2 Peter 1:15

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard... The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple... More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb... Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. (Psalm 19)

Creation cries out that God is real, but only Scripture tells us who He is and what He wants.

Some Truths Must Be Repeated

According to Peter, there are certain truths that need to be stated again and again, because we have a tendency to forget and to lose sight of what is important. Peter writes that he will not be negligent, but will continue to remind us of these things, even though we know them and are established in the present truth. With that in mind, I want to return to a passage we've studied before—a 3,000-year-old text in Psalm 19, written by King David, likely as a young shepherd considering the sky and all that surrounded him.

David Versus Bertrand Russell

One of the most outspoken atheists of the 20th century was Bertrand Russell. Just before his death, an interviewer asked him, "What if when you die you discover you were wrong, and you stand before God?" Russell answered, "I will simply say, sir, you did not give us enough evidence."

Three thousand years earlier, David sat among his flock near Bethlehem, looking at the earth and sky, night by night seeing the stars, morning by morning watching the sunrise run its course, and declared, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows forth his handiwork." Was David wrong, or was Russell? They can't both be right. Was David merely shaped by a monotheistic culture and confirmation bias toward theism? Or was Russell shaped by his naturalistic 20th-century culture and a bias toward naturalism?

Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1 that since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes have been clearly observed in what is made—His eternal power and Godhead—so that man is without excuse. Though humanity knew God, they would not glorify or thank Him; they became foolish in their imaginations, their minds grew dark, and they began to glorify the creation instead of the Creator.

Science Itself Points Back to God

A couple of years before Christmas, author and radio host Eric Metaxas wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. In 1966, Time magazine ran the cover story "Is God Dead?" Many accepted the narrative that as science progresses there is less need for God. Yet the rumors of God's death were premature, and the recent case for His existence comes from a surprising place—science itself.

That same year, astronomer Carl Sagan announced two criteria for a planet to support life: the right kind of star and the right distance from it. With roughly one octillion planets in the universe, there should be one septillion capable of supporting life. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) launched in the 1960s, listening for coded signals. But the silence was deafening. As of 2014, researchers had discovered precisely zero.

What happened? As our knowledge grew, it became clear that far more factors were necessary for life than Sagan's two. His parameters grew from two to ten to twenty to fifty, and the number of life-supporting planets plummeted. Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. The odds of life in the universe are astounding.

God Is Not Silent

Point number one: God is not silent. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth His handiwork. David says day unto day they utter speech and night unto night they reveal knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Every single day and night, creation is crying, "God is." You don't have to be intelligent to see it, and there is no place on earth where this voice is not calling out.

This is what we call general revelation—God revealing Himself in what is made. When we see these things, we are hard pressed to say they came from any source other than One who put them in place. Aristotle wrote that should a man live underground among works of art and mechanism, then be brought into the open day to see the glories of heaven and earth, he would immediately pronounce them the works of such a being as we define God to be. Any thinking person looking at what has been made surmises it was made—just as you know this phone here had a designer; it didn't come about by random chance over billions of years.

John Boyce, dean of Canterbury in the 16th and 17th centuries, wrote that the preaching of the heavens is wonderful in three respects: it preaches all night and all day without intermission, in every kind of language, and in every part of the world.

Man Is Without Excuse

Point number two: man is without excuse. It's good to be reminded of this because we live in a culture that goes against it. If you believe what the Bible says—that God created—you are looked down on as the simpleton, not just the village idiot but part of a village of idiots. This discussion has risen to a fever pitch over the last twenty years, especially over whether intelligent design should be taught alongside biological science.

Yet if anyone proposed that this phone came about by random chance, they would be laughed out of the room. When we look through the microscope or the telescope, from subatomic to astronomical structures, we find intricacy of design at the deepest levels. Many scientists in mathematics, physics, and genetics conclude there simply has to be Someone who ordered these things. Even Richard Dawkins, the foremost atheist of our day, when pressed by Ben Stein in his documentary about the fine-tuning of the universe, suggested the planet may have been "seeded by aliens." How is that not an intelligent designer? Call it what you will—aliens, intelligent designer, or God—something had to bring this about as it is. Man is without excuse.

