“1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun, 5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, 6 like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.
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Driving back here from Michigan, I saw a billboard with a picture of an adorable little girl looking up at a forest canopy. The billboard was simply a friendly encouragement for parents to take their children outdoors. I imagine that the people behind the billboard want kids to have less screen time and more outdoor time.
My mom wanted me to have more outdoor time. She often told me to turn off my video games and go outside. She never once told me, “you’ve been outside too much; please come inside and turn on your video games. Mario needs you.” I never once heard that.
Why do parents want their children to go outside? Why are concerned groups putting up billboards urging parents to simply take their children outside? What is so beneficial about being outside?
There are many answers but the one that concerns us tonight is seen in the walks of CS Lewis. CS Lewis loved walking. He and his friends would walk all day, stay at an inn, and keep walking the next day. CS Lewis’s friend J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings, sometimes walked with him. They found these walks wholesome. They found these walks nourishing.
Why? What was so good about being outdoors? Well, Lewis and Tolkien thought that being out in creation reminded them in a very profound way that they were creatures who knew their Creator. Surrounding themselves with God-made objects strengthened their awareness of God. Surrounding themselves with man-made objects weakened their awareness of God. Creation can’t help but communicate God’s glory. That is the claim of this sermon. Creation can’t help but communicate God’s glory.
We will study this in three points. First: declaring the glory of God. Second: the inescapable voice of creation. Third: the example of the sun. In verses 1-2, we see that creation declares the glory of God. From verse 3 through the first half of verse 4, we see the inescapable voice of creation. From the second half of verse 4 through verse 6, we see the example of the sun.
First: declaring the glory of God. We tend to think of creation as mute. We think of it as simply the backdrop of the drama of our own lives. It says nothing. It means nothing. David thought otherwise; verse 1, “the heavens declare the glory of God.”
Creation says something. It says something about God. As John Goldingay put it, “The splendor of sun, moon, stars, and planets implies the splendor of the one whose hands made them, like a craft-worker.”
Last Christmas we had an art show at church. We will this Christmas as well. Those beautiful works of art told us something about the hands who made them. We learned something new about the people who painted and quilted and puzzled and drew. In the splendor of their works we saw something of the splendor of those individuals. In the splendor of creation you see something of the splendor of the Creator; “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
Think about it in terms of origami. If you could please pull up the slide.
These are some origami birds made by Sipho Mabona out of Lucerne, Switzerland. I have no idea how much time he invested in each of those birds. I’ve never met Sipho Mabona, and I’m not a huge origami fan but I can’t help but have a certain respect for the man based on that art. Likewise, creation ought to give everyone a certain respect for God. As Calvin put it, “As soon as we acknowledge God to be the supreme Architect, who has erected the beauteous fabric of the universe, our minds must necessarily be ravished with wonder at His infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.” I hope that you’ve had that experience. I hope that there is something about creation—be it the starry night sky, or the maple trees in the fall, or the texture of a baby’s foot—I hope there is something about creation that causes your mind to, “be ravished with wonder at [God’s] infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.”
If not, you are missing out. You are missing out on something that God created to keep you aware of Him. This is a fault. You have done an injustice to the Grand Canyon and to God if you see that canyon without a sense of awe before God. You’ve done an injustice to the Pacific Ocean and to God is you can watch its waves without having a sense of your smallness before God. You’ve been deaf to God’s chatty creation; “the heavens declare the glory of God.”
Now there are plenty of people who choose to be deaf to God’s creation. They see all of this as one big cosmic accident. This can’t help but rob God of glory. Imagine Sipho Mabona’s response if someone else claimed responsibility for his art. He wouldn’t be too pleased with that; God is not pleased when someone else claims responsibility for His art.
Now it isn’t that some people can see God’s glory in creation and some people can’t. It is a choice. As Paul put it, “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.”
There is no excuse for not seeing the power and glory of God in creation. Everyone is living in a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week irrefutable argument for the existence, power, and glory of God. This is one of the reasons I find the word “creation” to be much more helpful than the word “nature.” The word “creation” implies a Creator. The word “nature” doesn’t.
People say they want to see miracles before they will believe in God, but Francis Bacon, one of the first modern scientists, was right to say that, “God never wrought miracles to convince atheism because His ordinary works convince it.” What could a levitating man tell you about God that the complexity of an eyeball couldn’t tell you about God? Creation declares the glory of God.
A failure to see God’s handiwork isn’t a matter of mere perspective; it is a matter of choice. People who do not see God’s glory in creation don’t want to see God’s glory. For one reason or another they don’t want to deal with God. They might be able to shut His Scripture, but they can’t turn off creation. We see that in our second point: the inescapable voice of creation.
We are live streaming right now. We also record these sermons and put them on YouTube and SermonAudio. Anyone who can know God better by merely listening and watching, but there is a catch. You have to know English. These sermons are only of value to people who understand English. Creation doesn’t share that limitation; verse 3, “There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
When missionaries find an unreached people group, they don’t need to explain the concept of a creator. The people they meet already know there is a Creator. The missionaries tell them about this Creator. This category of a Creator, of God, is already in their minds because, “there is no speech or language where [creation’s] voice is not heard.”
