Rooted 5 – The Fertile Soil of Scripture

For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth... knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as the Lord Jesus Christ showed me... Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:12–21)

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

Some Truths Need Repeating

According to Peter, there are certain things that need to be repeated, 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.

That is why this morning I want to go back to a passage we have studied before, one that may be familiar to many of you — a three-thousand-year-old text in the Psalms. Turn with me to Psalm 19, a psalm of King David, written perhaps while he was a young shepherd boy considering his surroundings, looking at the sky and all that was around him.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows 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. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world... The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple... (Psalm 19:1–11)

Two Men, One of Them Wrong

One of the most outspoken atheists of the twentieth century was Bertrand Russell. Just prior to his death he was interviewed, and the interviewer asked, "Mr. Russell, what if when you die you come to realize you were wrong, and you stand before God one day?" Russell responded, "If that happens — which of course he highly doubted — I will simply say, 'Sir, you did not give us enough evidence.'"

Three thousand years earlier, a young shepherd boy who would become King David sat among the flocks in the fields near Bethlehem. As he watched the stars night by night and saw the sun rise and run its course morning by morning, he said, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth His handiwork." Was David wrong, or was Bertrand Russell? One of them has to be wrong; they can't both be right.

Two thousand years ago the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1 that since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes — His eternal power and Godhead — have been clearly observed in the things that are made, so that man is without excuse. Although humanity knew God, they did not like to retain Him in their knowledge; they would not glorify Him or give Him thanks. Instead they became foolish in their imaginations, their minds became dark, and they began to glorify the creation instead of the Creator.

The Witness of Science Itself

A couple of years ago, just before Christmas, the American author and radio host Eric Metaxas wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal. He noted that in 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking, "Is God Dead?" Many have accepted the cultural 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 important criteria for a planet to support life — the right kind of star and the right distance from it. Given roughly one octillion planets in the universe, there should be one septillion planets capable of life. With such odds, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) was sure to turn up something soon. But the silence was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, and as of 2014 researchers had discovered precisely nothing.

What happened? As our knowledge increased, it became clear there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan's two. His two parameters grew to ten, then twenty, then fifty. Today there are more than two hundred 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 simply astounding.

God Is Not Silent

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

David says their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. Another translation says their message has gone throughout the earth. And what is the message of creation? Simply this: God is, and He is not silent. No one is beyond the reach of this message.

This is what we call general revelation — that by which God reveals Himself through the things He has 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, twenty-four centuries ago, wrote that should a man live underground and then be brought up 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 would assume it was made. It goes for something as simple as this phone — when you look at it, you know there is a designer. It did not come about by random chance over billions of years. John Boys, a Dean of Canterbury, 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 two: man is without excuse. It is good that I remind you of these things, because we live in a culture that goes against them. If you believe what the Bible says — that God created — you are looked down upon as the simpleton, the idiot. You're not just the village idiot; you're part of a village of idiots according to our culture.

This discussion has risen to a fever pitch over the last twenty years, especially in politics and education over whether intelligent design should be taught alongside biological science. We are constantly told that to believe in design makes you a fool — which is phenomenal, because if anyone proposed that this phone came about by random chance and mutation, he would be laughed out of the room. Yet when we look through the microscope and the telescope, from subatomic to astronomical structures, we find intricacy of design at the deepest levels.

Many scientists in mathematics, physics, and genetics, studying the human genome, have come to the place where they say there has to be a Creator. Even the foremost evangelical atheist of our day, Richard Dawkins, in Ben Stein's documentary on intelligent design, when pressed about the fine-tuning of the universe, allowed that perhaps the planet was seeded by aliens. But how is that not an intelligent designer? Call it seeded by aliens, call it an intelligent designer, call it God — something had to bring this about. Man is without excuse. There is deep complexity in creation, from the subatomic to the astronomic.

Creation Proclaims God's Existence and Glory

Point three: creation proclaims God's existence and glory. We are pressured by our culture to be quiet, so it is good to be reminded that science is often confirming what Scripture reveals about the intricacy of design. So do not be afraid of science, church. It will never prove there is no God; it continues to prove there is a designer. Three thousand years ago a shepherd who became king said, "The heavens declare the glory of God." Aristotle said the same. Paul, one of the greatest intellects of all time, said the same.

David continues that in the heavens God has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing like a strong man to run its race. In beholding creation, David observed a scientific reality and spoke of it in poetic metaphor: the sun comes up every day at the right time and follows its course like an incredible clock, like a fine Swiss watch.

I was reminded of this just this week. Our daughter Addison was assigned homework to watch the moon rise and sketch it. I told my wife there might be a problem — the moon doesn't rise until 2 a.m. How did I know? You can search it on Google, because everything follows its course exactly as God created it to do. (Addison didn't get to stay up until 2 a.m., so we'll figure something else out.)

What General Revelation Can — and Cannot — Tell Us

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 when we look at this device — we know there is a company of designers who exist, who have the intelligence to architect it, and the power and resources to make it come to pass.

