Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Well, we are in the second week of a series that we started last week, which is how can I know God Exists?
[00:00:11] And week two message is titled God reveals himself to his creation if you're here. Last week we set out on a journey to answer three questions. Does God exist? What is he like? And what does he expect of me?
[00:00:26] We began our search for answers to realize that human beings have a tendency to try to craft our own image of God. And we often use multiple sources where some may be credible, some may not be credible, and some may actually contradict each other.
[00:00:41] I challenged you last week to assess how you arrived at your belief in God.
[00:00:46] Second thing we looked at was distorted images of God and how they can be formed through the pain and suffering, suffering and losses of life.
[00:00:53] We can actually transpose our experience with our human parents, especially our fathers, onto our view of God.
[00:01:00] And by doing so, we actually find ourselves moving away from God.
[00:01:04] And then finally last week, the big idea was you can make a God into what you want him to be, but in the end, if he's not the God who is, then it really doesn't matter much because he's a figment of your imagination.
[00:01:16] Mentioned last week, author A.W. tozier in his book Knowledge of the Holy says what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
[00:01:26] And he goes on and says all the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God, that he is what he is like and what we as moral human beings must do about him.
[00:01:42] Over the next four weeks, we're going to use one main source, the Bible, as our research tool and answering our three main questions. So let's pray and we're going to then jump into the message for tonight.
[00:01:54] Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the time we had to worship you to focus on your greatness and your goodness towards us. We thank you for your presence with us, that you say that where two or more gathered in your name, that you're there in their midst.
[00:02:07] And Lord, we just offer up this time to you that you'd be glorified, that the name of Jesus would be lifted up.
[00:02:14] Lord, speak through me.
[00:02:15] Open our hearts and minds to what it is that you want to tell us about yourself, that through tonight we might just know you in a deeper, more personal way. And we ask that in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:02:27] The big idea for tonight is look at the universe.
[00:02:31] It is God's silent broadcast declaring his existence to every Human heart.
[00:02:36] Have you ever stood outside on a pitch black night, miles away from the city lights and looked up at the sky?
[00:02:43] If you get far enough away from the neon glare of the street lights and highway signs, something remarkable happens.
[00:02:49] The canopy above you comes alive. There's thousands of pinpoint lights, dust trails of the Milky Way, shooting stars and galaxies millions of light years away, all hanging in endless, quiet expanse.
[00:03:02] You know, there's experiences that I've had over the years where I've been blown away by the sun setting over the ocean or the deep blue expanse of the sea, or getting a chance to see your solar eclipse. But there's two times in particular that I remember.
[00:03:18] And before I was married, a good friend of mine and I were both engaged to be married. And he called me up and said, hey, you want to go on one final road trip before we're married? And I said, yeah, sure. He says, well, I got a friend who lives at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, and it was in October, which he says is the peak fall colors.
[00:03:36] And he says, come on out, and we're going to hike through the Smokies, and you're going to see some of the most beautiful colors that you've ever seen. And so we were hiking, and we get to this point where you get to see a panoramic view of the Smoky Mountains in the fall. And I tell you, the. The reds and the yellows and the golds and just the oranges were just so beautiful that it looked like there was an artist that sat there and painted those colors in those trees. And it just made me think of what an artist Scott is.
[00:04:04] Just marveled at his creation.
[00:04:07] Second time I remember was my wife and I had gotten married and we went on our honeymoon, and when we got back, she immediately had to go to Chicago for three months to train for her job.
[00:04:19] What a downer that was.
[00:04:21] But anyway, one time the company flew me out there to Chicago, and we spent the weekend going through the side chinos, here's Tower, and we went to Dick's Restaurant, and we saw Wrigley Field.
[00:04:32] But we decided to go to Shedd's Aquarium. And I tell you what, every place you walk through Shedd's Aquarium, there's these huge tanks with every size of fish, to sharks and dolphins, to the smallest sized fish. And they were painted with these beautiful stripes and these colors. And every tank you went to was a new marvel at the shapes and the sizes and the colors of what God has created in sea life.
[00:04:56] And I just stood in amazement And I went back like, wow, God, you are just so creative. You're such an artist.
[00:05:03] Whether it's looking out over the expanse of the ocean or a star filled sky, or a beautiful sunset on the horizon, or the beauty of the Smoky Mountains or maybe the glaciers of Iceland or the majesty of the Grand Canyon, in those moments, almost every human being, regardless of their background, their education or religious belief, feels the exact same. Two things.