Creation Proclaims God's Existence and Glory

Point number three: creation proclaims God's existence and glory. We are pressured by our culture to be quiet, so it's good to remember that science often confirms what Scripture reveals about the intricacy of design. Don't be afraid, church—science will never prove there is no God; it continues to prove there is a Designer.

David continues in verse 4: God has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, its circuit to the other, and nothing is hidden from its heat. In poetic metaphor David observes a scientific reality—the sun comes up every day at the right time and follows its course, like an incredible mechanistic clock, a Swiss watch always keeping its pattern.

I was reminded of this just days ago. Our daughter Addison was assigned to watch the moon rise and sketch it. I told my wife there might be a problem—the moon wasn't rising until 2 a.m. How did I know? Because you can search it and know exactly when it will come up, because everything follows its course as God created it to do.

What General Revelation Teaches—and Its Limit

Through general revelation we can learn at least three things about God: that He exists, that He is intelligent, and that He is powerful. The same is true with this device—we know some company designed it, that they have intelligence to engineer it, and the power and resources to make it. Through general revelation you can come to the lowest level of faith, described in Hebrews 11:6: "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him."

But here is the dilemma. Humanity in our fallen state—and every one of us is in a fallen state—when presented with general revelation will nearly always default to idolatry. This is what Paul described in Romans 1: they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Atheism is idolatry; it is simply the worship of nature, marveling at all the universe has done. It is a denial of God, most often rooted in a hatred of God or an unwillingness to submit to Him. Virtually every atheist, when pressed, comes to the point of saying, "I don't want there to be a God." If He doesn't exist, then I don't have to follow His word.

From General to Special Revelation

Because man does not want to retain God in his mind, there must be not only general revelation but also special revelation. In Psalm 19, David makes that turn at verse 7, moving from "the heavens declare the glory of God" to "the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple..."

What is special revelation? It is exactly what Peter describes in 2 Peter 1—holy men of God spoke as the Spirit moved them. For us to know more than that God exists, is intelligent, and is powerful—to know the specifics of what God wants and what He is like—He has to tell us in a language we can understand. None of the things we sang today—"I believe in God the Father, I believe in Christ the Son, I believe in the Holy Spirit, our God is three in one... I believe in the resurrection"—comes by general revelation. It all must come by special revelation.

In Psalm 19:7-11 David gives six descriptive titles of Scripture: the law, the testimony, the statutes, the commandments, the fear, and the judgments of the Lord. He gives six characteristic qualities: perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true and righteous. And he gives six divine effects: they convert the soul, make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, enlighten the eyes, endure forever, and bring warning and reward.

A Language We Can Understand

The naturalist often objects, "I don't believe in revelation." So let me put it in terms even the naturalist can understand. In the late 1970s, Popular Mechanics ran a cover story about the first personal computer, the Altair, developed in Albuquerque. The articles described all it could do, but really it was just a gray box with red lights—a giant desk paperweight, because it had no language. No one had written a language to tell it what we wanted it to do.

A geeky young man at Harvard named Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen read that article and figured they could write a language for it. They did, flew out to Albuquerque, and showed how their language could speak to the machine—and the computer revolution began. Here we are forty years later in awe of what was accomplished. Without a language by which the creator could speak to it, the box was worthless. That is special revelation: man speaking in language the computer can understand. This is what God has done through His law, testimony, statutes, commandments, and judgments—so we would know what He wants, be wise, be converted, and rejoice in heart.

God Has Gone to Great Lengths to Make Himself Known

Point number four: God has gone to great lengths to make Himself known. David asks in verse 12, "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults." Through general revelation you would never know where you were going wrong. Only through special revelation can we understand our errors and be kept back from presumptuous sins, so that they do not have dominion over us. How can we walk and speak in a way pleasing to God? Only by special revelation from the Scriptures.

