[0:00] It's a great song on any night, especially a night when we're looking at Psalm 104. Please join me in the 104th Psalm and we will get right into it tonight having already read it. And nature, God's creation is not silent about the greatness of God.
[0:15] Neither should we be, nor should we be silent about the fact that God's creation testifies about God. And so tonight as we look at nature testifying of the greatness of God, my alternative title was my favorite Mexican dish, which would be sky surf and turf.
[0:31] All right. Because in this song we see that from the sky to the sea to the land, it testifies of the greatness of our God. And we should not let the fact that some people, many people, majority of the people have exalted creation above the creator.
[0:49] Even though that has been the case for unbelieving people, that should not keep us from properly appreciating the wonder of nature. I'll share a story later of how that was done.
[1:00] But six Psalms very specifically are dedicated to God's creation and recognizing. Psalm 8, 9, 29, 104, 65, 148.
[1:13] Sounds like a football play when I say it like that, doesn't it? All right. And so there's those Psalms, but many verses, but those entire Psalms are dedicated primarily to showing God's wonder through creation.
[1:26] I'll read some of the verses. Psalm 8, 3 and 4. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him?
[1:40] When I consider all this, the response in the heart of a believer ought to be, what is man? In Luke 12 on Sunday morning, a man has so much of his crops have just really flourished, and he has so much stuff.
[1:57] And he says, oh my, what am I to do with this? I have to keep all this for myself. That is a heart of covetousness, right? Where the heart of a believer ought to be like, oh my, it ought to be, what is man?
[2:08] We ought to be humbled by God's abundant goodness to us. Psalm 19, 1. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
[2:20] Psalm 29, 3. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The glory of God thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. Psalm 65, 9. Thou visitest the earth and waterest it.
[2:31] Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water. Thou preparest them corn, which thou hast so provided for it. Psalm 148, 5. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded, and they were created.
[2:47] That's when we look at God's creation, we ought to just know he spoke it into existence. We ought to be mindful of the things. In Psalms 104, we will see, we will celebrate God's greatness in him creating the world, and him providing for the world, him caring for the world, and the world's dependence upon him.
[3:06] I'm going to say those again, because if you'll be honest, as I would be in this, I need to be reminded that God is the creator of this world and not man.
[3:17] I need to know that he is the one providing for me and my family, not anybody else. I need to know that God's caring for us and that the world is fully dependent upon him.
[3:27] Those are all lessons that I need to be reminded of, and the Bible tells me that I could see that when the sun is rising in the morning. I could be reminded of biblical truth.
[3:38] So God has revealed himself in nature. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord, my God, thou art very great. Thou clothed with honor and majesty, who covers thyself with light as with a garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain.
[3:52] Here's some ways in which God's revealed himself in nature. It witnesses the God's grace. Matthew 5, 44, He maketh the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and he sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
[4:06] On the day that you know that you're at your worst and that you need forgiveness of God, he still has watered your farm. And on the day the farmer, the man who does not yet know him, the man that is not worshiping him, the man that's worshiping false gods, God is still gracious to him.
[4:23] God's still providing for him. God's showing himself. And we should thank God for this. Creation witnesses the God's invisible attributes of eternal power and divine nature.
[4:33] Romans 1, 20, For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even as eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
[4:46] By looking at creation, we can see these things of God that are invisible but are true and always have been. Creation witnesses of God's faithfulness and his caring for his creatures.
[5:00] Are you fretting? Are you worrying? Is God going to take care of you? The answer is to sometimes maybe go sit down in a field full of lilies and consider that they grow, they toil not, they do not spin, but God takes care of them.
[5:17] That God would give you that reminder of his faithfulness. Nature reveals God's infinite knowledge. Luke 12, 6, And not five sparrows sowed for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God.
[5:30] Told you on Sunday about going to the Amazon, and how Blake ordered some fish, and God knew all about those fish. His infinite knowledge. Nature reveals God's infinite wisdom.
[5:41] Proverbs 8, 27, and that's in this proverb, it's speaking about wisdom. When he, wisdom, prepared the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass upon the face of the depth, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, that we ought to look around at creation, and realize the infinite wisdom of God, and the way he has done things.
[6:04] It reveals his holiness. Moses, Exodus 19, And he came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there was thunder and lightnings, a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled.
[6:18] Whoever created the weather, whoever created this world, is unlike us. He is holy. He is distinct. Nature reveals God's glory. Psalm 19, I've already read, The heavens declare the glory of God.
[6:31] The firmament that shows his handiwork. Then it tells us that it reveals his righteousness. Psalm 56, And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge, judge himself.