[00:05:23] And the first thing is just an overwhelming sense of how small we are.
[00:05:28] And the second thing is kind of an uncanny suspicion that this universe just didn't happen by accident, by blind chance.
[00:05:37] It's a universal human experience. But it raises a fair question, one that lies at the very heart of our five week series.
[00:05:43] How can I know God exists?
[00:05:45] How can I know that God is real?
[00:05:48] And if you're here today as a skeptic or a seeker or someone who struggles with doubt, I want to welcome you.
[00:05:53] You don't have to check your brain at the door.
[00:05:57] God isn't intimidated by your skepticism, your doubts or questions. And we want to invite you to explore those with us.
[00:06:06] Obviously, you've come to a Christian church tonight, so I'm sure you had an idea that the pastor would actually be preaching the Bible.
[00:06:13] The reason for that is most Christian pastor preachers believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and, and that you'll find the answers to life's most important questions.
[00:06:22] Over the next four weeks, we're going to take a look at the distinct ways that God has revealed himself through Psalm 19, the way that he declares himself to be known.
[00:06:32] Tonight, as I said, it's going to be he reveals himself through his creation next week that he's made himself known through the Scriptures, the Bible.
[00:06:40] The third is how he has made himself known through our moral conscience.
[00:06:45] And then finally, the final week of the series is he's made Himself known through his son, Jesus.
[00:06:51] So today we want to begin where human history begins, with the physical world around us.
[00:06:56] And the Bible makes a declaration of God's existence in its very first verse, Genesis 1:1, where it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[00:07:06] You see, the Bible always assumes and never argues about God's existence.
[00:07:11] As a matter of fact, the Bible is a story about him from start to finish.
[00:07:16] And although everything else had a beginning, God has always been, according to the Bible's revelation, God, not matter, is eternal. And behind it all, there's an eternal mind that spoke things into existence from Nothing.
[00:07:29] And Hebrews 11:3 says, by faith we understand that the universe was formed of God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
[00:07:39] I want you to open your Bibles with me right now to our main text, Psalm 19.
[00:07:43] And let's go ahead and read that together.
[00:07:50] You'll see it up also on your screen.
[00:07:54] Says, the heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge.
[00:08:02] They have no speech, they use no words, no sound is heard from them, yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
[00:08:10] In the heavens, God has pitched a tent for the sun and is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
[00:08:17] It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other. Nothing is deprived of its warmth.
[00:08:25] So, you know, Jesus himself, growing up in a Jewish household, he would have sung many of the psalms with Mary and Joseph, and on occasion, the creator of the world actually would have sang Psalm 19.
[00:08:37] And I just find that amazing to think about.
[00:08:42] If you have your Bibles open, you can see at the top of it, it says for the director of music, a Psalm of David.
[00:08:49] This served as a liturgical notation to be added to the collection of works to be used by the director of music in Israel's worship services.
[00:08:58] The Author of Psalm 19 inspired by the Holy Spirit is King David, who is credited as a primary author, poet and musician of at least 73 of the 150 Psalms that are in the Bible.
[00:09:08] And you know, David was probably maybe the first true Renaissance man.
[00:09:13] A poet, a songwriter, a musician, a sincere and expressive worshiper of God. He was a young man of deep faith and dependence on God. And yet he was a man's man.
[00:09:24] As a boy shepherd, while protecting his father's sheep, he one time killed a lion and another time killed a bear.
[00:09:31] David, as a young teen, not yet of military age, gained fame by defeating the Philistines champion warrior, the giant Goliath.
[00:09:39] He served in his predecessor's King Saul's court. And later, David became a king.
[00:09:45] He was the first warrior who led his armies to many victories.
[00:09:49] But sadly, David's also known for his scandalous sin and moral failure.
[00:09:53] You see, one season while his army was at war, David hung back and stayed at the palace, trying to get some, I guess, some R and R.
[00:10:03] And the Bible really doesn't give us a definitive reason for David staying back from the war, but mainly it's implied in 1st Samuel 11. 1. It says in the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army.
[00:10:18] This may suggest that David should have been with his army instead of relaxing back at the palace.
[00:10:23] And a point I want to make here is when you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing and when you're not where you're supposed to be, and when you're not living in God's will, you're highly susceptible to be picked off by the devil, the one who desires to tempt us towards destruction.
