Mudliar Speaks on Psalm's Revelations

Psalm 19 provides revelations about God which should solicit a response from the reader, Dr. Ishwaran Mudliar told OBU students during a weekly chapel message Wednesday, Nov. 14. Mudliar, associate professor of religion at OBU, presented a message to follow OBU's current chapel theme, "The Psalms."

The first six verses of Psalm 19 reveal God as Creator, Mudliar said. The passage states, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands." Mudliar said the Scripture explains that God's glory and his creative abilities are revealed throughout the world.

"It should be evident when we look around - whenever we gaze at the sky, whenever we look at nature - it should be obvious to us, even when no one is speaking to us, that there is a God who has created all these things and deserves our praise and our worship for what he has done," he said.

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The second section of the passage, Psalm 19:7-11, reveals God as Judge and Redeemer, Mudliar said. God has specially revealed his law in the Word of God, and the law is perfect and blameless, he said. Because God's laws are perfect, they have the ability to restore the soul.

"If anyone is ever going to be saved from his sins, he must believe in the Gospel of Christ, the Word of Christ," Mudliar said. "He is not saved by looking at nature. He is not saved by doing good things. He is not saved because he is born into a certain family, has a certain ancestry - nothing of that saves a person. If anyone is to be saved, he is saved because the law of the Lord was known to him and he believed it, and that converted him, that restored him. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ."

In verse 9, the psalmist writes, "The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous." Mudliar said that fear is a healthy respect of God based on the knowledge that God is the eternal judge.

The revelations from the first portion of the Scripture, Mudliar said, should produce a response in the reader. He said Psalm 19:11 declares there is great reward for the person who hears the valuable warnings of Scripture and heeds them.

"The things we like for our daily living - the food we eat and the money we need - these are necessities, but compared to eternal things, the Word of God … they are nothing," he said. "The Word of God should be everything to us because only then can we truly know God and follow him with our whole heart and soul and might."

The passage concludes with a personal revelation and a prayer. The psalmist acknowledges he sins unintentionally as well as willfully, and he calls on God to acquit him from the sin. The same freedom is available for each person reading the psalm, Mudliar said.

The psalmist's personal prayer also applies to each reader: "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer" (Psalm 19:14).