Psalm 104:1 ¶ Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. 2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: whostretchest out the heavens like a curtain: 3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: 4 Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: 5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. 6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. 8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. 9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
Psalm 145:3 Great is the
LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.
Consider the statement here in Psalm 104, verse one, that it is
said that God, the Creator, is clothed with honor and majesty. That is His
garment metaphorically and He is beyond our comprehension. The Psalmist wants
his very soul, the seat of will and self-identity, to praise and bless God, the
Creator.
1Timothy 6:16 Who only hath
immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man
hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
The expression here reveals the depth and dimension of the
universe, the heavens, stretched out with depth, not like some dome in which
all the stars are assembled at the same distance. This is a picture of an
expanse.
Genesis 1:6 ¶ And God said,
Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters. 7 And God made
the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the
evening and the morning were the second day.
The firmament,
heaven, or what we call our atmosphere and outer space, the heavens, is a band
dividing waters on earth from waters which must now exist in the furthest
reaches of space. I noted this previously although there is much more to be
discovered and one could predict that at the outermost distance in space there
should be quite a significant amount of water.
Psalm
148:4 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens,
and ye waters that be above the heavens.
God made the
firmament and clearly expanded it creating the immense realm of space we see
around us. Modern theoretical scientists talk about this rapid expansion of
space but their starting point is not God’s creation but a god-like inanimate
object, the Singularity, previously mentioned, before what they call The Big
Bang.
If the universe is
93 billion light-years (the distance light travels in one year) across as some
theoretical scientists suggest and we have no way nor, in this life, ever will
have a way to measure if this is true, then this happened very rapidly, by God’s
hand, in a day. So, the evidence these scientists observe to come up with their
atheistic theories, postulates, and conclusions are merely the evidence of the
handiwork of the God of the Bible.
First there is the
appearance of light, as theoretical scientists call the Photon Epoch, then a
rapid expansion of the universe. I am not certifying that what scientists say
is true when they make educated guesses nor do I mean to tie the Bible into
current scientific understanding, which is changing, but merely to show that
even theoretical science has dipped its toe into the pool of truth, perhaps to
take it out again or perhaps to immerse itself further in understanding God’s
actions in creation if they can just get past atheistic determinism caused by
their inner fear of God’s judgment.
Again, I must repeat;
Psalm
19:1 « To the chief Musician, A
Psalm of David. » The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament
sheweth his handywork.
And add;
Psalm
8:3 ¶ When I consider thy heavens, the
work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
Psalm
33:6 By the word of the LORD were the
heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
Notice at the end
of this day God does not say that it was good. There are things that will abide
in space above us in a short while (for us reading) that we must be aware of.
Job
15:15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his
saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
Job
25:5 Behold even to the moon, and it
shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
Ephesians
6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians
2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
That the heavens
have depth and distance is clear. Imagine a curtain being stretched out in a
wind, with depth and distance.
Notice the symbolism in the images presented here as in verse 3.
Psalm 18:10 And he rode
upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
The modernist takes this so literally he or she misses the poetic
importance of it.
Amos 9:6 It is he that
buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he
that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of
the earth: The LORD is his name.
If it helps you to picture this hyperliterally that is
understandable but such language, if taken as a picture of what is real, can
confuse you. This is a picture of God’s power, His might, and His glory and
sovereignty over His creation.
Isaiah 19:1 ¶ The burden of
Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt:
and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt
shall melt in the midst of it.
My point is that while we can accept that God’s presence was in
the pillar of fire and the pillar of a cloud we do not imagine God driving a
chariot and horses any more than we would of Him driving a tank or a jeep.
Exodus 13:21 And the LORD
went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by
night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: 22 He took not away the pillar of the cloud by
day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.
Do we think that Solomon is literally leaping on mountains and
skipping upon hills in the following?
Song of Solomon 2:8 ¶ The
voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping
upon the hills.
Verse 4 is quoted by Paul.
Hebrews 1:7 And of the
angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of
fire.
The angels, incorporeal, do God’s bidding and reveal themselves as
required although Paul makes an interesting statement that should give us
pause.
Hebrews 13:2 Be not
forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares.
