Charlie Brown and Lucy and Linus are lying on the ground, looking up into the sky. Lucy says, "If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations. What do you think you see, Linus?" Linus responds, "Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean. And that cloud looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing here to one side." Lucy congratulates him, "Uh huh, that’s very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?" Charlie Brown replies, "Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind."
What do you see when you look into the skies? The psalmist looked into the heavens and he saw ... God. He said, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands" (19:1).
Paul developed this same theme in his letter to the Romans.
Listen to what the Bible says in Romans 1:20: "For 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."
God not only reveals Himself to us through His Word. God also reveals Himself to us through His world. What does God reveal about Himself through the created universe?
For one thing, He reveals His existence.
The creation is a testimony to the existence of God.
A young man told his mother one day he was an atheist, that he didn’t believe in God any more. She quietly responded, "If there is no God, who made the world?
He replied, "Nobody made it, it just happened." A few days later he came home from school and passed through the kitchen. A sandwich was sitting on the counter. He asked, "Who made the sandwich?" His mother said, "Nobody made it, it just happened." That young man was wrong. Just as there could be no sandwich without a sandwich maker, there can be no creation without a Creator.
That’s where the psalmist began in all of the creation psalms. He never tried to prove the existence of God. He simply pointed to the universe around Him and said, "I know there is a Creator because of the creation."
The created universe also tells us some things about this God who exists.
The creation is a testimony to the majesty and glory of God.
We don’t learn everything about God from the universe. We don’t learn of His grace or His mercy. God revealed those truths most clearly through the person of Jesus Christ. However, we do learn from the universe about God’s power and God’s majesty.
Wally Amos, known as Famous Amos for his cookies, described his experience a few years ago as he stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon. He said, "The setting sun orchestrated a symphony of subtle hues on the canyon’s walls ... It took your breath away. It was so splendid, so overwhelming, that I stood there awestruck.
All I could think of was God. For the first time in my life I could feel Him, His power, His majesty, and those puny feelings of staleness and discouragement seemed to drop away from me. It was as if God had handed me His calling card."
The universe with all its vastness, the heavens with all their mystery, these are God’s calling cards.
Creation does not tell us everything we need know about God.
But creation does provide everything we need to know that there is a God and that He is a God of majesty.
Whenever the script for your life seems to raise a question about the presence of God or the power of God, just turn your attention to the heavens above and you will be reminded that there is a God and that He is a great God. That is the core concept of this Psalm. Two resulting ideas spin off of this core concept and I want to say a word about each one of them before we are through.
Result #1
A Proper Perspective of Ourselves
Recognizing God as the Creator and the creation as His handiwork will give us a proper perspective of ourselves. The creation psalms provide a needed corrective to the language of faith.
In studying the book of Psalms you learn that the first word of faith is praise;
and the second word is complaint; and the third word is confession. All three of these words focus on self.
We praise God for what He has done for us. We complain to God because of what has happened to us. We confess to God a sin or transgression that has been done by us. The psalms of praise, complaint, and confession all focus the spotlight on us.
The creation psalms broaden our perspective with the reminder that there is a world around us and a God above us. They remind us we are not the center of things, the world does not revolve around us. That’s an important lesson to learn.
It is so easy to become self-centered in our faith, to define truth on the basis of what it means to us, to evaluate God in terms of how He helps us, to determine values on the basis of what we do.
A group of German Christian women met to hear a report from one of their group who had just returned from America. A German Christian told her friends that some Christian women in America smoke. The German Christian women were all so shocked at this revelation that they dropped their beer mugs!
That can happen to any of us. It’s easy to become self-centered and selfish in our faith. That’s why we need to spend time in the creation psalms, to remind ourselves that we are not at the center of things, to give us a proper perspective on ourselves.
Result #2
A Proper Perspective of the Universe
Recognizing God as the Creator and the creation as His handiwork will also give us a proper perspective of the universe. While exalting the splendor of the universe, the psalmist, at the same time, was very careful to distinguish between the Creator and the creation.
From the perspective of mankind, the brightest and most prominent part of the created universe is the sun and consequently is has often been worshipped as a god. The psalmist deliberately distinguished between God and the sun and subordinated the sun to God. Let me show you how he did this.
After describing God in verses 1-3, in verses 4-6, the psalmist described the sun. He wrote, each morning the sun is like a bridegroom who arises from his bridal chamber, revived, energetic, and makes his march across the sky.
He added, each day the sun is like an Olympic sprinter, who races toward the finish line. The sun moves from one horizon to the other, and nothing is hidden from its heat.
What a powerful description of the sun! But notice the context. The sun, as powerful as it is, is under the control of God, for the psalmist explained, at the end of verse 4, that the sun exists simply because "in the heavens God has pitched a tent" for it. The sun is not god; it has been created by God. The sun is not to be worshipped; only God is.
That too is an important lesson to learn. Down through the ages we have repeatedly blurred the distinction between the Creator and His creation.
The Egyptians did it with their worship of the sun. The pagan religions of the Old Testament period did it with their worship of nature. The rationalists of the Enlightenment did it with their belief everything that exists, including individual men and women, is a part of God.
Contemporary writers do it.
The gist of the best seller The Celestine Prophecy is all things share a common energy which makes us one.
Modern movies do it.
John Travolta in the current movie The Phenomenon explains his remarkable power with the conclusion that all of us, animals and people, share a common energy.
The term New Age is used to describe this philosophy as it has resurfaced in our day, but there is really nothing new about it. It is as old as mankind, and from the beginning, it has been rejected and opposed by biblical faith.
We are not all united as a part of some pool of cosmic energy. Each of us is, instead, a distinct person. A tree or an animal are not the same as a person.
Trees are one kind of creation and animals are another kind, and each is made after their kind. Human beings are yet another kind of creation, made in the image of God.
The universe is not the same as God. The universe, as splendid as it is,
is simply the calling card of God.
That’s why we need to spend time in the creation psalms, to remind ourselves that the universe is distinct from God and is created and controlled by Him,
to give us a proper perspective on the universe in which we live.
Conclusion
What does all of this say to us today?
In relationship to the universe, the psalmist calls for caution. Don’t be sucked in by the new popular versions of an ancient heresy about the universe. Remember that there is a distinction between Creator and creation.
In relationship to ourselves, the psalmist calls for humility. Don’t measure everything and judge everything just from your own perspective. Remember that we are not the center of things.
In relationship to God, the psalmist calls for praise. Don’t limit God by remaking Him in our image. Remember that He is the One who created and controls all that exists, and because of that, He is worthy of our trust and our worship.
Dare to begin and end each day with the pronouncement of praise: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (Psalm 8:1).
