Our text today comes from the first four verse of the19th Psalm,
but for context, here is the entire short psalm: “The heavens declare the
glory of God; and the firmament [e.g. the skies] shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no
speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He
has placed a tent for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber; It rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is
from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of
them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is
perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple. The precepts of
the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of
the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is
clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true;
they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold,
yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the
honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there
is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden
faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them
not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted
of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
So, to those first four verses: “The heavens declare the glory
of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and
night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their
voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their
words to the end of the world.
Not very often in my
life have I been far enough away from the light pollution of nearby cities to stand
amazed by the countless stars glittering across the blackness of space. But
when I DO get to see them, I usually stare in amazement. It’s only because I’ve
read cosmological trivia that I even know not only of the majesty of the
heavens but ALSO the unfathomable precision with which the heavens function.
For example, according
to Scienceabc.com, “If Earth’s orbit changed, the climate consequences would
be enormous. Moving closer to the Sun would push surface temperatures past
survivable limits . . . moving farther would freeze the planet. A drastic
enough change in Earth’s orbital speed could even slow it into the Sun or fling
it out of the solar system altogether. Earth stays in its current orbit because
its orbital velocity is precisely balanced against the Sun’s gravity.”
I could share with you other
fascinating trivia about the intricacies and inter-relatedness of God’s heavens,
but in the time we have today, I want to draw our attention from God’s
handiwork on the macro level and focus on God’s miraculous creation on the
micro-level – the ‘universe’ we call the human body.
Listen to the Psalmist
speak of that universe: “You formed my inward parts; You wove
me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.”
(Psalm 139:13-14)
Physiologists,
biologists, geneticists, embryologists, and all the other disciplines within
the sphere of science focused on the human body – they all – if their minds are
teachable – will admit there is absolutely no room in evolutionary theory for
human development. Our bodies are simply too complex to be explained away by such
a provably false theory.
For the sake of time, let’s look only at the
eye: Our eyes contain a fluid – more
like a gel – that gives the eye its shape and holds the retina in place. Without that gel – called the vitreous
humor – the eyeball would collapse.
Now, about
that vitreous humor – our body continually forms that gel. That means that
unless there were some way for the gel to drain, the fluid pressure would build
to the point that the person would be blind.
Well, of
course, there IS a drain, a specialized tube in the eye through which the
vitreous fluid continuously drains, even as it is continually produced by the
eye. Which means, if evolution is true, then both the liquid in the eyeball AND
the drainage canal had to evolve simultaneously, or our species would each have
quickly become blind.
And of
note, Charles
Darwin wrote about the eye this way: “To suppose that the eye with all its
inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for
admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and
chromatic aberration,[to suppose that the eye] could have been formed by
natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest
degree.” (Darwin and Evolution of
the Eye)
Yet, despite his acknowledgment about
the eye’s complexity, Darwin held tenaciously to his opinion that the human
body was formed by chance.
Now, then, this is not the time for a
deeper discussion of the eye, or, for that matter, to demonstrate the utter
impossibility – statistically or logically – of the eons-long development of
the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the pancreas, the brain, or any other of the
body organs. Without the SIMULTANEOUS creation of the various and necessary
elements within each organ to enable it to do what it was designed to do –
humanity would never have lived 24 hours.
As John
Heywood noted in the 16th century: “There is none so blind as
those who will not see.” In other words, those who CHOOSE to ignore
evidence are more blind than those without physical sight.
Nevertheless, it’s a matter of routine in our culture for scoffers
to mock Biblical truth. Most people prefer to parrot what they’ve heard from
others, instead of bothering to study such things in detail. The prefer to recite
without thinking the opinions of atheists who declare that belief in God is
irrational foolishness, something believed only old women and children.
Irrational foolishness.
Oh, really? In the years between 1900 and 2000, 64% of the Nobel prizes in
physics, 65% of the prizes in medicine, and 74% of Nobel prizes in Chemistry
went to Christians? And the statistics since the year 2000 remain essentially
unchanged. And yet, scoffers still say belief in God is only for old women and
children.
So, why is it that
otherwise smart men and women reject belief in God? The answer to that question
is not as complex as it might at first seem. The answer is quite simple. Listen
to Jesus who is God-made-flesh explain the reason: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the
world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were
evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light
for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes
into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has
been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19-21, NIV)
So, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament
shows His handiwork.” The Psalmist continues, “Day unto day utters speech, and
night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where
their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)
There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. In other words, God speaks. All the
time. To anyone and to everyone who cares to listen AND even to those who
refuse to listen. He speaks through nature itself – sun, wind, rain, thunder,
lightning . . .
What?
We think because we can explain things of nature – such as the hydrologic cycle,
also called the ‘water cycle’ – we think because we can explain such thing through
science that we don’t need to believe in God to understand such phenomena?