The Psalmist then goes on to reinforce that God, in showing His
power, will no more destroy the earth with the waters of a flood.
Genesis 9:11 And I will establish
my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters
of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
Scientists now
believe that there is enough water under the ground to cover the continents in
600 feet of water if it were above the ground, according to a November 17, 2015
news article on The Christian Science Monitor website.[1] A
March 12, 2014 article on the Scientific American website also confirmed that
scientists believe there is as much water in the earth’s mantle in a particular
zone as there is in the earth’s oceans.[2]
God is sovereign in how He orders creation. It is God that does
these things we have attributed to random natural causes without His direction.
Psalm 104:10 ¶ He sendeth
the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. 11 They give drink to every beast of the field:
the wild asses quench their thirst. 12
By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which
sing among the branches. 13 He watereth
the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy
works. 14 He causeth the grass to grow
for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food
out of the earth; 15 And wine that
maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine,
and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are full of sap;
the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; 17 Where the birds make their nests: as for
the stork, the fir trees are her house. 18 The high hills are a refuge for the
wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
In this passage we see God’s many mercies to His creation
outlined. It has been said by some that bad things happening to us stick out so
much because most of the time we experience good things. The bad things in that
philosophy are a shock to the system because we go on from day to day normally
without them. If you are sick now have you been grateful for all the years of
strength and health?
It is a beautiful passage, isn’t it? I am reminded of a popular
song written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss but made popular by Louis
Armstrong entitled What a Wonderful World.
[Verse
1]
I
see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And
I think to myself
What a wonderful world
[Verse 2]
I
see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
[Bridge]
The
colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are
also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying, "I love you"
[Verse 3]
I
hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
[Outro]
Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Oh, yeah
How thankful are we for God’s mercy and grace and the
blessings He bestows on the creatures of His creation? A Bible-believing
Christian knows that it is the sin of man against God from that beginning that
caused pain, suffering, and death.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned:
Romans 8:22 For we know
that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
But even in spite of that we can exclaim, “What a wonderful
world!”
Psalm 104:19 ¶ He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. 20 Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. 21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. 22 The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. 23 Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. 24 O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. 25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. 26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. 27 These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 28 That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. 29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. 30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.
I want to bring forward comments I made in Genesis for verse 19.
Genesis
1:14 ¶ And God said, Let there be lights
in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them
be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the
stars also. 17 And God set them in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were
the fourth day.
The Bible teaches
an earth-centered and an earth-focused universe. Theoretical scientists dismiss
this notion as in order to push an atheist agenda this cannot be accepted.
However, some of the most brilliant scientists have admitted that the earth
appears, from their own observations, to be in a central location in the
universe although they simply cannot intellectually accept that.
Fred Hoyle, one of
history’s great theoretical scientists, wrote in a textbook published in 1975;
However, [refers
to a diagram of the universe] would demand a special relation of our own galaxy
to the universe, since in this figure we have taken our galaxy to be located in
the center of a nonuniform distribution of galaxies. It hardly seems plausible
that our galaxy would be in any such privileged position. So we answer the
above question [would anywhere appear to be the center making the universe
acentric?] affirmatively on intellectual grounds rather than because such an
answer is determined by observation.[3]
The fact that,
according to the observations of many theoretical scientists, based on the data
they have collected based on their own theories and mathematical models, the
earth may be in a central position in the universe is interesting, to say the
least. Regarding the belief that was once widely held by both scientists and
Christians, that the earth was the center of the solar system (geocentric
theory) rather than the sun (heliocentric theory), as Copernicus theorized,
Hoyle had this interesting statement to make. “We now know that the difference
between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion
only, and that such a difference has no physical significance.”[4]
Remember there are no walls, ceiling, or floors in space so determining
relative motion without those reference points can be very complicated and
often the evidence and mathematical calculations can point to one way and also
prove the reverse.
In the
controversial book Rare Earth: Why
Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by University of Washington
scientists, Peter Ward, a geologist and paleontologist, and Donald Brownlee,
astronomer and astrobiologist, put forth the evidence and theory that showed
that for life to exist on earth the universe was perfectly suited and even a
slight variation in much of the observable universe would result in a lifeless
earth.
