Knowing God through His Creation

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Psalm 19:1-6
INTRODUCTION: Today is the third message in our series called, “God’s Good
Creation.” The first week we looked at Genesis 1 and saw that God created all
things good. Last week we looked at Psalm 8 and saw that God placed us in
charge of his creation. Today we will look at knowing God through his creation
from Psalm 19.

Psalm 19:1-6: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the
work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they
display knowledge. 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.

In the heavens he 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. (NIV)

Have you ever felt close to God through nature? Most of us have experienced
this sense of God’s presence through nature at one time or another, perhaps
while viewing the mountains or walking through the woods or breathing in the
salt spray of the ocean. There is a revelation of God in creation, and that is
what we want to talk about this morning.

David wrote about this revelation of God in Psalm 19. C. S. Lewis called Psalm
19 “the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the
world.” Psalm 19 has three major sections. The first section is verses 1-6, which
focuses on God’s creation. The theme of verses 1-6 is that God’s creation
shows his glory. The second section is verses 7-11, which focuses on God’s
word. The theme of this section is that God’s word reveals his grace. The last
section is verses 12-14, which focuses on our response. The theme of this
section is that God requires a humble and repentant response from those who
receive his revelation.
1) God’s creation shows his glory (1-6)
2) God’s word reveals his grace (7-11)
3) God’s revelation requires a humble and repentant response (12-14)
 We will just be looking at verses 1-6 this morning, which focus on God’s
creation and how God’s creation shows his glory. My hope is that through the
study of these verses, you will be encouraged to look for God in his creation in
new ways and seek to know more of him through his works.
So, how is it that we can know God through his creation?

I. God’s creation declares his glory. (1-2)

Well first of all, God’s creation declares his glory. God has always been
glorious. As we saw in the first message of this series, God is the eternal one.
God has always been and always will be. God existed as Father, Son and Holy
Spirit prior to creation in all of his majesty. He is and always has been perfect in
love, perfect in power, perfect in wisdom, perfect in holiness. God has always
been glorious. But when God created the heavens and the earth, there was
suddenly a new vehicle declaring the eternal glory of God. So how does the
creation declare God’s glory?
A. The heavens speak forth the praises of God.
First of all, Psalm 19 says that the heavens speak forth the praises of God. Look
at verse one of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies
proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1) Although all of creation declares
God’s glory, David focuses on the heavens here, because the heavens are the
most universally seen of all God’s works. You can also see God’s glory reflected
in the mountains and the oceans and the forests and in flowers and wildlife,
but not everyone who lives on earth will ever see the ocean or a mountain or
certain types of animals. But everyone can see the sky. And so the heavens
speak forth the praises of God to everyone on earth.

David describes the skies as “the work of God’s hands.” When we speak about
creation, it is not just anyone’s creation. It is God’s creation. It is the work of
his hands. Just as you can always see something of the artist in his or her
creative works, so you can see something of God in his creative works. The
heavens speak forth the praises of God through their beauty, through their
complexity, through their incredible balance and order, even through their
sheer size as we saw last week. All of these things speak forth the praises of
the God who created them.

B. The heavens reveal knowledge of God to man.

The heavens not only speak forth God’s praises. They also reveal knowledge of
God to man. Look at verse two of Psalm 19: “Day after day they pour forth
speech; night after night they display knowledge.”
The creation does not tell you everything you can know about God, but it does
tell you some key things. Paul 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, so that
men are without excuse.” God may be a spirit, he may be invisible to our eyes,
but the creation reveals some of God’s invisible qualities to us. The size and
complexity of creation, especially as seen in the heavens containing the sun,
the moon and the stars, show us God’s eternal power. The beauty and order
and design of creation show us God’s divine nature.

Albert Einstein was not a Christian believer, and yet as he looked at the
wonders of the universe, he knew that there must be a God. When asked by an
interviewer if he was an atheist, he replied, no, and explained his answer in
this way.

“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We
are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in
many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It
does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are
written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the
books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even
the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe
marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand
these laws.” (First published as “What Life Means to Einstein,” Saturday
Evening Post, October 26, 1929. Quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life
and Universe; New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007, p. 386.)

Albert Einstein understood the eternal power and divine nature of God from
what had been made. Why? Because the creation, and especially the heavens,
reveal knowledge of God to man.

C. God’s testimony to himself in creation is unmistakable.

But in these verses David says even more. Not only is there a revelation of God
in creation, but God’s testimony to himself in creation is unmistakable. First of
all, it is a continuous testimony. We see this in the tenses of the verbs David
uses in verse one. We miss it in our English translations, but in the original
Hebrew they are all participles, expressing continuous action: “The heavens
are declaring the glory of God; the skies are proclaiming the work of his
hands.” (Psalm 19:1) In other words, this is something they are always doing at
all times.
Look also at David describes this testimony in verse two. He says this testimony
takes place “day after day, night after night.” Whether the sun is shining by day
or the moon and the stars by night, whether you are enjoying a beautiful, calm,
peaceful day or you are in the midst of heart-pounding thunderstorm, there is
never any time of day or night when God’s creation is not declaring his glory. It
is a continuous testimony.