[6:42] Selah, consider this. Here in that Psalm, Asaph describes a courtroom scene, in which the mighty one, God the Lord, three designations for him, came to be a judge. And all of the heavens testify and witness, that he is the righteous king.
[6:58] And nature reveals a certain standard of conduct. An expression that's contrary to nature, that's unnatural, can be used to describe not only fallen man's worship, but also his behavior.
[7:10] Romans 127, And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burdened in their lust, one towards another, men with men, working their witches and seely, receiving themselves, recompense for their error, which was meet.
[7:22] That the nature, the created order, it gives a testimony of a conduct that ought to be followed. That we live in a world that was created, that has an order and a structure to it.
[7:34] That it has more than intelligent design, but God made it with a purpose. And so two major themes through these Psalms. The first one is, it has a dependable order.
[7:45] There is a plan and a purpose and intentionality. I don't know if I've ever told this story before, because it doesn't reflect the way that I feel as a pastor at a church here, whereas there's always so much stuff going on.
[7:57] But the pastor said that every Monday, he would go down to the train tracks, and he would sit there and he would watch the trains. And then one person came to them and said, why do you come here every Monday?
[8:08] And he says, I come here because I want to see something move that I don't have to push. All right? And that's how he felt about it. And that is not how I feel. There's all kinds of things moving around here that I'm not involved in at all.
[8:20] But it was to say, there's something inside of us where we're like, we want to see a dependable order. We want to see something that's working. We want to see something consistent. I don't enjoy mowing my grass, but it's the time of year where the grass will start to turn green, and it will grow.
[8:35] And it's consistently happening. And I'm not in charge of that. I don't go out there and make that happen. I can pull some weeds. I can do some things. But that's consistently in order. I read this to my life group on Sunday.
[8:48] I love it. And I'm going to read it to you one more time to those that were in there. Because children have an abounding vitality because they are in a spirit of fierce and free. Therefore, they want things repeated and unchanged.
[9:00] They're always saying, hey, do it again, and the grown-up person does it again until he's nearly dead. You ever had a kid jump off a coffee table, catch them? When do they want to stop? They never do. They'd be doing that right now.
[9:11] All right? They would never stop doing it. They never get bored doing that. For the grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
[9:24] It is possible that God says every morning, do it again to the sun. And every evening, do it again to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all the daisies alike.
[9:37] It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has an eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
[9:49] I love to automate things in my life. I love to tell my Google thing to wake me up at the same time. I don't want to do it. Because I think that monotony and doing the same thing over again is boring.
[9:59] It's not worth my time. But the God of heaven keeps everything in constant motion in the way that it's going, and He sustains it, and it's dependable. And we should be grateful for it.
[10:10] And when we see something, that sun coming up in the morning again, you say, well, that just happens. That's just how it is. No, the God of heaven brought the sun up again, and He will put it back down, and He will bring it up again.
[10:21] And if He didn't want it to be so, it wouldn't be. And we ought to be grateful for this. And in this act of sustaining, the world would fall into chaos unless God holds it back.
[10:32] He watereth the hills from its changers, verse 13. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. Then it goes on to say that God placed in the springs the valleys that give water to animals, and that He makes things grow that give food to animals and man.
[10:47] And I said that the olive trees, the smooth man's face. In verse number 15, that the things that we need are provided for us here through nature, and they give the animals that are needed.
[10:58] God provides a dwelling place. The tree is full, the Lord's full of sap. The cedars that are there, they're planted. And in those trees, the birds have their nest, and the stork, the fur trees. God provides a dwelling place for all the animals and the birds.
[11:11] And in His wisdom, God made the earth amazingly well suited for all forms of life. There's nothing walking around this earth that says, I just don't have anything here for me.
[11:23] Right? There's nothing here for me to eat. There's no place for me to be. That God made it perfectly, and it's just amazing in His wisdom, and we should worship Him and His greatness.
[11:34] You should just attempt doing anything, anything small. Plan an activity. Plan a weekend. Try to plan a meal. How many of you have ever planned one meal for one family and found it difficult?
[11:48] Now think about planning for the entire world, all of creation, and do it effortlessly, and doing it in a way that He says that would bring Him joy to care for us.
[11:59] So we're not speaking of the worship of nature, and some of you in here have already heard more preaching about the wonder of nature than you might have heard in your entire life, because as I said at the beginning, we shouldn't have let some people taking creation and bringing it where it doesn't belong to keep us from being grateful.
[12:17] God tells us things in the Bible about how to take care of an ox. We shouldn't muzzle the mouth of an ox. It's in Deuteronomy. Also again in 1 Corinthians 9, we're told that a righteous man is going to regard the life of a beast, that you could tell if a man might be malicious or mean by the way that he'd care for his horse or his animal.