From our
perspective here the earth appears to be the center of the universe and the
only place where the existence of life is necessary. The Bible here states
clearly that the sun and the moon were created for the earth, for purposes
here, and were not formed by a random process without meaning.
However, modern
ideology, that life is basically an accident and we are insignificant, swirling
in an equally insignificant position in the universe, is the prevailing modern
myth that you are allowing your children to be indoctrinated by in public school
and in college.
By the way, with
regard to the moon in Genesis 1:16 the Bible tells us that it does not generate
light of its own…
Job 25:5 Behold
even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
…just as we are
told that the earth is not attached to any object…
Job 26:7 He
stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon
nothing.
…and that it is
circular in shape…
Isaiah 40:22 It
is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof
are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
…and that in the
expanse of outer space there is a vast empty place as Job 26:7 stated above,
which we have confirmed by observation.[5]
And yet,
theoretical scientists, in the main, deny the Bible’s truth. However, any
honest reading of philosophers of science will show you that theoretical
science is driven by ideology as much as it is any honest assessment of the
evidence.[6]
Your best bet is
to believe the Bible as literally written. It is a primary source, given to men
by the God who created them, and is thoroughly reliable while the musings of
theoretical scientists are not. The sun and the moon exist to perform certain
functions with regard to the earth, not as accidental events of nature in
space-time.
There is a myth
perpetuated by textbooks and lectures of scientists and philosophers that the
ancients believed the universe was very small. The Christian writer, C.S.
Lewis, referencing a number of ancient and medieval sources, pointed out that
the ancients thought the universe to be quite large in his book The Discarded Image.[7]
Back to Psalm 104. Things will continue in the order they have
progressed for several thousand years as God promised.
Genesis 8:20 ¶ And Noah
builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every
clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the
LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s
sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I
again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and
harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not
cease.
Lions roar after their prey and seek their food from God? That is
not what we’ve been led to believe in the modern world. Let’s look at a passage
from Job.
Job 38:25
¶ Who hath divided a watercourse for the
overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; 26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no
man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; 27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and
to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? 28 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten
the drops of dew? 29 Out of whose womb
came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the
face of the deep is frozen. 31 Canst
thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in
his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? 33 Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst
thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? 34
Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may
cover thee? 35 Canst thou send
lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? 36 Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or
who hath given understanding to the heart? 37
Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of
heaven, 38 When the dust groweth into
hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? 39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill
the appetite of the young lions, 40 When
they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? 41 Who provideth for the raven his food? when
his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.
In God’s rhetorical interrogation of
Job He asks several questions which may seem perplexing to us. In verse 25 a
connection is made between lightning and thunder, which we know now that one
causes the other. Aristotle, as late as the third century BC, attributed
thunder to a collision between clouds. Scientists are still ignorant about the
whys and hows of lightning. A recent Aeon magazine article stated that how
lightning happens is, “among the biggest mysteries in atmospheric science.”[8] The disturbing, again, implication in verse
25 is that even when there is flooding, God disperses overflowing water as He
sees fit. This is a frightening prospect if we consider what the Bible is
telling us that even in a seemingly random process God is in control. Did you
ever imagine that?
If you remember the old Zen koan,
“if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a
sound?” Here, God speaks about how He causes all things, even where man is
nowhere around to witness the things. It rains in places where man is not to
soak the parched ground and cause plants to grow that man will never see. Think
about this. From the dense forests of Borneo to the jungles of Brazil there is
life and there are events happening that we will never know about
experientially. There are things happening a million light-years from us that
we have no knowledge of now or at any time in our lives. Man is not the measure
of all things. The universe God built for Himself. We are a part of His plan.
But, we are not the only part.
Verse 28 places God squarely as the
author of every drop of dew. Think of that. Imagine it, if you will. Every
snowflake, the ice on a pond, the frost on the ground, all of it, every
microscopic piece of it created by God, not just the result of a random
process, an, “accident of nature,” but a direct execution of divine will. It
staggers the modern mind.
The anthropologist, Susan Friend
Harding, wrote, “The membrane between disbelief and belief is thinner than we
think.”[9] Most Christians in America
seem to believe in a caretaker God, like a gardener, watching over life
processes and natural events that He can only affect in a minimal way by
exerting Himself from outside of the process, by interrupting the process, like
a landlord we call on to fix the plumbing in our apartment when it leaks.