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." The lowest level of faith is this: God exists and rewards those who seek Him.

But here is the dilemma. Man in his fallen state — and every one of us is in a fallen state — when looking at the evidence of creation will nearly always default to idolatry. This is what Paul described in Romans 1: they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. I am here to tell you that atheism is idolatry. It is the worship of nature, marveling at all the universe can do — idolatry of the creature rather than the Creator. It is a denial of God, most often because of a hatred of God or an unwillingness to submit to Him. Virtually every atheist, when pressed, eventually says, "I don't want there to be a God."

From General to Special Revelation

Because man does not want to retain God in his mind, it is necessary that there be not only general revelation but also special revelation. When David turns from verse 6 to verse 7, he moves 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."

This is exactly what Peter speaks of 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. For us to sing what 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" — none of that comes by general revelation. It all must come by special revelation.

In Psalm 19:7–11, David gives us six descriptive titles of the Scriptures — 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, 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

This is where the naturalist often objects, saying, "I have a hard time with 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 Altair, which would become the first personal computer, developed by a company in Albuquerque. But it was really just a gray box with red lights — a giant desk paperweight — because no one had written a language to tell it what to do.

A geeky young man at Harvard with big glasses, named Bill Gates, and his friend Paul Allen read that article and figured they could write a language for it. They did, flew to Albuquerque, and showed how their language could tell the machine what they wanted. The computer revolution began. Here was a creation with potential, but without a language by which the creator could speak to it, it was worthless. That language was a kind of special revelation. This is what God has done — He has given us His law, testimony, statutes, commandments, fear, and judgments, so that we would know what He wants, be made wise, be converted, and rejoice in heart.

God Has Gone to Great Lengths to Make Himself Known

Point four: God has gone to great lengths to make Himself known. David goes on 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 know the areas where we have transgressed.

Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression. 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 19:13–14)

How can we walk in a way that pleases God and speak in a way that is right before Him? Only by special revelation from the Scriptures. This is why we are so committed to the Scriptures here — why we go through them verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Some on the outside would 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. So we are, and always will be, committed to the Scriptures.

We Must Make His Greatness Known

Point five: we must endeavor to make His greatness known. The heavens are not silent; they declare the glory of God. The inanimate earth shows forth His handiwork every single day 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 be those who work and endeavor to declare the greatness and glory of God to every person we meet — committed not only to studying the Scriptures together, but to making them known on TV, on the internet, and through missionaries going to the uttermost parts.

In a very special way, I want to introduce you to friends of ours, Bill and Donna Davis, whom our ministry has partnered with for many years. I first learned about this couple when I was fourteen or fifteen, watching a short documentary in Sunday school about them serving God in the Philippines. Years later a friend, Ron Hendrix, invited me to dinner to meet "some friends named Bill and Donna Davis" — and as Bill shared, it hit me: you're the people I saw on that video as a kid.

Translating God's Word for the Palawano

For most of their lives Bill and Donna have served the Lord in the Philippines among a people called the Palawano, dedicated to translating the Scriptures into their language. These people did not have the Bible in their language until Bill and Donna went there in the early 1980s. Now the New Testament — God's special revelation — has been translated into the Palawano language, and this church has been one of their largest single donors toward the printing and the audio recording. The Palawano are no longer on the list of unreached people groups.

Bill never planned to be a Bible translator. He had five years of Spanish in school and hated it, but God led them to a group that needed a New Testament, and with consultant help along the way, they eventually saw it done. Donna, raised in an unsaved home, came to Christ at sixteen under a youth pastor who taught her to make Jesus Lord. When a missionary shared about tribal people who had never heard the name of Christ, it seemed unfair to her, and God touched her heart.

The challenges were great. The Palawano live in a rainforest near the ocean, but have never seen a lake or a desert, so the idea of walking for days through sand was a foreign concept. A term like "grace," so short for us yet packed with meaning, was a real challenge — by the time the project was finished, the younger generation no longer understood the word they had first used, and they had to find a more current term. It was a Bible study plus a language puzzle.

Now Bill and Donna are training a new generation of missionaries — many of them non-Western Filipinos, Indonesians, Chinese, and Indians who feel God handing them the baton, and who can go to places where Westerners would not be welcome. Their conviction is simple: everyone deserves to hear in their heart language. They have trips coming up to Thailand, to develop language-learning course materials, and to India, to train Indians as missionaries. (You can connect with them at heartlanguages.org.)

It really is a blessing to be part of this work — to see the special revelation of God go to the uttermost parts. What you do in serving and giving here, you are a part of that work. It does not happen without us. Praise the Lord for all He is doing.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You for Your Word. Your Word is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword; it transforms. We have been transformed by the renewing of our minds as we have considered the Scriptures together. By Your Word we have been warned and instructed in the ways we are to live and walk. Help us to live out Your Word this week. We praise You for the presence of Your Spirit in our lives, enabling us to do just that. Use this church, Lord, to a greater extent. We praise You, Jesus; it's in Your name we pray, and all those in agreement said, Amen.