You see that at work when Paul visited Athens, as recorded in Acts 17; he said, ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are His offspring.”’
The Greeks knew there must be a God, but they were ignorant as to His identity. It was obvious to them that they were made by Someone, but they didn’t know who. To use theological terms, they had general revelation but no special revelation. General revelation is what can be known about God and the soul without Scripture. Special revelation is that which can be known about God and the soul only because of Scripture. You can know that there must be a Creator by reason alone. You can only know that this Creator took on flesh and died for the sins of the world by way of Scripture.
You can reason someone into believing that there is a Creator without the use of Scripture, but you can’t reason anyone into grace or obedience without Scriptures. They both have their place.
Paul thought that special revelation should go everywhere that general revelation went. He looked at Psalm 19’s words, “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world,” and told the Romans that the good news of Christ should go that far as well. He thought that the gospel should go everywhere that the voice of creation went.
That was, after all, the original plan. As we’ve been studying in the morning with Abraham, the plan was for all the nations of the world to be blessed through the promises given to Abraham. Paul was simply taking those promises to everywhere where natural revelation went. That’s what missionaries continue to do. They go to those who only experience verse 3-4, “There is no speech or language where [creation’s] voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world,” and they bring the rest of the story.
The missionary Paul thought that Christ truly was the rest of the story. As he told the Colossians, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
To know Jesus isn’t simply to know the character of the Creator, that he is gentle and humble in heart, although that’s true. To know Jesus isn’t simply to know that the Creator loves His creation beyond any love that any of us have ever received or given, although that’s true. To know Jesus is to know the purpose of creation; the God-man makes sense of our humanity. To know Jesus is to know the purpose of life; Jesus’ life on earth gives meaning to our life on earth.
So it isn’t simply that creation tells you there is a Creator and then Scripture takes it from there. Creation isn’t a set of training wheels designed to get you to Scripture. They inform one another. Creation tells you there is a Creator; Scripture gives you new eyes to see creation. You see that it is all for Jesus. The bounty of this world is all for its king. You see that it is all from Jesus. He called it all “very good” in the beginning and he took on flesh within it to restore it all to that condition of being very good.
This makes salvation a much grander picture. Jesus came for new creation. The gospel is suddenly no longer an add-on to real life, but rather becomes the way of real life. As CS Lewis put it, “we do not want merely to see the beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” The gospel tells you how to enter into that beauty. It tells you how to return to the pronouncement of “very good” that God spoke over everything in the beginning.
Now creation has great value, but it must be kept in its place. Some people devalue creation and think of it merely as the setting for our lives. Others exalt creation to a place God never intended. We see that in our final point: the example of the sun.
To this point, David has talked about creation in general; he now focuses on one part of creation—the sun; verse 4, “In the heavens [God] has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.”
David imagines the sun going to bed in its tent at night. This is, of course, poetic language much like in the song “So Long, Farewell” in The Sound of Music. If you know the musical, this is the song which the children sing to the guests when it is time for bed, “So long, farewell Auf Weidersehen, goodbye… the sun has gone to bed and so must I.” Those children didn’t really think that the sun went to bed. David didn’t really think the sun was going in a tent. This is imagination.
It is imagination with a purpose. David imagined the sun rising from its tent and running across the sky like a warrior to show that it was God’s servant. God pitches a tent for His servant the sun. The sun was made by God for God’s purposes.
It is very possible that David focused on this as he did because many of the nations around Israel worshipped the sun. Just as Abraham worshipped the moon, any number of people in Egypt and Mesopotamia worshipped the sun. I remember finding a group of literal sun worshippers when I went to Mexico about a decade ago. They were dressed all in white to properly absorb the rays of the sun. If that sounds strange to you, remember that it is very possible that we will see all sorts of paganism if our culture keeps heading along its current trajectory.
Creation is one of humanity’s favorite idols. We must never treat it that way. The sun does not deserve worship. The moon does not deserve worship. Astrology has no place among us. We are not beholden to the stars. We are not children of mother earth.
Chesterton overstates his case, but he was certainly on to something when he said that, “The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a stepmother [and a wicked one at that]. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate.” Those who think we exist to serve creation have it very wrong. Those who think creation exists for us to use have it very wrong. We both exist to declare the glory of God. The sun marching through the sky is His servant. We are His servants.
Two questions as we close. First, do you hear creation? Do you hear it declare the glory of God? Do you see it declare the glory of God? Do you taste it declare the glory of God? Do you smell it declare the glory of God? Do you feel it declare the glory of God? Do you, like CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien live mindfully as creatures in a creation made by the Creator?
Second question—if the heavens declare the glory of God, what do you declare? You can declare more of God’s glory than any cloud or tree or star. That’s why you were created. That’s why you have been born again. Amen.