This is why we are so committed to the Scriptures here at Cross Connection—why we go verse by verse, chapter by chapter through the Bible. Some on the outside call it a waste of time, a foolish endeavor through archaic literature. Yet through this His servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. We are and always will be committed to the Scriptures.

We Must Make His Greatness Known

Point number five: we must endeavor to make His greatness known. The heavens are not silent—they declare the glory of God without intermission. Should it be any different that we, His highest creation, made in His image with minds and mouths, would keep quiet? We must work to declare the greatness and glory of God to every person we meet—which is why we are committed not only to studying the Scriptures together, but to making them known: on TV, the internet, audios going throughout the world, and missionaries going to the farthest parts.

Bill and Donna Davis and the Palawano New Testament

In the time remaining, I want to introduce friends our ministry has partnered with for many years—Bill and Donna Davis. I first saw them in a short documentary in this church's youth ministry when I was about fourteen or fifteen, images on a screen of a couple serving God in the Philippines. About five years ago, my friends Ron and Mary Hendricks invited me to dinner to meet "some friends named Bill and Donna Davis," and mid-conversation it hit me—these were the very people from that video.

For most of their lives, Bill and Donna have served the Lord among a people called the Palawano, dedicating themselves to translating the Scriptures into their language. These people had no Bible in their language until Bill and Donna arrived in the early 1980s.

Bill shared that they have now finished the New Testament—God's special revelation has been translated into the Palawano language. This church was one of their partners and the largest single donor toward printing it and recording the audio version. Bill presented a copy of the New Testament and a plaque to Cross Connection on behalf of the Palawano people, who are no longer on the list of unreached people groups.

Bill never planned to be a translator; he had five years of Spanish in high school and hated it, but God led them to a group that needed a New Testament, and with training and consultant help over many years, they saw it done. Donna shared that she got saved at sixteen in an unsaved home, was taught to make Jesus Lord of her life, and when a missionary spoke about tribal people who had never heard the name of Christ—which seemed deeply unfair to her—God touched her heart. After that, she was "looking for a lunatic" who was tall and wanted to be a missionary.

Donna explained the challenge of translation: the Palawano live in a rain forest near the ocean but have never seen a lake or a desert, so the idea of walking for days through sand is foreign. A short word like "grace" packs immense meaning and was hard to render—and by the time they finished, the younger generation no longer understood the word they had chosen, so they had to find a more current term. It was a Bible study plus a language puzzle.

Now that the New Testament is complete, their work continues. Everyone deserves to hear in their heart language, and thousands of groups like the Palawano still have no Scripture. Bill and Donna now train missionaries in language and culture learning—many of them non-Western Filipinos, Indonesians, Chinese, and Indians who can reach places an American passport could not. You can connect with them at heartlanguages.org. As a church we have been blessed to partner in this work, and who knows what other languages will be birthed from it as they minister to a new generation of missionaries.

Closing Prayer

Father, we do pray for Bill and Donna. We thank you for the work you have done in and through them for their entire adult lives, and we pray that as you continue to use them you would open doors no man can shut, direct their steps, and provide for their needs. Thank you for the groups translating your word, and what a privilege to be partnered with them and to pray for the missionaries being trained and on the field—some of these languages don't even have a written alphabet, so they must learn the language, create an alphabet, and translate the Scriptures. Strengthen their hearts and minds for this work. We thank you for this translation and ask that you would use it in a magnificent and powerful way.

Father, we thank you for your word. Your word is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. We have been transformed by the renewing of our minds as we have considered the Scriptures together. By your word have we been warned and instructed in the ways we are to live, and we pray you would help us live out your word this week. We praise you for the presence of your Spirit enabling us to do just that. Use this church, Lord, to a greater extent. In Jesus' name we pray, and all those that agreed said, Amen.