[00:10:41] So while relaxing at his palace, David noticed a woman bathing on the rooftop, and he summoned her to his palace.
[00:10:48] He had sex with her and she got pregnant.
[00:10:50] And this is all while her husband Uriah, one of David's soldiers, was fighting Israel's enemies with his comrades, attempting to cover up Bathsheba's pregnancy.
[00:11:01] David has his general Joab, send Uriah to Jerusalem, hoping that he would sleep with his wife in the comforts of their home so that Bathsheba could tell her husband the baby is his.
[00:11:13] But Uriah had so much integrity that he refused to go inside with his wife, and he actually seeps on the doorsteps outside.
[00:11:21] There's no way that he could enjoy the comforts of his home with his wife while his friends were out fighting the war.
[00:11:28] When David realizes his attempt at deception has failed, he sends Uriah back to the front with orders to the general to send Uriah to the front line and then withdraw the rest of the army. So Uriah gets killed at the front line.
[00:11:41] David's despicable sin includes lust and adultery and deception and conspiracy to commit murder.
[00:11:49] Consequences befall David's family. His son born to Bathsheba dies, and his kingship results in rebellion from one of the sons attempting to overthrow him.
[00:12:00] David's confronted by the prophet nathan. And Psalm 51 reflects David's sorrow and repentance over his sin. He says, against you and you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
[00:12:12] David's humbled and he's broken over his sin, and he's repentant and he grieving over the sin and the consequences. And this is all reflected in the psalm that he created.
[00:12:25] David was far from being a perfect man.
[00:12:28] He was just one of the examples in the Bible of those who are considered heroes of the faith, who had sorted past and were flawed and who demonstrated times of weakness and moral failure and lack of faith and judgment.
[00:12:40] And God still used them mightily in his kingdom, plan on earth.
[00:12:45] You see, that's really what God has to work with.
[00:12:48] Flawed, weak, insecure, sinful human beings like David and like me and like you.
[00:12:56] In the end, as God reviews the whole of David's life, this is what God says about him. In Acts 13:22, after removing Saul, he made David their king.
[00:13:05] God testified concerning him. I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.
[00:13:11] I want you to allow God's message about David to be his message to you as well.
[00:13:18] You see, there's no sin that is too great for God to forgive.
[00:13:24] Your sin may be even scandalous. Your weaknesses and your doubts, your failures and your fears in God's eyes do not define you.
[00:13:32] He sees the worst things that you've ever done and he still loves you.
[00:13:36] It's never too late. God can turn your life around if you surrender to Him.
[00:13:41] He still has a worthwhile plan for your life. He can save you and set you free.
[00:13:46] This flawed man is the one whom God chose as king and writer of the psalm that we're going to review tonight.
[00:13:55] David's overarching purpose and desire in writing Psalm 19 was to celebrate the perfection of God's revelation of himself through his creation and to align his own heart and words to God's righteousness.
[00:14:07] Three thousand years ago, long before high powered telescopes or quantum mechanics, a shepherd boy named David became king. And he looked up at the very sky that we can see today and marveled at God's creation.
[00:14:20] Guided by the Holy Spirit, he penned words that bridged the gap between ancient theology and modern cosmology.
[00:14:27] As time moves on, scientific discoveries point to what revelation knew all along.
[00:14:33] Look at the majesty of the cosmos. Creation is God's silent broadcast, declaring his existence to every human heart.
[00:14:41] Let's look at how David unpacks this truth. First of all, creation speaks a language without words.
[00:14:48] Let's look at verses one and two again.
[00:14:52] The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands.
[00:14:56] Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge.
[00:15:00] In the original Hebrew text, that phrase pour forth speech carries the image of gushing spring or a continuous waterfall all around us. God's creation is constantly speaking without uttering a single word.
[00:15:15] Every time you look up to see a full moon or a solar eclipse, or a star filled sky, or a beautiful sunset along the horizon, or maybe you've seen the northern lights of Alaska, or even a bald eagle soaring, or a flock of geese flying in formation, even a storm Filled sky full of thunder and lightning. Creation is whispering an occasional idea about God. It's constantly gushing forth information.
[00:15:38] Nature is an active storyteller.
[00:15:41] I want you to notice the twin heralds. David mentions day and night.