American Christians, even fundamentalists, can’t wrap their minds around the
God presented in the Bible. They can wrap their minds around the God presented
in their culture. That God is a sort of manager, or at times a warrior-king, or
at times a big brother, and at times even a benefactor, but He is most
certainly not the God presented in the Bible who controls every moment
everywhere in His universe. He is neither surprised nor at a disadvantage when
a thing happens. He either made it happen or permitted it to happen. Period.
And that is just and right and as it should be, your fear, your grief, your
pain, your discomfort notwithstanding.
God now moves masterfully in His
speech to the farthest reaches of outer space, to the nearby atmosphere of
earth, and into the human heart, the spiritual heart of understanding, emotion,
and reason, to underscore His sovereign reign over the sum total of reality. He
even speaks of causing clods of dirt and providing food for wild animals and
birds. He does this, Himself. He is the author of it.
This is a different earth, a
different universe, than what we are used to imagining. Be honest with
yourself, when the snow piled deep in your yard you didn’t think of it being a
direct act of God any more than when you started your car did you think that.
We have lived for several hundred
years in a universe we thought was governed by blind forces. The only
difference between many Christians and atheists have been that Christians
thought there was a benevolent and powerful entity who wound up those forces
and who would intervene occasionally to interrupt those blind forces on the
Christian’s behalf. Both are wrong. Dead wrong.
Back to the Psalm. Look at how this
Psalm underscores God’s hand in every event from death to life. In this
revolutionary age of the last two hundred or so years we have been brainwashed
to believe in randomness and accident or, at best, reality being self-directed.
God has been removed from the equation creating much ignorance of how things
work for us.
Psalm 104:31 ¶ The glory of
the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works. 32 He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he
toucheth the hills, and they smoke. 33 I
will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I
have my being. 34 My meditation of him
shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD. 35
Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no
more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.
There is no question in our minds as to the eternal nature of the
God who created our universe. He has already declared His works as good.
Genesis 1:31 ¶ And God saw
every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening
and the morning were the sixth day.
In verse 32 we are reminded of Mount Sinai in Exodus and the
description in Psalms.
Exodus 19:18 And mount
Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire:
and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount
quaked greatly.
Psalm 68:8 The earth shook,
the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at
the presence of God, the God of Israel.
Psalm 77:18 The voice of
thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth
trembled and shook.
While the Psalmist is alive he promises to praise God and to show Him
the glory. Finally, it is the Psalmist’s wish that God would reign triumphant
and sinners against Him would be removed from the earth. He concludes by
blessing and praising the Lord and encouraging all to do so. This is certainly
a Psalm to pray back to God. Acknowledge who He is and how mighty and all
powerful He is, the mighty God. We would would do well to do so.
[1]
Lucy Schouten, “Scientists Tally Earth’s Hidden Mega-stashes of Groundwater,” The Christian Science Monitor, November
17, 2015 (accessed July, 28, 2016).
[2]
Becky Oskin, “Rare Diamond Confirms that Earth’s Mantle Holds an Ocean’s Worth
of Water,” Scientific American, March
12, 2014 (accessed July 28, 2016).
[3] Fred Hoyle, Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course (San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1975), 87.
[4] Ibid., 416.
[5] Sarah Knapton,
“Mysterious Supervoid in Space is Largest Object Ever Discovered, Scientists
Claim,” The Telegraph, April 20,
2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11550868/Giant-mysterious-empty-hole-found-in-universe.html.
[6] Suggested reading
includes Richard Lewontin’s Biology as
Ideology, Paul Feyerabend’s The
Tyranny of Science and Against
Method, Ian Hacking’s Representing
and Intervening, Nancy Cartwright’s How
the Laws of Physics Lie, Thomas Kuhn’s The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions and The
Copernican Revolution, and E.A. Burtt’s The
Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, all of which I have read and
have in my library.
[7]
C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An
Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1964), 97-99.
[8] Sidney Perkowitz, “Flash!” Aeon Magazine, 15 May 2019.
[9] Susan Friend Harding, The Book of Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 58.
