Day 19: The Summer of His Face Shining Upon Us- Psalm 19

Day 19 – Join Johnny Enlow for a 67-day walk through Psalms.

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THE WONDER OF GOD

Key Verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” (v1)

Key Theme: How God is gloriously revealed through His creation.

Key Descriptives of God: God of Glory

As we start a new month in our 67-day journey of seeing the Lord’s face shine upon us in the 2020 version of the Summer of His love, what a most appropriate place of departure. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Another translation, “The heavens are continually rehearsing the glory of God.” We have insight perhaps into many things David says throughout the Psalms. In other Psalms, he will talk about “beholding” the Lord or His beauty. He will talk about “magnifying the Lord”. He will talk about “seeing” the Lord. Here in Psalm 19, he does all that while looking at the skies, even as he is noting its’ change between day and night. He is picking up the glory of God in the moon and stars at night as well as in the sun in the day. The word “firmament” is the visible arch of the sky/heaven where it looks like the stars, moon and the sun are fixed. 

This is as good a time as any to remind the reader of two things about the Psalms. First, it is meant to be processed as song and poetry and not just straight literature. This means passion and repetition of themes are sown into it. Secondly, because that is so, many follow-up phrases are meant essentially to just be reasserting the first phrase and saying it another way. This is true here as well. The firmament showing His handiwork IS the heavens declaring the glory of God. Having said that, I still believe the Holy Spirit can help us extract additional– even non-intended by the writer—  revelation from the repeat/parallel pattern. For instance in Psalm 15:1 where David said, “Who may ABIDE in Your tabernacle? Who may DWELL in Your holy hill?”, we have this parallel, poetic song repeating of the first line. Yet in the nuanced difference between ABIDE and DWELL, I thought there was an insight as well that I shared. The scriptures are designed BY THE HOLY SPIRIT to be always relevant even if the author didn’t know to strategically make it so. This is why they are so amazing.

Plain, Parabolic, Personal and Prophetic 

Yes, there is value in knowing the context and setting of the original author—  but revelatory truth is not limited to that. There is value in extracting what it meant to an original author, but the Holy Spirit can also breathe on any passage and say that is for you and that is for now. Many Biblical “brainiac” scholars miss out on this reality for themselves as well as demand everyone else miss out on it. Don’t let yourself be limited by that. Even Rabbis accept that the scriptures can speak in four different ways. My easy to remember takeaway is that these four ways are 4 P’s of the Plain, the Parabolic, the Personal, and the Prophetic. All one has to do is go read all the times the author of Matthew said “that it might be fulfilled” what so and so prophet of the Old Testament said, and you shake your head and say “you got that from there?” The “brainiac” scholar that will tell you that it is all about “context, context, context” as you read is only giving you insight on the first P. It would not be a LIVING WORD if that was its’ only value. The reason the Psalms are coming alive through the way I am sharing them is I go in and out of the 4 P’s — as the Holy Spirit leads. HE is the teacher. “The letter kills but the Spirit gives life”, as it says in 2 Cor. 3:6. Even Satan will QUOTE scripture (at Jesus in Matthew 4 coaxing Him to jump because Ps. 91 “God will give His angels charge over you”). 

In fact, this whole focus of the day has gone differently from my notes as the Holy Spirit seems to be redirecting:) Yet it still ties in so closely with this amazing Psalm. In the NLT in verses 3 and 4 speaking of “the heavens proclaiming the glory of God”, it says, “THEY SPEAK WITHOUT A SOUND OR WORD; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.” David is saying, the stars, moon, and sun are all prophesying to us — even if they can’t talk! God loves to message in many ways. Yes, we can look at the plain meaning of the sun and tell of the practical, pragmatic ways it serves us on earth— but even David speaks of the sun coming out “like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding”, as he looks at the sun beyond its’ Plain context into Parabolic and even Prophetic truth that he has Personalized in his discovery of God. Part of this journey into “God’s face shining upon us” is to be able to discover it in non-overt ways. Romans 1:20 tells us that humans are excuse-less to deny God even if no one straightforwardly taught them because “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen”. Creation itself is a powerful messenger, but a messenger as David says “WITHOUT A SOUND OR WORD.” So much more we could extract from that as well, even personally, as we realize our actions prophesy louder than our words.

The Heavens DON’T Declare the Glory of Satan

This is the last point I want to make as my time and length of the post is up. Why do I say “the heavens DON’T declare the glory of Satan?” So that the next time you hear of a disaster coming our way because of certain moons and star formations remember the parameters of the heaven’s proclamations. They declare the GLORY OF GOD. They are not to be used to report on the devil’s coming frightening activity. God never does free commercials for the devil. We should stop that as well. Every time we “testify” of the devil we are in essence doing free commercials for him. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb — and the word of our testimony (Rev.12:11). We overcome by what He did on the cross and doing commercials on what God is doing or has done. If it is not “good news” it is not the gospel.

Now, I left so much treasure unexplored in Psalm 19, but please go get it. The last verse in the chapter was my grandfather’s favorite verse in the Bible and he would always recite it to us and make us recite it back. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord my strength and my Redeemer.”

 

 

Written by: Johnny Enlow

Featured Image by chris ganser on Unsplash


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The 67 Day Countdown Series is brought to you by Johnny and Elizabeth Enlow, founders of Restore7 ministry, as well as international speakers and best-selling authors. Among Johnny’s books are The Seven Mountain Prophecy, The Seven Mountain Mantle, Rainbow God, The Seven Mountain Renaissance, Becoming A Superhero, and RISE. Elizabeth serves as CEO and penned Rainbow God: The Seven Colors of Love and God in Every Season.

The views and opinions expressed by Kingdom Winds Collective Members, authors, and contributors are their own and do not represent the views of Kingdom Winds LLC.

About the Author

Kingdom Winds Contributors - Johnny and Elizabeth Enlow are social reformers at heart, as well as international speakers and authors of The Seven Mountain Prophecy, The Seven Mountain Mantle, and Rainbow God. As ones focused on the reformation of the 7 primary areas of culture, they are spiritual mentors to many in Media, Arts and Entertainment, Government, Family, Religion, Economy, and Education. Their passion is to awaken our generation to the reality of the God of all of life, Who not only cares for our souls but also has practical solutions to offer through His sons and daughters for every problem that exists in society.