[00:15:46] He says day comes bringing the blinding brilliance of the sun, revealing the intricate details of landscapes and flowers and majestic mountains and oceans.
[00:15:56] Then David hands the relay baton to night, which pulls back the curtain of light to reveal trillions of stars and the moon and planets in deep space.
[00:16:07] You see, day preaches a sermon on power, and night preaches a sermon on infinity.
[00:16:12] David says they reveal knowledge to everyone who looks up.
[00:16:18] God is speaking to every human being. Behold my majesty, my beauty, my power, my wisdom through what I've made.
[00:16:26] Secondly, creation speaks without the need of a translator.
[00:16:30] In verse three and four.
[00:16:32] They have no speech, they use no words, no sound is heard from them, yet their voice goes out into all the earth, or words to the end of the world.
[00:16:41] How can something have a voice without speech?
[00:16:45] Creation speaks a nonverbal language that has no geographic boundaries nor is limited to specific ethnicities or languages.
[00:16:52] It doesn't use English or Spanish or Mandarin or Arabic.
[00:16:57] It transcends human linguistics.
[00:17:01] An astrophysicist in Tokyo, a farmer in Kenya, a mechanic in Ohio, an oil magnet in Dubai, a wife and mother in Israel with her children can all step outside, look at the same cosmos, and receive the same exact transmission of information.
[00:17:18] I found a quote as I was studying. It says, creation is a wordless book. Everyone can understand.
[00:17:23] It needs no translation.
[00:17:26] This is what theologians call general revelation.
[00:17:30] And it's general because it always is available to everyone, everywhere.
[00:17:37] But there's a third thing which becomes creation holds all human beings accountable.
[00:17:46] And the apostle Paul picks up this exact concept in the New Testament in Romans 1:20, which says, since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
[00:18:06] Not even a person who has never heard of the Bible or of Jesus has an excuse for not believing God exists and honoring Him.
[00:18:13] This isn't to say that people can understand and embrace the gospel and be saved just by looking at the stars.
[00:18:20] What it does say is God's general revelation of himself through creation should lead every person to believe that he exists and for that reason alone seek to know him and what he desires of them.
[00:18:33] That goes for you and me.
[00:18:36] But in the two verses before this, Paul reveals that there's a problem.
[00:18:41] And that problem is human beings attempt to Hide the existence of God.
[00:18:46] No one can indict God for hiding himself, that he's made it too difficult to comprehend its existence.
[00:18:51] It's not God who's hiding. It's men who are intentionally hiding evidence of what is easily seen all around us.
[00:18:58] And in the two verses prior to verse 20, Paul writes this.
[00:19:02] The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them.
[00:19:13] He says right here that people suppress the truth, intentionally hide the evidence of God's existence.
[00:19:22] Paul's argument mirrors David's.
[00:19:24] The physical world serves as a divine signature.
[00:19:28] When you look at a painting like the Mona Lisa, you don't need to meet Leonardo da Vinci to know three things about him. That he existed, that he possessed an immense mind and technique, and he valued detail. The canvas carries his signature.
[00:19:43] God's general revelation of himself and creation gives us knowledge that an immense mind is behind it all.
[00:19:50] And that's where the great argument of our day falls.
[00:19:54] You see, religion is always pitted against science, and eternal mind is always pitted against what they say is eternal matter.
[00:20:06] There's a famous podcaster, Joe Rogan, who says the Christian worldview at the end of the day, without any proof is just mythology.
[00:20:14] Do you have a box of evidence you can pull out for us to examine all the pieces? Because if you don't, it's just a myth.
[00:20:22] I understand why Joe Rogan would say that, because for decades, it's the message that's been resounding loudly in our culture. It's being taught in our high schools and universities and proclaimed in our media and in Hollywood.
[00:20:36] But, you know, an interesting thing that I found out in preparation for the message tonight is according to Pew research, there are 51% of scientists who believe that there is a God or some higher power.
[00:20:46] I would have never thought that.
[00:20:49] And 41% claim to be atheists.
[00:20:53] But the problem is that the atheists have control of the scientific narrative in most of our public universities and in our media, enabling them to suppress the truth of the existence of God.
[00:21:03] But the fascinating thing to me is that these scientists who deny God, they actually have to believe in six core miracles without a miracle worker.
[00:21:14] They have to believe, first of all that something came from nothing, that the universe began without a first cause.
[00:21:21] Secondly, they have to believe that order came from chaos.
