The Light of Creation

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Psalm chapter 19 tonight. Psalm chapter 19. The other day, Charla and I were watching a television show late in the evening.

Once we put the kids to bed, we kind of collapsed ourselves because they wear us out. And we were watching this show, and at the end of it, they brought in this guy to help a cow birth a calf. And it was kind of, she’s shaking her head already.

She knows where I’m going with this. It was funny to watch her reaction, which wasn’t as severe as the guy who was having to do it for the first time, and how disturbed, I guess is the word to describe her reaction, how disturbed she was. And I told her, you know, I’m sure it would not be my favorite thing to do.

I’m not Mr. Cattle Rancher, but I don’t think I would be standing there dying like the man on television. But Charla was just horrified at this, and we were talking about what would the kids’ reactions be to helping birth a calf.

And Benjamin would be, you know, horrified as well. Madeline would probably, when it came out, say, oh, how cute, that’s where we get hamburgers. You know, that’s sort of her reaction to things.

But it started me off thinking, yeah, I know y’all are thinking, where is he going with this? It started me off thinking how far we’ve gotten away from God’s creation. And this is not a message tonight about, well, let’s get back to nature.

But as we’ve gotten more and more into an industrialized society where, you know, so many of us go off to jobs in offices and we buy our food at the grocery store, we’ve lost sight of one of the ways that we relate to our Creator. And I think as we’ve done that, we’ve lost some of our awe about who He is. You know, God designed us to interact with His creation, and that would give us a sense of awe about who He is and what He’s done and what He continues to do for us on an ongoing basis.

You know, it wasn’t too long ago, my great-grandparents planted their gardens by the moon cycles. And, you know, they followed a very agricultural schedule. And you planted at a certain time, not just certain moon cycle, but you planted at a certain time of year.

And you did things in the garden and on the farm certain times of the year. And you harvested at a certain time of the year. And you did this because you were dependent on that for food.

And you were really dependent that God would provide you with the right conditions. Otherwise, you may not survive. And we’ve come a long way from that.

And sometimes for the good, I will say I do like going out and growing my own vegetables, but I also like being able to go to Walmart and pick them up in the frozen food aisle if I need them. So I’m not against that. I’m just saying as we have gotten away from his creation, we have lost some of our awe over our creator.

And it’s something that we need to be reminded of from time to time, that creation shows His power. That all of the creation around us just screams out who God is. And it says here in Psalm chapter 19, if you haven’t joined me there yet, if you would, Psalm chapter 19, starting in verse 1, we’re going to look at six verses here tonight.

It says, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Now when it says the heavens, it’s talking about the sky. The skies above us show, declare the glory of God and the firmament.

That means the earth, the ground we walk on. The earth here shows his handiwork. And that’s true.

I know there are some people who look at it and say that it all came from random chance. I can’t go to that conclusion.

As a matter of fact, the more I studied biology in school, whether it was high school or college, and studied sometimes under teachers and professors who did believe in Darwinism, the more I studied the same facts we’re looking at the same facts and we’re looking at the same processes but what they saw as the result of random chance I looked at it and said there’s no way there’s absolutely no way something that complex could come out of chaos without some intelligent force guiding it and I believe that that intelligent force is the God of the Bible same thing with astronomy took some astronomy classes in college there are people who will look and say that the universe exploded from one single point of matter although even the Big Bang theory is in question nowadays among scientists but they’ll look at it and say they’re looking at the same evidence I am the same facts I am and the same processes and coming to a completely different conclusion that it came from random chance and I look at it and say there’s no way that something that orderly we look at nature and it’s really not random there is an inherent order to the nature around us from the tiniest cells to the galaxies.

There’s an order around us that I don’t have enough, sort of like this morning, I don’t have enough faith. I don’t have enough faith to believe that all of that came by random chance. And if you go back just a few chapters, I believe it’s Psalm 14, verse 1 says, The fool has said in his heart, there’s no God.