Oh,
really? Isn’t it reasonable to believe the Creator of the universe and of all
things in it – including earth – isn’t it reasonable to believe the Creator initiated
such things as the hydrologic cycle as early as Genesis chapter one? Why else did
the Creator God create the various laws of science except to make the earth
inhabitable for the plant and animal life that He would create on the third,
fifth, and sixth days of creation?
“Science”
merely explains the processes God established in His laws of science to provide
for the needs of the various life-forms He created? No wonder He warns us in
His word: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in
unrighteousness, 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.” (Romans 1:18-20)
And no wonder He warns
through the Psalmist: “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no
God.” (Psalm 14:1)
Listen: It’s a fearful
thing when God calls someone a fool. It’s a fearful thing when He directs the
words of the second psalm to the fool: “He who sits in the
heavens [derisively] laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.” (Psalm
2:4)
Yes, God speaks. He
speaks through nature. He also speaks through the written word we call the
Bible. And He speaks through His servants who faithfully preach and teach the
Bible. He even speaks through the wicked as He instructs those with eyes to see
and ears to hear what we should NOT do and how we should NOT live.
God uses all means,
measures, and manners to speak – including silence. And He speaks also through
silence. Listen to Charles Spurgeon: “There are times when solitude is
better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better
Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through
meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labor in his service. We ought to
muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of
them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons,
make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets,
and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat but they do
not [take time to] grind it . . . From such folly deliver us, O Lord.”
And just
as we sometimes have difficulty hearing each other downstairs with all the
ambient noise, we also have difficulty hearing God with all the ambient noise
of our lives. TV, radio, chitchats around game tables, trips to here and there
– all of which are fine and good. But when we want to hear specifically from
God – we hear best from Him in silence. Why? Because He wants our ATTENTION. He
wants us focused on what He is saying to us. We cannot focus while surrounded
by noise.
“Come
away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while” (Mark 6:30-32) the Lord Jesus said to His disciples. And He says the same thing to us
in 2026.
I’ve mentioned the
15-minute challenge in the past, and I do so again for emphasis. I urge you to
get alone with God every day for 15 minutes – by the clock. The silence might
be uncomfortable at first, but as you practice it day after day spending time
talking to Him and reading His word – and listen for Him to talk with you – with
practice, you WILL find it getting easier and even enjoyable.
For example, open your
Bible to the psalms. Skim the pages until a verse or two or three catch your
attention. Then meditate on what God is saying to you at that moment through the
text. Pray the verses back to Him. At times, do the same thing with the New
Testament. You could also pray the lyrics of hymns you know, or the hymns I
hand out each week.
God is intimately involved with the universe, and He longs to be intimate with you and me. He loves you. And me. He loves those whom He has adopted by our faith in Christ. He loves us just as much as He loves Jesus. It can’t get any better than that. Listen to what the Lord prayed in that 17th chapter of John: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:22-23)
I need to bring this message to a close and I will do so with this: Many students of the Bible recognize this 19th psalm is divided into three clear sections. The verses we looked at today speak of God’s general revelation to humanity through creation itself. He tells us creation itself reveals His existence, His power, and His glory. And because His power and glory are accessible to all humanity, they have – as Paul said to those in Rome – no excuse for disbelief.
Next Sunday we will examine verses 7-11 which speak of God’s special
revelation which displays God's character as revealed through
the Bible and through the life of Jesus the Christ. His special revelation
constitutes His redemptive work through Christ for a fallen
humanity. Finally, the last section of this psalm – verses 12-14 – reveals what
should be our personal RESPONSE to God’s general and special revelations.
I close with this final word: There are serious and significant costs to ignoring God’s revelations. The first cost is what our rejection does to God.
It breaks His heart.
Some of you here have already caught a glimpse of that heartbreak in your own life because your child or children on whom you lavished your love –grew up and now want no part of you.
And your heart aches whenever you think about it. Maybe it aches even now as I bring up the subject. So, yes, some of you can begin to catch a glimpse of God’s broken heart over the estrangement of those whom He brought into this world to lavish on them His own love.
“God so loved the world” means what it says. God passionately loves every man, woman, and child on this planet. Even those who dismiss Him as irrelevant, like many of our families dismiss Him and like many of those downstairs in the dining room dismiss Him.
I know most people could not care less that their rejection of God so deeply hurts Him. I only bring it up because His heartache is but one of the costs – the cost He Himself endures – when we ignore His revelations.
Another serious and significant cost for ignoring God is what it does to us. There inevitably comes a time when a person consciously and persistently rejects God’s love that the person forms within himself a permanent spiritual hardness; And God them gives them over to their rebellions and lusts and hatreds (see the context of Romans 1:18-32). He hardens their hearts so that they are unable, for the rest of their lives, to turn back to God and receive eternal life (see the context of 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).
Yes, there are some terrible and serious consequences of ignoring God’s revelation of Himself – whether His general revelation through nature, or His specific revelation through Scripture and through the life and work or the Lord Jesus Christ. We will continue this short series through Psalm 19 next week as we look in greater detail at His specific self-revelation to humanity through the Bible.
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