[00:21:24] That integrate design of the universe, planet Earth, the 200 constants needed for life, DNA, the human body, all came about without a Master Designer they have to believe that life came from nine life, that biological organisms sprung from nothing, that no eternal mind, no only eternal matter, no answers to how that matter first came to be.
[00:21:48] They have to believe the personal came from the impersonal conscious human beings developed from non conscious building blocks.
[00:21:56] The problem is, is that matter doesn't have a mind.
[00:22:00] They had to believe reason came from non reason, rational thought emerged from non rational processes. And they have to believe that morality came from matter.
[00:22:09] A human being's objective understanding of right and wrong and good and evil stem from purely physical molecules.
[00:22:16] And they say that biblical Christianity is a blindly faith.
[00:22:22] We're led to believe by scientific community controlling the narrative that science and religion have always been at oz. Science is based on the objective evidence. Religion is based on subjective feelings and mere myths and fables.
[00:22:35] But listen to these names of famous trailblazing scientists who studied science not to dismiss God, but to confirm their faith in God. And that the more that they discovered about God, the more that they saw that it pointed to God and a Creator.
[00:22:50] These men, these scientists, these famous scientists were all men of faith.
[00:22:55] The 1500s, Copernicus, 1600s, Blaise Pascal, Galileo and Johannes Kepler.
[00:23:02] The 1700s, Isaac Newton and the 1800s, Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel, James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday from the ancient of days, science and faith in God were wed in wonderful partnerships. So what happened? Because all we hear today is that science and religion are at odds.
[00:23:23] Well, let me share a couple quotes from atheist scientists.
[00:23:27] Professor Thomas Nagel from Harvard University, he's a biologist, says I don't want there to be a God.
[00:23:34] I don't want the universe to be like that.
[00:23:37] I want atheism to be true. And I'm made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well informed people I know are religious believers.
[00:23:46] When another atheist scientist, Dr. Richard Lewonton, evolutionary biologist and Hydrogeneticist, says our willingness to accept scientific claims that go against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural.
[00:24:01] We take the side of science despite the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
[00:24:12] You see, these men who are atheists go in with the narrative of their beliefs and then they hide the evidence that reveal a God, continue to purport that all everything in science reveals that there is no God.
[00:24:26] It's not that methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes. He says, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.
[00:24:46] There are atheist scientists who know and understand their evidence refutes their denial of God, yet they refuse to follow the evidence because of the hardness of their hearts. They do not want there to be a God because they don't want a God that they're accountable to, a God they have to answer to.
[00:25:01] But now I want to share with you some quotes from former atheist scientists.
[00:25:07] Dr. Francis Collins. Collins, who's a physician, geneticist and director of the Human Genome Project.
[00:25:14] He was a former explicit atheist who abandoned his worldview as he confronted the extraordinary complexity of DNA and the evidence for a fine tuned universe with a distinct origin.
[00:25:23] He says, I had always assumed that faith was based on wishful thinking or ancient traditions. But as I looked at the order of the universe, the constant parameters that allowed life to exist, and the incredible digital code of DNA, I realized the atheist position was the least rational of all.
[00:25:39] I came to see the evidence pointing squarely to a transcendent creator.
[00:25:44] Dr. Anthony Flew, philosopher and science commentator.
[00:25:48] While technically a philosopher, Flew was world renowned as a premier intellectual defender of scientific atheism for over 50 years.
[00:25:56] In 2004, guided by discoveries of DNA and cosmology, he publicly announced he had followed the evidence to a creator.
[00:26:05] You must say that the journey to my discovery of the divine has thus far been a pilgrimage of reason.
[00:26:10] I follow the argument where it has led me and it has led me to accept the existence of a self existent, immutable, omnipotent and omniscient being. These are men who are former atheists that got into the scientific community basically to continue to find evidence that there was no God. But as the evidence was revealed, all they could do is say that all the evidence is telling me that this didn't happen by chance, that it didn't happen a part of an intelligent transcendent God who was the creator of it all.
[00:26:44] I could come up with just a number of more atheists, former atheist scientists who were honest and were able to follow the evidence and said the evidence that we're finding and the discoveries that we're making are pointing to that there was a creator behind it all.
[00:27:03] And the cool thing is that once you believe in the miracle of creation, all other miracles become possible.
[00:27:10] The parting of a red sea for millions to cross.