The Bible tells us that it’s utterly foolish to look around us at the creation of this world, to look around us at nature, to look around at everything that is, and to conclude that there’s no God and I’m going to live like it. That really, and I don’t think the Bible’s meaning to insult anybody. It’s just, I really interpret that as saying it’s foolish that we’re deluding ourselves when we look at all the evidence and say, no, there’s nobody out there who set down the moral law.

There’s nobody out there who’s going to hold me accountable. When the Bible says here in chapter 19 that all of creation screams out his presence, the heavens declare his handiwork. As we were finishing up with the song service, as we were finishing up with the song service, Benjamin was sitting out there still finishing his apples from dinner because he needed to do that.

And we had the doors open so he could also participate in the song service. I was standing out there checking on him and trying to sing with you all at the same time, and I happened to look out the door and was just amazed by the shades of red and orange and purple that were in the sky out to the west of us, and the beauty of it with the stark contrast of the black of the trees, the shadows of the trees, especially right now that they don’t have any leaves on them. And I thought that sunset out there just screams to me that somebody created it.

And yes, I know it’s the light rays filtering at an angle through the gases of the atmosphere. I get that. but who put all those gases there?

Who put just the right mixture of the gases for us to breathe so that we don’t explode or suffocate and took the gases that we need to breathe and made them look nice too? I mean just as kind of a cherry on top of everything. And you go outside a little later.

If I preach too long tonight, you’ll be able to see it when you leave. The stars. When to go out that much.

It was usually her coming to church with me. But I’d drop her off at home at the end of the night, and we’d stand outside for sometimes 10, 15, 20 minutes and look at the stars and just be in amazement. And she knew the names of the things.

I just looked up and thought, hey, balls of flaming gas, how pretty are those? And she’s telling me, well, there’s Orion’s belt, and there’s Polaris, and there’s this and that. She was telling me the names of all of them.

And we’d just stand out there and be amazed at what God had created and the order and the creativity that God had put out there in the galaxies and that we see these things years later after that light has already left there and we get to stand there and witness this beauty that God has put in the heavens. We don’t stand outside and look at the stars much anymore because we’re both taking care of kids and it’s exhausting and like I said by the time they go down to bed we’re pretty much ready as well which is a shame because You can see so many more stars here than you can where we come from. But we’re just amazed at what God has put in the heavens.

And sometimes we need to stop and look at those things that God has designed. And not just rush past them because it’s cold, it’s late, it’s dark, I’m trying to get in my house. But to stop and look at what God has made.

To stop and look at the wonder all around us and realize that God made that. And it just declares His glory and who He is. it’s just right there ready for us screaming out that God is with us the earth, the firmament declares his handiwork the earth we live on is incredible and some of y’all know this better than I do because some of you have farmed some of you have raised animals some of you have just spent more time than I get to outside but it still amazes me that a little thing about this size can grow into a corn stalk.

And that it carries the genetic material that produces a whole bunch more seeds just like it. A whole great number of kernels just like it. And if you plant them in sufficient number, they cross-pollinate and they produce corn that you can eat.

It’s just incredible to me that that happens from just a little tiny thing. Sometimes I, well, some of you know I’ve set up an office at the house. And I like to work there sometimes because I work best in just a little bit of chaos.

It gets too quiet up here sometimes for me. So sometimes if I’m studying, it depends on what’s going on that day, but sometimes if I’m studying, preparing messages or stuff, I’ll do it from the office at the house. And I’ve got that big window there right in front of my desk.

And I’m not sitting there spying on the neighbors if I’m pondering. Sometimes I come and ask, did you see somebody trying to get in my car? I didn’t even know your car was there.

I wasn’t looking at that. if I’m pondering on a scripture or I’m sitting there praying or something I’m looking out that window and I’m watching the trees sway back and forth and thinking this week when are they going to start budding because I know that winter is almost over when that happens I’m watching the birds and they’ll fly around in the yard I love watching the squirrels and now having been there over a year I’ve seen the squirrels come and bury things in my yard and I’ve seen them come back and dig the same things up months later and it just amazes me that God programmed them, God wired them to know to do that. Sometimes I wish we as human beings were that smart to lay aside some nuts for the winter.

They know. They know to prepare. They know how early it’s coming.