[12:33] In the Psalms, you see no trace of pagan beliefs or various objects being worshipped. They're not trying to populate trees with local deities, but we see that we see the greatness of God.
[12:45] I was at a fundraiser some years ago and I was sitting with a man and he was talking about how he said, I really like to, I go to all these conventions about global warming.
[12:56] And I said, you fly there, do you? All right. And he said, yes, I do. All right. And so he goes to these things about global warming and he said, I would love to come speak to your church sometime about global warming.
[13:07] And what kind, he said, what kind of church do you go to? And I said, a Baptist church. And he said, oh, you wouldn't care about any of this then, would you? And I said, I'm kind of offended.
[13:19] That'd be like somebody in Hollywood telling me that I don't understand anything about love because I'm happily married. Just because maybe I don't understand what he thinks he understands doesn't mean that as Christian people or as Baptist people, as Bible people, that we are not grateful for God's nature, that we should be, that we know that we shouldn't be, this road shouldn't be covered in litter because this is God's creation, that we should follow these things.
[13:45] That's not who we are. And I even told him that I knew a Bible verse about global warming. 2 Peter 3, 10 and 11. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
[14:00] The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. And so I've dedicated myself to preparing people for this day. Verse 11, seeing then that all things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversations and godliness?
[14:16] And then he moved tables away from him. So the Lord's dominion over all creation reveals his wisdom. The Lord, how manifold are thy works.
[14:27] In wisdom hast thou made them all. The earth is full of riches. We see God employs nature as his servant. Romans 8, 22 tells us that all the creation groans, that the world is not what he had created to be.
[14:41] That just like our bodies have been affected by the fall, the world in which we live is affected by the fall, that sin has had an effect upon this world. But as you read in Psalm 29, 10, it says, the Lord sitteth upon the flood, yea, the Lord sitteth king forever, that God has used the forces of nature, that he is the protector of his people.
[15:00] God employed forces of nature to defeat the enemies of Israel. Exodus 15, 3 and 4, the Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host have cast into the sea, his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea, that nature obeys him, that he's still in complete control, that nothing has went outside of his bounds of control, and that he can say as Jesus did, you know, to the storm, peace, be still.
[15:26] So how does creation of nature serve the purposes of your worship of him? How should it? How should a hike on Salony Mountain help serve the purposes of worship of him?
[15:39] How does the truth that God of God, the fact of God's creation of nature serve the purposes as we worship him? Verse number one, it says, blessed the Lord on my soul, O Lord my God, they are very great, they are clothed with honor and majesty.
[15:52] You've never seen God, but you have seen his garments. We've never seen God, but by creation and what he has created, we know that we serve a righteous, holy, all-powerful God.
[16:07] There's things that we can learn about him. I probably told you before, Mark Tolson and I, the Versus Cincinnati many years ago, an international student was there from China, Mark Tolson said, I want to give you undeniable proof that there is a God and he said, how are you going to do that?
[16:21] And he said, close your eyes. We walked him up the stairs at the stadium. We didn't show him the football team, that's not proof of anything but depravity, Graham, all right? And we pointed him out the other direction and could see God's creation and we said, here you are without excuse to know that there is a God.
[16:38] We cannot make a stronger argument for you than all of this that you are seeing. Try to recreate any of this. Try to take any of this. And so one, we've seen, even though we've never seen God but we've seen his garments, we've seen his greatness as we've looked at and we see our dependence upon him.
[16:55] Verse 27, these wait upon thee that thou mayest give them their meat in due season, that thou givest them that gather, thou openest thy ham, they are filled with good.
[17:06] We are dependent upon God. Try to make water without him. Try to make a hamburger without meat, all right? You can't do it, all right? Even though, I guess there is something, all right?
[17:18] People have hamburger without meat but I'll go back here. All right, apparently you guys like your burgerless hamburgers, all right? Stay away from that. I'll make note of that. It says, these wait upon thee that thou give them meat in due season, that we are dependent upon what he has given us.
[17:34] Without God's creation sustaining us, we would be, we wouldn't make it. We wouldn't make it at all. Even Olivia testifying there in Nigeria that there's insulin, that what she's in need has been created and she knows and the others in our church here would understand this, that there's something in life that's needed that they cannot create that sustains their life.
[17:58] But she's not the only one like that. She may be the only one who recognizes that but every one of you in here, if we did not eat from the hand of God, if he did not provide for us, we could not provide for ourselves.
[18:10] And do we do not have breath without him? Verse 29 and 30, Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled, thou takest the way of their breath, they die and they return to dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, thou renewest the face of the earth, speaking of the animals, the certainly true of us, takes away our breath and we die, that he sustains us in this world.
