Evidence that Demands a Verdict
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Few discoveries have been as monumental in human history as the discovery of gravity by Isaac Newton nearly 350 years ago. For thousands of years, whenever people jumped up or whenever objects were thrown, they always came back down to the earth. Why was this the case? People had ideas and theories. The Greeks thought that everything had a natural motion, including other planets and even the stars. While they were right, the planets in our solar system do follow a natural motion around the sun, why do objects fall back down to earth? The legend states that Isaac Newton was sitting underneath an apple tree and an apple fell and hit him on the head… This seemingly insignificant event led the genius to develop the theory of gravity. Newton realized that another force must be acting on the apple and causing it to fall towards the ground. Obviously, we know about gravity and recognize it’s importance in our world because without it, we’d all be floating around like the astronauts do in space!
Newton made this discovery that led to his conclusion that gravity must exist. This is how things logically work: we observe something and we come to a conclusion that impacts the way we live our life or the way we think about something. There is evidence that changes our thoughts.
Think of what the Bible says about God’s existence. There are numerous examples to look at, but lets initially look at Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now we look all around us and we see creation. We breathe in air into our lungs. We feel the warm sunshine on our skins. We look around and see the beautiful hills, mountains, oceans, and trees around our planet and it begs a question. How did they get there? There is evidence all around us. What is the conclusion? Biblically, the conclusion is that God created the world as the Word says that He did. Our text tonight shares with us some of the evidence that talks about this reality and what the conclusion must be. We long to serve our Savior and live a life that is pleasing and acceptable to Him. The evidence must lead to action!
For the choir director. A psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.
3 There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard.
4 Their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming from his home; it rejoices like an athlete running a course.
6 It rises from one end of the heavens and circles to their other end; nothing is hidden from its heat.
7 The instruction of the Lord is perfect, renewing one’s life; the testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad; the command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous.
10 They are more desirable than gold— than an abundance of pure gold; and sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb.
11 In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them there is an abundant reward.
12 Who perceives his unintentional sins? Cleanse me from my hidden faults.
13 Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins; do not let them rule me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed from blatant rebellion.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
The Witness in the Sky (1-6)
The Witness in the Sky (1-6)
CS Lewis once said this about Psalm 19, “I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world!” This Psalm celebrates the wisdom and power of God as the heavens declare the glory of God. Paul says this in Romans 1
20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
Where does Paul get this from? Certainly from the Holy Spirit, but knowing the Old Testament as well as he did, this would have been obvious from Psalm 19. God’s presence is known by all simply through what we see whenever we look up to the sky.
Whenever we hear the word heavens, there can be some confusion. Are there multiple heavens where people go when they die? Will there be 3 heavens like the Mormons state? In Scripture, the Jewish understanding of heavens is more or less our word and understanding of the sky. The heavens could be referring to the sky, the heavenly bodies/planets/stars, or to where God is. In our text, the “heavens: refers to the sky. We know that in the day, we have the sun and light in the sky. In the night, we have darkness and we see the moon and stars. These things demonstrate the glory and power of our God.
Not only do these things give glory to God, they also demonstrate to us His existence and power. Have you ever gone outside on a warm summer evening and looked up at the night sky? If you’re anything like me, you’ve done this several times because you love astronomy and looking at the creative hand of God! The stars and galaxies exist to declare the glory of God. Their message goes out to the whole earth and all people see them. Whether you live in Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, or Canada, you see these heavenly bodies! This is what we call general revelation. This is why Paul can say that God has made His presence known to all the world. Does this mean that all people have heard the Gospel message? Absolutely not. This breaks our heart to know that there are people out there, billions for that matter, who will never hear about Jesus Christ. But, every single person knows that God exists simply because of creation and through the sun, moon, and stars. On the one hand, this is troubling news because we know many will never hear about Jesus, but on the other hand this should motivate our missionary efforts. The whole world knows of God’s existence, according to the Bible. Because of this, as we go, we have a starting point to share with them: creation.
Regardless of where you grow up at or who you are, you are a creation of God. You live amongst His creation each and every day. Whenever we witness with others, we all have a common experience: creation.
This opening section concludes by talking about the sun rising from one end and setting in the other. In between, what does the sun do? The sun provides light and heat to all it shines upon! The Psalmist notes that nothing is hidden from its heat. Likewise, we know that nothing is hidden from our God! In the good times and in the bad times, we know that He is with us and guides us as our Good Shepherd.
Interestingly, when it comes to our sun, did you know that if the earth were to be a couple hundred thousand miles closer to the sun, we would burn up as it would be 200-300 degrees outside. Likewise, we were a few hundred thousand miles further away from the sun, we would freeze to death. We are perfectly positioned by the Creator of the Universe and it only takes looking up to the sky to figure that out! We see evidence for His existence and power in creation.