Not only that, it is an abundant testimony. It would be one thing if this

revelation of God was happening all the time, but it was just a small trickle of
testimony to God’s glory. But look at the lavish words David uses to describe
this testimony. He says, “The skies pour forth speech.” This word translated
“pour forth” is a word that means “to bubble up and overflow,” literally “to
gush forth” in an uncontrolled and uncontrollable manner. God was not stingy
in creation. God has created colors and sounds and variety and wonders in
creation everywhere you look. Whether you look deep into the heavens with a
high power telescope or deep into the inner workings of a cell with a high
power microscope, whether you look up, down or all around, God’s
fingerprints are all over creation. God has provided an abundant testimony to
himself in creation.

Not only is it a continuous testimony and an abundant testimony, it is also a

universal testimony. It is a testimony that is available to everyone who has
ever lived in any place at any time. We will talk more about that when we get
to verses 3-4 in just a minute. But for right now, let’s just recap what we have
learned. God’s creation declares his glory. How? The heavens speak forth the
praises of God. The heavens reveal knowledge of God to man. And God’s
testimony to himself in creation is unmistakable. God’s creation declares his
glory.

II. God’s creation speaks to all people everywhere. (3-4)

Our next point is that God’s creation speaks to all people everywhere. Look at
verses 3-4: “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.”
(Psalm 19:3-4) This is the universal aspect of God’s testimony that we were just
talking about. God’s creation speaks to all people everywhere.
A. There is no language barrier – it is understood by all.
Just think about it. First of all, there is no language barrier. This revelation of
God is understood by all. One of the biggest barriers missionaries face in
bringing the gospel to other peoples is the language barrier. For many
missionaries, one of their first stops before actually going to the mission field is
language school in order to learn the language of the people to whom they will
minister. Some missionaries go to tribes where no one knows the language and
spend their first couple years just living with the people and learning how to
speak their language. New Tribes Missions and Wycliffe Bible Translators are
two missions especially dedicated to learning these new languages and
translating the Scriptures for these people into their own languages.

But the knowledge of God that comes from creation transcends individual
languages. It is like a giant universal translator from Star Trek It can be
understood by all who partake in creation. There is no speech or language
where the voice of the heavens cannot break through. There is no language
barrier – this testimony is understood by all.

B. There is no volume barrier – it is heard by all.

Secondly, there is no volume barrier – it is heard by all. Imagine if you were
broadcasting the gospel into a country in the people’s own language, but none
of them had their radios turned on, or the signal was so faint they couldn’t pick
it up. You would have broken the language barrier, but you would still have a
volume barrier. It doesn’t do any good to speak the language if the people
can’t hear you.

David says, “There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.”
(Psalm 19:3) The knowledge of God in creation comes through loud and clear
to everyone. You can choose to ignore it, but you cannot escape it. Going back
to 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, so that men are without excuse.”
Notice that this testimony to God is clearly seen so that men are without
excuse. No one will ever be able to stand before God and say that they did not
receive the revelation of God that comes through creation. The voice of
creation speaks of God’s glory loud and clear, and no one can miss hearing it.
They can only refuse to believe what they hear. There is no volume barrier
with this revelation – it is heard by all.

C. There is no distance barrier – it is given to all.

Finally, there is no distance barrier – it is given to all. Psalm 19:4: “Their voice
goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Going back to
the radio analogy, imagine you are broadcasting the gospel using special
universal translator technology. Everyone who hears your transmission can
understand it. Not only that, everywhere you broadcast, people have their
radios on and turned up. They can hear what you are saying. That would be
awesome. But how far does your transmission go? What if your transmitter
only broadcast to a fifty-mile range, or a hundred-mile range? There would still
be a lot of people missing out.

The testimony of creation has no distance barrier. It is given to all. The voice of
creation goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. There
is not a place you can go in all the earth where you are not confronted with
God’s testimony of himself in creation. There is no distance barrier. This
testimony is given to all.

David will use the example of the sun to emphasize this point in the next
section, but for right now I want to focus on a different question. You might
wonder, “If God’s creation speaks to all people everywhere, then why do we
need missionaries? If there are no language, volume or distance barriers with
creation, then isn’t that a superior way to tell people about God than sending
missionaries? If God’s creation speaks to all people everywhere, isn’t that
enough?” And the answer is, no, it is not enough, because although creation
provides us with some knowledge of God, it does not provide us with saving
knowledge of God.