[18:30] If God hadn't made the trees in the way they did to produce the oxygen that they had, that we couldn't take the breath, and it's incredible the way that he done it. Reminds us of the gospel. This, how does it remind us of the gospel?
[18:42] God's creation of us establishes in us an obligation to him. This is my father's world, the song you might have sung as a kid. And when I look at it and I say, God, that doesn't belong to me, that belongs to you.
[18:56] You made that and I belong to you. And so I'm obligated to listen and obey. I am in your world, you know, just like you tell your kids, you live in my home, you follow my rules, there's an obligation there.
[19:10] You go outside of here or even inside of here, you look around and say, this, I didn't create this, this isn't mine, this is his, I'm in an obligation to obey him. God's creation, God's greatness in creation cries out for our acknowledgement of his greatness.
[19:26] Not only does it say this belongs to you, but you have to look at it and say, God, you are great, you're amazing. The redwoods for me in California was one of those moments where I just, my mouth just dropped and I just could not believe it.
[19:40] I said, I'm all the way from Kentucky, I came out to California and you're going to take me through the woods and see a bunch of trees, this isn't going to be anything and I said, as soon as I got there I just thought, our God is incredible. This is incredible.
[19:51] He can make trees this big, he can make them this big, he can make them this small, he can make them any size that he would want them to be. I'll close with this story and I will pray. In the 19th century, William Plummer, the famous Southern Presbyterian Old Testament scholar, tells that a pastor and his young apprentice went out early in the morning, about 4.30 or 5 in the morning, to Rockfish Gap, Virginia.
[20:14] Do you know where that's at, Matt, Rockfish Gap, anybody know where that's at? Now, Regina, you know where it's at? Now, some of you might have been there and from the perch on the side of the mountain, they watched the sun rise over the blue ridge and when the sun finally peeked up over the mountaintop and spread its yellow and orange rays along the mountain cliffs into the valleys, it was a sight that took their breath away.
[20:39] The older pastor turned to the young man and he said, young man, if anybody ever tells you there's no God, you tell him he's a fool. You know, you don't have to wake up at 4.30 or 5 in the morning to teach that lesson, but that is a good lesson to teach.
[20:55] That's a good lesson to take some kids out in the nature and let them see, let them see a sunrise, let them see something and just say, if you ever begin for a moment to entertain the fact that there's not a God, look right here.
[21:06] We have thousands of acres around us that could tell you all the world, anywhere that you would go, so many beautiful things. We have the North Georgia mountains that would testify it, but the whole world has testimony of it.
[21:18] The whole world has something that says that there is a God. While the revelation of God in nature is not sufficient to save a man, it is sufficient to condemn a man when it's rejected.
[21:31] And so around the world, the need for the gospel is needed because man is sinners universally, the testimony of nature is there universally, and so it testifies there is a God, there is a created order, there's laws that you're breaking that have been made, you're doing things that are unnatural, and that's why we have the opportunity to send people out and say, hey, you know that God that you think about when you stand under the stars at night?
[21:56] We know Him, and He wants to know you. The created order testifies that there is a God who made us to whom we are accountable, but we have worshipped ourselves in creation instead of Him, and we ought to change that.
[22:11] So I close with the premise that I gave at the beginning. When believers consider the amazing and wonderful works of God in all aspects of creation, they will praise Him as the giver and sustainer of life and anticipate the promised new order of creation without sin.
[22:28] We will live in this world someday. He will rule and reign, and it will be without sin. And what we see right now just testifies of His greatness, but it will be even greater when it's been untouched by our sin.
[22:41] So let me encourage you in that. Take a walk this weekend. Take somebody with you. When you're feeling stressed and you feel like the whole world is upon you, everybody's coming to you, moms, and every kid has a question, and Dad, you feel like everything's upon you, and you say, everything in the world revolves around me.
[22:56] I have to spin all the plates. I have to keep everything going. Walk down the road and see a million little cycles that are happening that you have nothing to do with, and if it wasn't for the God of Heaven, you would not have them, and say, thank you, God.
[23:08] You're really in charge of everything, and I have just such a small place, and I want you to recognize that I know you're the sustainer, and you are the giver of life. Heavenly Father, I thank you.
[23:20] Thank you for how nature testifies of your greatness. Lord, in your wisdom, you've created it, and the very little that I understand about biology and chemistry, astronomy, Lord, everything I've ever studied, Lord, just makes me understand that you are far greater than any of us could ever imagine.
[23:41] You're able to put things together. You're able to make things and sustain things that all the world scientists could never come together. Lord, we studied just to understand what you have done, and we couldn't even begin to try to replicate it.
[23:56] Lord, I thank you that your creation reminds us that you are the creator and sustainer of life. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[24:07] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.