Natural revelation

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. - Psalm 19v1-3

The heavens declare the glory of God. Ain’t that the truth?

I wish everyone could experience Ireland in the spring. Excuse the expression, but there is a certain ‘magic’ about the place. After months of cold, dark, wet weather when it looks like absolute deadness everything start to come back to life. The birds are singing, there is a freshness to the air. The days stretch out both morning and night. And there are those marvellous daffodils. Daffodils are so much a part of life that the Irish Cancer Society has a ‘Daffodil Day’ in March to raise funds. One can almost see how the pre-Christian residents of this marvellous island could look to the false gods and goddesses of nature when they saw the change from winter to spring.

The very fact that these ancient peoples invented gods and goddesses of nature proves the point of Psalm 19 and Romans 1. These folks, long before they ever heard of the God of the Bible knew that something had to create all of this. Somebody did it, and they wanted to please and appease whoever did. They just did not know where to look.

My favourite novel is Robinson Crusoe. It is a novel about the spiritual journey of a man ship wrecked on an island for 28 years. Crusoe had been raised in a godly home, but had gone the way of the world. After his shipwreck he became very ill. Eventually he recovered and struggled to the beach. As he sat there he thought.

‘What is earth and see of which I have seen so much, whence is it produced, and what am I, and all the other creatures, wild and tame, human and brutal, whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret power, who form’d the earth and sea, the air and sky, and who is that?’

Where the original Irish turned to their invented gods Crusoe now got it right.

‘The it followed most naturally, It is God that has made it all; Well but then it came on strangely, if God has made all these things, He guides and governs them all, and all things that concern them…’

He then goes on the reason in his heart that the God who is so clearly seen in creation cares about His creation and desires to be commune with it, but more on that later.

The point of today’s thought is pretty simple. All of creation calls out that there is a Creator. Romans 1 tells us that because of this the world is without excuse. God reveals Himself through His creation and it is enough to draw men to Him.

For a personal application we might remember that the God Who gives us an Irish Spring is the same God who cares about whatever we are going through. Shall we let Him declare His glory in us?