For example, a person can look at creation and understand that God exists, but
knowing that God exists does not save a person. A person can understand from
creation that God is all-powerful, holy and wise, but knowing God’s attributes
does not save either. A person may even understand through his own
conscience that he is a sinner and under God’s judgment, but even knowing
that you are a sinner is not enough to save. For that you need Christ.

Let me share three C’s with you:

God gave us the testimony of creation to show that he exists and what he is
like.
He gave us the testimony of conscience to show that we are sinners and in
need of a savior.
But we need the testimony of Christ in order to believe in God’s Son and be
saved.
I like the way the Westminster Confession of Faith puts this:
“Our natural understanding and the works of creation and providence so
clearly show God’s goodness, wisdom, and power that human beings have no
excuse for not believing in Him. However, these means alone cannot provide
that knowledge of God and of His will which is necessary for salvation.”
(Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.1)

And so the testimony of creation is not enough by itself. We need to send

missionaries with the gospel to share about Christ so that people can come to
this great and wonderful God who has revealed himself so clearly in creation.

III. The sun is an example of God’s revelation in creation. (5-6)

Finally, in verses 5-6, David uses the sun in the sky as an example of God’s
revelation in creation. “In the heavens he 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.” (Psalm 19:5-6)
A. The sun is seen by all on earth.
The sun is a great example first of all because it is seen by all who live on the
earth. David uses two different similes here to describe the sun. First he
compares it to a groom coming out of his chamber. He imagines God pitching a
tent in the heavens for the sun as the sun goes down for the night. Then as
morning comes, the sun bursts forth like a bridegroom emerging from his
wedding chamber, shining with joy and with love for his new bride.
Then David switches the image to that of a champion running a race. The
champion rejoices in his power and strength as he runs his course. In the same
way the sun rises each day and makes its way across the heavens. Never
faltering, never tiring, it rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to
the other. It is seen by all who live on earth, every morning, every day, without
fail.
B. The sun serves all who live on earth.
The sun also serves all who live on the earth. “Nothing is hidden from its heat.”
Even on the cloudiest, darkest day, the light of the sun illumines and warms
the surface of the earth. God gave the sun to provide light and heat for
everyone. It is part of his common grace to all mankind. You can hate God, you
can rebel against God, you can curse God to his face; but he still “causes his
sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45) No matter where you live, you cannot escape
the testimony of the sun, which testifies every day to a good and powerful and
gracious God.

CONCLUSION: So, what should our response to all this be? Let me leave you
with two warnings, one reminder and then one main action point.
1. First of all, do not mistake nature for God. Some people feel that sense of
God’s presence in nature and mistake it for God himself. But God is not his
creation. The creation should cause you to worship God the creator, not his
creation.
2. Secondly, do not mistake nature for Christ. Some people feel that nature
brings them closer to God. They speak of communing with God through
nature. But only Christ can bring you closer to God. There is only one mediator
between God and man, and that is not nature, but Jesus Christ.
3. Thirdly, remember that the present creation is distorted by sin. God
created all things good, but man’s sin has affected God’s good creation. So not
everything you see in creation will be a true reflection of God. For example,
disease is a part of creation that afflicts man because of sin. If you did not
know that, you might look at certain viruses or diseases and conclude that God
was evil or cruel. We need to remember that the present creation is distorted
by sin.
4. And then finally, the main action point, learn to know and enjoy God
through his creation. As we said before, David especially focused on the
heavens in these verses, because the heavens are the most universally seen of
all God’s works. But you can see God in all that he has created. John Calvin
wrote about these verses:
When a man, from beholding and contemplating the heavens, has been
brought to acknowledge God, he will learn also to reflect upon and to admire
his wisdom and power as displayed on the face of the earth, not only in
general, but even in the minutest of plants.” (Institutes I:308-309)

There is so much we can learn about God from the book of creation. And so it
is important that we spend time with God in his creation: watching the sun rise
or set and the seasons turn, staring up in awe at the stars in the heavens,
walking in nature away from the hustle and bustle of human activity, resting in
the fields and the streams, delighting in God’s animals and creatures. All of
these things teach us more about God and draw us to praise and to worship
him in deeper and better ways.

Yes, we need to read this book (the Bible) in order to know God’s dealings with
man, his will for us, his provision for our salvation, his revelation in Christ. In
fact, it is only as we learn of God from this book (the Bible), that we can truly
begin to read the book of creation as God intended. So let’s make sure we
spend sufficient time in this book (the Bible). But we must also take time to
read and enjoy the book of creation. For we can also know and love and
worship our great God through his amazing and beautiful creation that speaks
forth his praises to everyone, everywhere, every day.