God Speaks - Are You Listening?

God is a God who speaks.  God is a God who can be known.  God is a God who desires to be known.

To many of us this morning that is exactly what we believe.  However, consider for a moment where we would be and what we would know about God and ourselves if he wasn’t a God who desired to be known.  If he didn’t take the initiative.

Now there is a certain knowledge we have about God simply because we can look around us.

            Romans 1 says . . .

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

And this morning our text says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.

You can learn much from the universe about:

            His power

            His creativity

That He is a God of order and design.  What would happen if all of a sudden the atom didn’t stay contained like it does? Have you ever heard of the atomic bomb?

Human body:

Comedian Bob Hope once said, “Today my heart beat 103,369 times, my blood traveled 168 million miles, I breathed 23,400 times, I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air, I ate 3 pounds of food, drank 2.9 pounds of liquid, I perspired 1.43 pints, I gave off 85.3 degrees of heat, I generated 450 tons of energy, I spoke 4,800 words, I moved 750 major muscles, my nails grew .01714 inches, and I exercised 7 million brain cells.

I AM TIRED!

So, about God.

And what happens if either we can’t know God or there isn’t a God.

The logical result is that we left unsure of our purpose.  Why are we here?  What is the meaning of life?  Where did it begin and when will it end?

Why do we do what we do?  What is our foundation for morality?  Why do we think something is wrong?

What happens when we die?  If there an afterlife or is this all there is?

Now you really can’t answer those questions if you only have what we call natural or general revelation, i.e. the creation.  We need a little more help don’t we?  Well guess what, we have it?  Not only do the heavens teach us about God, he has given us his word to help us know ourselves, to know him, to know the purpose of life, where we came from and where we are going, and to know how to live every day we have breath.

This is what this Psalm equally provides for us.  An exclamation on the power and wonder of the universe and an appreciation for the special revelation we have in the word of God.

So look with me first at what the Psalmist says about the creation.

Read Psalm 19:1-6

            Let’s look at this a little differently.

            Video

There are so many ways to talk about the greatness of the universe.  It just couldn’t have come about by chance.

After your blood flows through the body, its life-giving oxygen and nutrients have been depleted. To replenish the oxygen and revitalize the blood, it must pass through the heart and then into the lungs again.

But in an unborn infant, the division between the different chambers isn’t necessary because it gets its blood from the mother and it is all pure. So there is a passage from one side of the heart to the other. And the moment a child is born, there is a muscle that contracts and closes that passage. This is the ONLY time in our lives that muscle is ever used. Let me ask you a question – How many millions of years do you suppose it took for that muscle to evolve?

There was a philosophy professor teaching a course and he warned the class he was going to give them a test. When the day came, he entered the classroom, wordlessly placed his chair on the table and, turning to the blackboard, wrote, “Prove to me this chair does not exist.”

Most of the nervous students began intently scribbling out long dissertations. But one member of the class wrote down just two words, and then handed his paper to the teacher.

The professor had to smile when he read the student’s answer: “What chair?”

What Evidence!

Even Charles Darwin struggled with the eye. In a section in The Origin of Species called "Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication” says:

“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”

Now don’t think Darwin gave up on trying to explain this according to his theory, but to me…

Over and over again, our world speaks of design…

And design, logically, speaks of intelligence.

It is that simple.

Finite vs the infinite

Psalm 19:7-9

The Desire

            more to be desired than gold

            Sweeter than honey

            Helpful

So that we may please God

In theology there are two classes of Revelation

            General

            Special

And in the special there are two, not one.  We have seen one today, that is the Scriptures.  The other is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Right side: First the oxygen-depleted blood enters the heart through two large veins, the inferior and superior vena cava and then flows into the right atrium. From the right atrium, it passes through the tricuspid valve and then into the right ventrical. The blood is then pumped through the pulmonary valve and into the lungs.

Once in the lungs, carbon dioxide is removed and oxygen is added to the blood.

Left side: The pulmonary vein empties oxygen-rich blood, from the lungs, into the left atrium. From here, the blood flows from your into your left ventricle through the open mitral valve and finally, it is pumped through the aortic valve into the aorta - the blood vessel that feeds all of the other parts of your body.

When the ventricles are full, the mitral and tricuspid valves close. This prevents blood from flowing backward into the atria while the ventricles contract (squeeze) or "pump." This pattern is repeated continuously throughout your life, causing blood to flow continuously to the heart, lungs and other parts of the body.