until your eyes went blind, and you’d never gather the doctrine of the Trinity solely from Creation. You only get it from God’s word.  

— You might be able to gather from observations of Creation that the God who made the universe is majestic, and glorious, and “beyond” us somehow. But how to communicate with Him, that our sins have to be dealt with, and that He sent a Savior for us who died on the cross to bridge the gap between us and Him, we will never “figure all that out” just by looking at DNA; we need the Special Revelation of God in His Word to tell us that.  

And that is where Psalm 19 turns to in the next section, :7-11. It “shifts gears” from General Revelation to Special Revelation. Verse 7  begins: “The Law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul …”

And what we find over the next 3 verses are 6 parallel descriptions of the Special Revelation of God: His word. These verses use SIX DIFFERENT terms to refer to scripture (kind of like what we saw in Psalm 119):

— :7 calls it “the Law of the LORD” & “the testimony of the LORD”

— :8 describes it as “The precepts of the LORD” & “the commandment of the LORD”

— :9 labels it: “The fear of the LORD” & “the judgments of the LORD”

So here we find 6 different terms, all describing the same thing: the “Special Revelation” of the Word of God.  

AND note that the word “LORD” used in all six of these instances is in all caps, which means that in the original Hebrew text it is “YHWH,” or “Yahweh,” the personal name of God. Among other things, God has revealed who He is to us in His word, so that we can know Him personally. We can discern that there IS some kind of God from His creation, but His personal name — and much more, especially salvation — we can only find in His word. 

Also, the six terms for the Special Revelation of God in His word are accompanied by 6 descriptions of what God’s Special Revelation are and will do for you:

— :7 says it will restore (or “convert”) your soul, and “make wise the simple.”

— :8 says they are “right” and “pure”, enlightening your heart and eyes.

— :9 says it will “endure forever” and they are “righteous”.

After that 6-fold description of the Word of God, :10 then says, “They are more desirable than gold, yes than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb.”   In other words, NOTHING that people typically want in life: gold, food, NOTHING should be more desired by us than God’s word.  It is the most valuable thing in all the world.  

DISCUSSION QUESTION:
??? Which of the six things mentioned here seem most important to you???

(You & your group can share your thoughts, but to me the first and best thing God’s Special Revelation in His word will do for us is “convert our soul”, like :7 says.  We can’t see enough of God in the General Revelation of creation to teach us to repent of our sins and find forgiveness in Christ, but we DO find that in in the Special Revelation of God’s word.  

Anthony Flew, the atheist I mentioned a bit ago, became a “Deist” — one who believes in God — merely through observing God’s glory in creation, in the natural order and in DNA. But he did not, to my knowledge, become an actual “Christian” and follow Jesus as his Savior. He said he was open to it, and gave some indications in the last book he wrote before he died that he was talking with N.T. Wright, an English pastor, about it. I hope that he did end up being saved.  But the point is, you need more than just “natural revelation” for that; you need the Special Revelation of God’s word.

And that’s the testimony of former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Bill Tolar. As a young adult, Tolar was an atheist, and he proudly considered himself to be an intellectual. But one day a friend challenged him: “You consider yourself to be an intellectual, have you ever read the world’s best-selling book all the way through?” Tolar asked what that book was, and he was told it was the Bible. He said it became a matter of intellectual pride to him to read through the world’s best-seller, and so he began to read it — but he said as he began to read the words of that book, he knew that if this book was right, that he was living wrong, and by the time he had finished it, God had spoken to his heart, and he became a follower of Jesus Christ. Tolar had a great appreciation for nature and creation — in fact he used to share an amazing sermon on how all the different elements of creation have to be balanced “just right” in order to support life, which powerfully argues that there must be a Creator — but for all that, it wasn’t the “natural revelation” of Creation that actually converted Bill Tolar — rather it was the “Special Revelation” he discovered in God’s word.  

CONCLUSION

This is what the first 2/3 of Psalm 19 is about: 

— the Natural Revelation of God in Creation in :1-6, and

— the Special Revelation of God in His word in :7-11.  

(As I mentioned in the Context, there is actually a 3rd powerful section of Psalm 19, in :12-14, that bears looking at, which describes the different kinds of sins that God’s word warns us against: errors, hidden faults, presumptuous sins, transgressions, words of our mouths, and meditations of our hearts. But most of us will have to look at that section another day; there’s more than enough for us to cover in one Sunday, just from :1-11!)

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