[00:27:13] The saving a man from the belly of a whale, someone walking on water, feeding 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, healing the blame the Blind and the lame.
[00:27:28] It even seems possible for someone to be crucified and rise from the dead.
[00:27:33] You see, if you can start at the foundation where the Bible starts in Genesis, and you can believe that God created everything in such a supernatural tremendous miracle as that, then how is it a leap to believe all the other miracles that we know and see in the Bible and know that God can still break through in our lives in supernatural ways today?
[00:27:56] Let's move on in the Psalm, Psalm 19, second part of verse 4 through verse 6.
[00:28:03] In the heavens, God has pitched a tent for the sun. It's like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
[00:28:10] It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other. Nothing is deprived of its warmth.
[00:28:16] David's painting a poetic picture here.
[00:28:20] The heavens are a divinely pitched tent for the sun. The sun steps out in the horizon as it makes its daily triumphant sweep across the entire universe. And David uses two metaphors to bring this home.
[00:28:33] And he first says that the sun is like a bridegroom coming out of its chamber.
[00:28:39] You know, Lisa and I have been married for 37 years and I can still remember our wedding day.
[00:28:45] I remember the anticipation of seeing her in her wedding gown for the first time.
[00:28:50] And when the wedding march began to play and she was walked down the aisle by her father, tears started welling up in my eyes at her beauty, that I was going to get the privilege of calling her my wife and living out my vows together until our last breath.
[00:29:08] David's compared the rising of the sun each day to that the sun through its light reveals the extraordinary beauty of God's design, His artistry, his creative power, his brilliance is seen in all that he has made.
[00:29:22] And then David used a second metaphor.
[00:29:25] He compares it to an Olympic runner, an Olympic champion.
[00:29:31] The sun runs its path like an Olympic sprinter transversing the sky.
[00:29:36] Fewer few people have endured the conditioning, the hours of training and practice that produces an Olympic level athlete.
[00:29:43] Thousands of days over many years of self sacrifice and denial produces a champion. And when it's time to compete, the Olympic runner does so with joy and anticipation at the fulfillment of his God given purpose.
[00:29:56] A lifetime of training and preparation prepared him to run as a champion. And David's comparing this to the movement of the sun on its course every day.
[00:30:10] A son provides warmth and life and sustenance for all God's creation.
[00:30:14] Without the sun, life could not exist. And it reflects the sovereign rule and the love and the goodness of God. Who provides for our needs because the Scriptures declare that he causes the sun to rise and even the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.
[00:30:29] It's a provision of God, a general revelation of God, general grace of God to all mankind.
[00:30:37] Then David concludes with this observation in verse 6. There is nothing hidden from its heat.
[00:30:42] You can hide in a basement, but the sun is still warming the roof overhead. You can close your blinds, but the sun is still driving the atmosphere outside. In the same way, no human being is hidden from the reality of God's general revelation.
[00:30:57] Creation reveals that our world did not evolve from eternal matter, but was created by an eternal mind who brilliantly designed it all.
[00:31:05] And you don't need a PhD in astrophysics to hear creation's message.
[00:31:10] The scientist sees it through the lens of mathematical constant. The child sees it while marveling at an ant colony building a mound, or a gardener seeing a blossom opening in the spring, or vacationer sees it in the observation of the Grand Canyon or the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.
[00:31:28] God has saturated the physical environment with clues about his existence and his power and his beauty.
[00:31:36] Look at the universe. It's God's silent broadcast to clean his reality to every human heart.
[00:31:44] So how should we respond to this? How. How do we take the truth of Psalm 19 and apply it to our everyday lives this week?
[00:31:52] Well, fourth, I. I suggest moving from distraction to observation.
[00:31:58] We live in the most technologically saturated screen dominated era in human history.
[00:32:03] And we spend hours staring at 6 inch screens made of glass and silicone, consuming artificial content created by other human beings while ignoring the massive cosmic theater built by God right outside our front door.
[00:32:17] When was the last time you stepped outside, turned off your phone and just looked up or looked around and marveled at what God has made?
[00:32:26] This week I want to challenge you to practice intentional wonder. Go for a walk without headphones or without your phone.
[00:32:33] Look at the complex architecture of a leaf. Take a drive through rural America.
[00:32:40] Look up at the stars before you go to bed.