They know roughly how much they’re going to need. I mean, you don’t see squirrels starving to death falling out of the trees because they didn’t plan ahead well enough for the winter. God programmed them to know exactly what they needed.

My point is this. The Bible says his firmament, the firmament shows his handiwork. The earth around us, this land that we live on, is incredible.

The way the plants grow and the way the animals act and behave and the way they take care of themselves and the way they interact and the way that seasons cycle through years and life goes on and it’s not by random chance. It all screams out the wisdom and creativity of our God. It’s all right there at a point that somebody had a hand in making all of this and making it to where it works together.

It says, verse 2, Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. And what David’s talking about here is just day by day, we see this all around us. This uttering speech, it means every day, God’s creation testifies to who He is.

And night by night, we get that knowledge. The day and night are not the same. We know that.

There are different things that go on in the day and different things that go on in the night. Different animals, different sounds, different things the plants do. And every day, that witness is there.

You know, there’s a story in the Gospels where the Pharisees came to Jesus and they’re complaining because his followers were getting just a little too raucous for their taste. And essentially, they said to Jesus, quiet these guys down. Quiet these people down.

And Jesus said to them that if these people kept quiet, the stones would cry out. The stones would cry out. Don’t worry about these people glorifying God too much.

Don’t worry about these people glorifying me too much, because if they stop, creation’s going to do it anyway. Now, that’s not a license for us to quit worrying about God and his glory. That’s not a license for us to quit praising him.

That’s just saying God is so incredible that even if we didn’t praise him, creation is still We’re going to say it day to day, night by night. That witness, that voice is always there. It says in verse 3, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

There’s no speech or language where their voice is not heard. I cannot communicate God’s glory to someone who speaks only Japanese. I just can’t do it.

I may know two words in Japanese, and I’m not going to try to pronounce them for you because I’ll probably pronounce them wrong. Hong Kong. I think that’s Chinese.

in Chinese I know how to say hello thank you and rice that’s it I’m not going to be able to communicate God’s glory much to somebody who speaks only Chinese you know what the glory of God is communicated around the world in a language that needs no translation because people, it doesn’t matter whether they’re here in Oklahoma and they can look out and see the windswept plains and when I was in high school I got so tired I got so tired of hearing people say Oklahoma’s so flat and ugly and boring and I can’t wait to get out. If you don’t like it here, get out. I never said that, but that was sort of my attitude.

You can insult my politics or my family, but don’t talk trash about Oklahoma. No, they would say how ugly Oklahoma is. I look out at western Oklahoma where you can just see for miles and miles, these flat windswept plains, and I think it’s gorgeous.

You go over to Arkansas to the mountains, and I think that’s amazing. And you can go into, you can go to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and a lot of people find inspiration in those. And we can look at those and be awed by the power that created those.

People in the jungles in South America, I don’t want to go there because they’ve got snakes bigger than I am. But people who live down there and like that sort of thing, they can look around at the lush jungles and forests and see all of the plants and the giant fruits and all the weird creatures that stalk around in there, and they can just be in awe of what God has made. People can go to the South Pacific and they can look at white sand beaches and beautiful blue water, and they can be in awe of what God has made.

You can go to Antarctica and look at the frozen, at lakes miles thick with ice, and be in awe of what God has made. You can go anywhere and be in awe of what God has made. God has glorified the world over in a language that needs no translation, because his handiwork tells exactly who he is.

There’s no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all of the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Son.

And again, it’s talking here about the whole of creation telling who God is. And then it comes to talk about the sun, S-U-N, that big flaming ball of gas in the sky that burns me when I’ve been outside for too long. As it says that this line has gone out through the world and their words to the end of the world, the Bible talks about God having made all of us the sky as a tabernacle for the sun.

And it’s not in the sense that we worship the sun. We’re not supposed to. Now there are cultures all over the world that have gotten this confused.

They’ve looked at creation and they’ve been awed by nature and realized there must be some creative power behind it. But instead of worshiping and serving God, they’ve done as Romans chapter 1 says, and they’ve worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, which is a big mistake. There are sun-worshiping cultures all over the world.

