Psalm 19:1-6
For the director
of music. A psalm of David.
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.
It was
dark as I sat down to do my devotions this morning. I opened my Bible and read
the Psalm for this week, Psalm 19. The opening line of that Psalm is, “The
heavens declare the glory of God.” As I looked out the window, I could see the
first rays of the sun shining on the underside of the clouds, casting a red glow
in the sky. The words of the Psalmist were being displayed in vivid color
before my eyes.
I have
always liked science. From the time I was a young boy, I have been fascinated by
exploring the world around us. I remember my excitement when I got my first
microscope and was able to look at things in depth. Our drug store at the time
had a science section and I would periodically by prepared slides to look at
under my microscope. I also accumulated a few “science articles” in hopes of
doing my own experiments. This fascination with science eventually led me to
get a degree in biology.
It was
in high school that I first encountered the idea that faith and science were
mutually exclusive. I could never embrace that notion. It was my faith in God
that motivated my interest in learning more about our world. When I was in college,
I was introduced to the concept that all truth is God’s truth. No matter what
the temporal source, if something is really true, then it comes ultimately from
God. Therefore, the study of science is just one more way to explore the wonder
and greatness of God.
As a
part of my devotions, I have been reading John Ortberg’s book, “Who Is This
Man?” Today I came across the following passage, which I want to pass on.
“The
worldview of Jesus is part of how science came about in our world. In our day,
many people think that science and faith are enemies. But Princeton professor
Diogenes Allen writes, ‘We have begun to realize from its very birth, science
owed a great deal to Christianity.’
According
the Allen, there are attitudes Christianity has that were indispensable for
science to be able to arise. Christians, unlike Plato, believe that matter is
good, since God created it. So to study it would be good. The world was created
by an orderly and rational God, and therefore there is reason to expect not
chaos, but order and reason, law, regularity in creation, in nature. On the
other hand, since God is free and omniscient, we could never predict ahead of
time what it is that he would do, so we will have to investigate. We’ll have to
experiment to find out.” (Who Is This Man? Page 68)
Rather
than stifling science, faith in God has been the catalyst for exploration at
every level. The prevailing view today that life on planet earth is random and
undesigned leaves no foundation upon which to build. Only when we recognize
that God created a world of order and design can we truly understand what we
are discovering.
The
heavens declare the glory of God! If we will open our eyes and really look at
the world around us, we can see the fingerprints of God everywhere. If we take
God out of the equation, we are only left with non-descript smudges that lead
us to a dead end.
Psalm 24:1-2
Of David. A psalm.
The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it,
the world, and
all who live in it;
for he founded
it upon the seas
and established
it upon the waters.
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