[00:32:43] Recognize that nature isn't just scenery, it's a divine broadcasting station calling you to look up. Behold the evidence that God exists.
[00:32:54] The second thing, Second point of application.
[00:32:59] Surrender the coincidence defense.
[00:33:03] If you're here today as a seeker or a skeptic, I want to gently ask you an honest question.
[00:33:08] How much evidence does it take to admit that there's a designer behind it all?
[00:33:14] If you were walking through an arid desert and stumbled upon a brand new fully functioning iPhone lying in the sand, you would never conclude. Remarkable. Millions of years of wind and erosion and heat must have combined silicone and glass and aluminum into this working device.
[00:33:32] You'd immediately know an intelligent person crafted it and dropped it there.
[00:33:37] Yet a single human cell is infinitely more complex than any smartphone ever manufactured. They talk about DNA being like a thousand volumes of an encyclopedia, just one strand of DNA.
[00:33:50] They talk about our eye being more sophisticated than the most sophisticated camera that you've ever taken pictures with.
[00:34:01] Thirdly, let general revelation lead you to special revelation.
[00:34:07] Here's the limitation of creation.
[00:34:10] Creation tells us that God exists and that he's immensely powerful and brilliant and orderly.
[00:34:18] But creation can tell us his name.
[00:34:21] Creation cannot tell us how to be forgiven of our sin.
[00:34:25] Creation can't tell us how much God loves us and desires a relationship with us.
[00:34:30] Creation cannot reveal how to find God's forgiveness, his acceptance, eternal life.
[00:34:36] General revelation shows us the work of God's hands, But it leaves us yearning to know the heart of God.
[00:34:43] God's story found in Genesis through revelation. It comes in four main parts. And if you never realized it, even though the Bible consists of 66 books, there's one common theme, there's one common thread. I call it a scarlet thread that runs from Genesis, Genesis always, all the way to Revelation. And if you didn't realize it, Genesis and revelation are actually bookends of one story, and that's God's story of redemption.
[00:35:07] And it starts with creation. That the eternal God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three persons and yet one God lived in eternity past, before matter and time and space ever existed.
[00:35:17] And they chose to create the universe for his glory, to share his life and love with human beings.
[00:35:23] And he declares after every creative act that it's good, which means it's perfect. He created the world perfect, which means it had no sin, it had no evil, it had no wickedness, it had no disease, no decay, no death.
[00:35:35] It was perfect.
[00:35:37] Every need for human beings, the apple of his eye and the object of his perfection is provided for those that were made in his image, who were made for relationship with God based on love and based on trust. But you know, love must have, and trust must be a choice.
[00:35:54] Because love, by definition, cannot be coerced, it cannot be forced, it cannot be dictated to by another. It has to be a choice, a mutual choice of the person you're in relationship with, that that person has chosen you for a love relationship, and you've chosen to be in a love relationship with them.
[00:36:12] God lays out one prohibition. He says, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil. For when you do, you will surely die.
[00:36:22] God must have been thinking, I've given them ample evidence to prove my love.
[00:36:27] Will they trust me?
[00:36:30] Will they believe I have their best interests at heart?
[00:36:35] Well, that leads us to the second part of the story, which is called the Fall.
[00:36:40] Another character answer enters. His name is Lucifer and he's an angel of light. He's glorious, he's full of wisdom and power. And he served at the throne of God in heaven.
[00:36:49] But in pride he decides, I want to be God, I want the glory. I want to be on his throne, I want to be worshiped as God. And so he leads a rebellion. Some think of a third of the angels. And you know, when you're trying to do a battle against God, it's not a good idea.
[00:37:06] And they're all, all who rebelled are cast out of heaven forever to the earth.
[00:37:13] So Satan comes in a form of a serpent to Adam and Eve and he tempts the first humans to doubt God. He's making them think God's withholding his best from.
[00:37:21] You can be your own God. You can be in control of your own happiness. You can control your own destiny.
[00:37:27] And Adam and Eve buy into the lie. They rebel, they disobey and they fall to temptation.
[00:37:34] And God told them that if you do that, you'll surely die. And it doesn't mean a physical death. You see, they were meant to live with God forever in this beautiful paradise of perfection. But he says when he's not talking about a physical death, when he says you'll die, he's talking about a spiritual death. That you will be separated from God. And what happens? They're banished from the garden and God's presence.