The Witness in Scripture (7-14)
The Witness in Scripture (7-14)
While we can look to the sky to figure out that there is a Creator, simply knowing that there is a God does not save. What we have in our Bible is the instruction of the Lord. The Psalmist says that the instruction of the Lord is perfect and trustworthy. It is hard for us to completely grasp the concept of perfection because we know that we fail and come up short more times than not. There is no one perfect, not even one. Yet, we see here that the instruction of the Lord is perfect. Where do we find the instruction of the Lord? In God’s Word! We’ve talked about how, as Southern Baptists, one of the things that we hold on to strongly is the inerrancy of God’s Word. There are other people who do not believe this, though. They will call themselves Christians but they believe that the Bible has parts that are false and not true. If the Bible is not entirely true, what parts are and what parts aren’t? If you take away the miraculous events found in Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, and Jonah, why would you even think of believing in the miracles found in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? If we’re picking and choosing what is true and what is not, why believe in the empty tomb?
We stand firmly that the Word is true and we see that the Word does things to us. The Word renews our life, makes us wise, gives us joy, and gives light to our eyes. The Word endures forever and is entirely righteous! If you want to know how to live your life, how to wisen up, how to have pure and unchanging joy, how to see things as they truly are, what should you do? You should read the Word and let it change your life! There are so many benefits to reading the Word of God. We talked about some of those benefits during Sunday school this morning as we referenced how can we know God? This is a great question, but the answer is pretty simple: we can know God by reading His Word. Lots of people say that they want God to answer their question and they need a special word from Him but their Bible stays collecting dust and sitting on their counter. Do you see a problem with this? Sadly, many people in our country do this exact thing. We want immediate answers and we don’t want to commit to regular Bible reading and practicing spiritual disciplines that the Word commands us to practice. Because of this, it can be easy to fail to dive into the Word like we should.
The more that we study God’s Word and the more we apply it to our lives, the more we are changed to be like Christ. This is what we desire as Christians, is it not? To look and act more like Christ? Yet, why do we so often fall short of this goal? Certainly we are sinners, but so often we know what we should do: study Scripture, spend time in prayer, apply God’s Word to our lives, yet we settle sometimes to stay at a surface level. We check it off of our list to be able to say that we did what it, but we don’t allow it to impact our lives. We have the evidence, we read of God’s power and His plan for our lives, and it can be hard sometimes to live for Him.
What is the conclusion of our text in this regard? The Psalmist cries out to God to cleanse Him from hidden and unintentional sins as well as willful sins and blatant rebellion. We all sin. Each and every day, as hard as we try, we will always sin because that’s engrained into our nature! Whenever we fall short and sin, what should we do? We know that we are held by Jesus and He’ll never let us go! But we also see in Scripture that we are to repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness. This is what is modeled by David in Psalm 51
10 God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not banish me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore the joy of your salvation to me, and sustain me by giving me a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach the rebellious your ways, and sinners will return to you.
This is quite the statement from David whenever he becomes aware of his shortcomings and failings. One of the incredible things is that David requests that God not take away the Holy Spirit from Him. Again, we think of the Holy Spirit as not being apart of the lives of people until Acts 2, but we clearly see examples of people in the Old Testament, before Jesus, who had the Holy Spirit inside of their lives. Why would David say this? Because whenever we fall short, there are consequences. Even though we are saved, there are consequences whenever we sin and fall short. Our salvation is not in question because Christ paid for all of our sins, past, present, and future, but there are covenantal blessings and cursings found in Scripture, especially in Deuteronomy 28. Whenever the people disobeyed, there were consequences. Whenever we disobey, there can and will be consequences as well. Yet, we also know that there are rich rewards for abiding in God’s Word and living as a new creation.
As David concludes in verse 14, he requests that the meditation of his heart and the words of his mouth would be acceptable to God. As we understand what the Bible says, as we study it, as we worship with one another, as we live as a new creation, our prayer should be that we look different and that we would be satisfied in Christ - our Redeemer.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Jesus sets up the reality of general revelation in the Sermon on the Mount
45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
We, as Christians, look around our world and we see the beauty of creation. Non-Christians also look around the world and see the beauty of creation as well. There is evidence for God’s existence in creation from the rising of the sun to the stars shining at night. We look at the same evidence and there are different responses. The Christian praises God for His hand in creation while the non-Christian continues about his day thinking that creation was a cosmic accident billions of years ago. The evidence is in front of both people, neither can plead ignorance! What should our response be to the evidence in creation and in the Word of God? We should praise the Lord. We should continue to read His Word and allow it to change us. We should also share the good news of Jesus Christ with others and have urgency as we do this.
As we do this, our prayer is that we would live our life in such a way that we would hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant” whenever we meet our savior face to face!