As I read about the history of my own tribe, the Choctaws, apparently they were sun-worshippers before the Europeans arrived. There’s a reason why so many cultures all over the world have worshipped the sun, because it is one of the most powerful forces in nature that we can look at and recognize that this sun seems to control everything. If the sun’s not there, there’s no light.

We just wander around in darkness. And that happens for half the day. We wander around in darkness.

If the sun doesn’t appear just right, there’s no crops. If the sun appears too much, we all burn up. If the sun doesn’t appear enough, we freeze.

It seems to be the most powerful thing in our little corner of the universe. And yet the Bible goes on to say that even that was created by God. Even that huge force is subject to his will.

It says, his going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. It’s talking again that this sun travels from one end of the heavens as we see it, from one end of the heavens to the other. And there’s nothing that’s hid from the heat of it.

This is a massive force. This is incredible. The sun that we live under.

Excuse me, I’ve skipped a verse here. Which is a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man to run the race. Again, it’s talking about the power and the splendor of the sun.

His going forth is from the end of heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it. and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. But the Bible recognizes that even this incredible force, this thing that determines by its presence or absence, determines so much of human existence.

Even the oil that we refine and put into our cars is gasoline. I don’t know if you realize this or not. It’s just concentrated sunlight.

Years ago, the sun shone on plants. They turned that sunlight into energy. Animals ate that.

They died. They became oil. We suck it out of the ground, refine it, and put it in our car.

It’s just concentrated sunlight. Okay, so everything is determined by that. But yet the Bible doesn’t tell us to worship the sun.

It says that God put it there. And God designed the whole universe that that sun exists in. So instead of worshiping the sun, instead of worshiping any part of creation, we’re reminded to worship the one who created it all.

Folks, we look at the world around us, and we can try to tell ourselves it came by random chance. And again, sort of like what I talked about this morning with the biblical text, there are people much more intelligent than I am who could make a case for why, what the evidence is that it didn’t all come from random chance. But for my part, I’ll just simply say it seems a whole lot less likely.

It takes a lot more faith on my part to believe that it all came from random chance. Instead, the Bible says that all of this creation screams out the presence and the glory of God and the power of God. We should be in awe of the things in God’s creation.

We should be in awe of the things in nature, not lose our amazement at the way things work, and yet not for its own sake, not just so we can be amazed by nature, not just so we can be amazed by creation, but because it all points to a God who was powerful enough to make it, and a God who lovingly crafted this universe that we could live in. The Bible teaches that God’s purpose in creation was to create man so that he could redeem to himself a people who would choose to love him and choose to serve him. God’s intent in creation was to create us.

And so without making it sound too much like we’re the center of the universe and we’re so important, let me tell you this. God designed this planet. God designed all these things that influenced this planet so that he would have a place to put us.

God knew exactly what we would need. God knew exactly what it would take. And all of this was designed so that there would be a people who would know God and love him for who he is and glorify him because he deserves it.

Now, he doesn’t need us to glorify him because what he’s made glorifies him pretty well as it is. And yet he’s worthy of so much more. And one of the things that we have to remind us of his worthiness, of his goodness, of his awesome power is the creation that we see all around us.

And if you don’t already do it, we need to stop and recognize what he’s made. Sounds cliche to stop and smell the roses to tell you to do that, but why not? Why not stop and take time to appreciate what God has made?

Not because what he’s made is so incredible, and it is, but because of the power and the goodness and the wisdom of the God who made it. To stop and look at the sunset and be in awe of a God who would love us enough to create that, to create us, to create the gases that we breathe. To stop and be in awe of the food that comes up out of the ground in due season that God put here to sustain us because he loves us.

Folks, this morning I told you that if you’ll go to the scriptures looking for Jesus, you’ll find him. You’ll find him. I don’t care what book you look at, you’ll find him in there.

The same is true for what I’ve heard some theologians call the book of nature. If you look at the world around us that God created and you’re looking for reasons to glorify Him, you’re going to find them. And you’re going to find enough to keep you busy glorifying God for a long, long time.