[00:37:55] Sin results in cursing God's perfect creation. Sin and evil grab hold. Disease, decay and death result in separation from God. And we live in the reality of a sin cursed world today. It's the explanation for why there's evil in our world, why there's sin. Human beings inflicting harm and pain on one another.
[00:38:14] But you know, God doesn't abandon humanity nor his world.
[00:38:19] For right there in Genesis 3:15, instead he gives a promise that the seed of the woman will crush Satan's head.
[00:38:26] The promise is of a future Messiah, a savior who would come to redeem, to buy back humanity at a costly price to himself.
[00:38:35] And that leads us to the third part of the story, which is redemption.
[00:38:39] You see, that Savior is Jesus, God who took on human flesh. He lived a perfect sinless life. He was fully God and fully man, making him the Only one who could pay for our sins, the only one who could take the punishment for our rebellion against God.
[00:38:56] Jesus suffered and died on a cross. He was buried and on the third day rose from the dead, proving that he was God and alone holds victory over sin and death for all who believe in Him.
[00:39:07] You can be reconciled to God by abandoning your self help approach to salvation, by forsaking your attempts to be good enough.
[00:39:17] The problem with that is God's standard is perfection and you can never be good enough.
[00:39:23] Only Jesus can make you with right, right with God.
[00:39:27] Admit you're a sinner and that your sin separates you from a holy God.
[00:39:32] Confess your sin to him, ask for forgiveness, declare that Jesus is God, place your faith in him as your Savior and He will forgive you and give you eternal life.
[00:39:43] You could do that right now.
[00:39:46] Jesus, forgive me. Jesus, save me.
[00:39:49] For the Bible declares that everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus shall be saved.
[00:39:55] But you see, there's one more part of the story that has yet to unfold.
[00:40:01] We're living in the now, but not yet, and that's restoration.
[00:40:08] Jesus promises to return one day, not as a suffering servant Messiah, but as a conquering king Messiah. And I don't know about you, I spend a lot of time watching various podcasts and things on YouTube and the stories of the day are, when is Jesus returning? Here's the signs that Jesus is coming back. He promises.
[00:40:25] The scriptures declared prophetically that Jesus would come the first time and he fulfilled that. And the prophecies declare that he's going to come a second time and he is yet to come.
[00:40:36] But when he comes, he's going to eradicate sin and its consequences. He's going to eradicate disease, decay and death. He's going to alleviate all pain and suffering and loss.
[00:40:46] And he's going to restore creation to his original intention, which is perfection, where all who believe in him will live with him forever in perfect resurrected bodies in a perfect world, no longer subjected to temptation.
[00:41:05] While those who reject him will live for eternity separated from his presence, his love, his joy, his peace, his comfort.
[00:41:13] Very simply, what they chose in this life will be theirs forever.
[00:41:21] John 6, 28:29 says.
[00:41:24] Then they ask Jesus, what must we do to do the works God requires?
[00:41:29] And Jesus answered, the work of God is this to believe in the one he has sent.
[00:41:37] You see, the vast majority of religions today believe that we are to be on a mountain climbing adventure of working our way to God, where Christianity alone says that God came down off the mountain on a rescue mission. For us.
[00:41:55] And that's Jesus Christ.
[00:41:58] And in Galatians 2, chapter 21, it says, if righteousness, if getting right with God could be earned by obedience to the law or by being a good person, then Christ died for nothing.
[00:42:12] It makes no sense that Jesus would go to a cross and be crucified. God taking on human flesh, living a perfect life for 33 years, fulfilling the law, the perfection that we couldn't do for ourselves, and then going and being punished for our sin, being in the grave three days, rising from the dead to say that, well, you know what?
[00:42:31] Thanks God, but I'm going to earn it myself.
[00:42:35] It makes no sense.
[00:42:38] But you see, the reality of the cross is that God revealed His love for you, that he would go to those lengths that put it all on the line to take on human flesh and to die a horrendous death on a cross so that we could be forgiven of our sin and have eternal life with Him.
[00:43:00] I remember the story didn't end there. Because he rose from the dead on the third day.
[00:43:07] The tomb is still empty.
[00:43:10] Every other religious leader that has ever lived was buried in a tomb, and you could find them in that tomb still today.
[00:43:16] But Jesus alone is the one that escaped that tomb because He's God and he came back to life as he said he would. And now he wants to have a relationship with you, and he's inviting you to place your faith and trust in Him.
