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Introduction
Throughout history, both
believing and unbelieving philosophers have pondered such questions as
these: "How can we know anything for sure?" "How can we
know and understand this world and ourselves?" "Is there
any real knowledge to be obtained about God in this world?"
"Where do we start in our knowledge of God- -his
creation? Ourselves? or His Word?"
Psalm
19 answers these questions as it reveals God's instruction and
revelation to his creatures in both the real world and in his real Word.
Psalm 19 teaches us that there is a constant revelation of God going on
around us in the real world and a final revelation of God that is found in
the real Word. Both are sources for understanding
and knowing the Living God who made heaven and the earth, as
well as the key to understanding our purpose, mission, existence and
being as his created beings. As you
read Psalm 19 notice how God "preaches" or "proclaims"
his revelation continually through His World and in His Word.
TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above
proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and
night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are
there words, whose voice is not heard. 4 Their measuring line
goes out through all the earth, and their words to
the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which
comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man,
runs its course with joy. 6 Its rising is from the end of the
heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden
from its heat.
7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the
simple; 8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the
heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 the
fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are
true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they
than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of
the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in
keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults. 13 Keep back your
servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. 14 Let
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
I. Psalm 19
David the Psalmist praises the glory of God revealed in God's world
and in God's Word. In verses 1-6, the Psalm focuses on God's
real world which he created for his glory, and verses 7-14 show God's
revelation in His real Word. The first part of the Psalm points our
attention to God's general revelation in nature and in creation, while the
second part points our attention to God's special revelation in Scripture.
God's creation was created for his glory and man's good. The
creation all around us is the theater of God's glory revealed. Just
as when we visit an auditorium and are surrounded by the music of an
orchestra, or as we go to an art museum and are surrounded by great works
of art, so every day of our lives we are surrounded by the majestic
handiwork of God our Creator. The heavens declare and the sky
proclaims God's revelation to all people in this world! As the
Apostle Paul teaches in Romans 1, even the power and attributes of the
Living God are seen in what he has made so that all people are without
excuse who do anything other than praise him in
adoration and wonder.
Notice that both the creation and the Word of
God, the Real World and the Real Word are speaking, proclaiming and
literally preaching the truth concerning God. Both reveal God in
all his majesty. The creation is the context in which God savingly reveals himself through his word. No one
can know Christ died for their sins by looking merely at trees, lakes, the
sky and the heavens, but the Word of God teaches us this saving revelation
and confirms clearly what we have glimpses of all around us. The
real world reveals God sufficiently and clearly, and shows forth his
existence and the real word teaches Christ and Him crucified for
sinners. As one theologian in the past put it, the world shows
how the heavens go, while the Word shows how to go to heaven!
II. Living in the Real World
in an Age of Virtual Reality
Because the real world that God has created reveals him in his
glory, then we as modern Christians should be concerned, at least cautious
about how little time we spend looking at, meditating upon, and looking at
God's revealed glory in creation. What I mean is that in any given
day, we are often more attentive to the inorganic and mechanical, over the
organic and the living creation of God. On any given day,
we most of the time spend more time in virtual reality than we do in real reality, that is reflecting upon
and living in God's world, his creation. Because of our being
spellbound by the newest gadgets and electronic devices, we often forget
about seeing and reflecting upon God and His attributes in his creation.
I'm not being too extreme in saying that we as humans usually spend more
time on an average day surrounded by the creations of our own hands,
rather than surrounded by the handiwork of God Almighty. Think about
the fact that electronic alarm clocks wake us up each morning, rather than
the sunlight or the birds these days. We then listen to music from
our electronic stereos, while eating our microwaved,
easy-to-prepare breakfast, while watching the clock tick on the wall
telling us when we must leave. We can turn on our headphones to play
our favorite CDs or tapes while we ride our bikes in nature or take a walk
in the world. We spend much time in our cars, listening to
stereos and CDs, living in traffic, and traveling on cemented
roads and expressways, rather than a nice ride through the woods (of
course, we cannot get to work that way).
Then when we go to our jobs, we look at our PC screens while doing our
work. Glancing momentarily out the window of God's world and
creation, only to return back to our lit up PC screens in order to do
our job. We surf the net in cyberspace rather than taking up space
out in the woods, or in God's creation most of the time. When we
are not doing this, many of us are looking at a TV screen,
experiencing the surround sound ambience of feeling like we are somewhere
other than where we truly are in God's world (Heck, with surround
sounds of birds, streams, and reality in Dolby Digital 6.1 EX,
who needs to experience the actual world?!).
As modern people, we simply spend a lot of our time in a virtual
reality of our own making, rather than the real reality of God's making.
If the creation, if the Real World proclaims God's goodness and reveals him
to all men, then something has to be changing within us as we withdraw more
and more from the environment in which he created for man to live!
Think about it.
As the people of God, we should be aware of this tendency to spend more
time in virtual reality than real reality! It will have an impact
on how much we depend upon the toys of our own making to help us to survive
and to daily uphold us rather than being reminded of the power and majesty
of God revealed in his creation.
III. Education in the Real
World
As we spend time in God's real world, we should also seek after the
knowledge that God's real world can teach us. Education and study
should be important for us in an age of anti-intellectualism and
cyber-selfishness, where the only person who truly matters is the person
who can fix my electronics, program my computer, write code, hook me up to
the network, and provide me a DSL and ISDN so that I might download,
upload, and unload faster than a bullet from a gun in a virtual reality of
my own making. In a culture where Microsoft Certification is more
important that knowing Homer (not the guy on the Simpson's), Plato,
Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Van Til, we as
Christians should exert a special effort to study God's creation and
to learn more about God and ourselves, just
for the sake of learning!
Because God has created all things in the real world for our good and
his glory, this is an encouragement to all people to study and be educated
simply for the sake of education. That means that when we think about
study or learning, we should remember that we are plumbing the depths of
God's creation in his real world in order to find out information
concerning ourselves, but also to see God and to know him better
as well! God has placed great potentials and possibilities in his
real world, so that through study and understanding we might come to know
more about God and His world.
Yet many times Christians look at study and education as functionally
and pragmatically as the unbeliever who is trying to suppress the
revelation of God found in his study and pursuit of knowledge.
Oftentimes, Christians get caught up in asking the question "What
college or program of study will bring me the most reward, get me the best
job, help me to make the most money?" Rather than asking these
functional and pragmatic questions, we should ask "What education or
program of study has God given me an interest in to pursue so that I might
glorify Him and serve my neighbor.
The fact that the real world reveals the real and Living God is reason
enough to study for the sake of study and to be educated for the sake of
education itself in a particular field of interest. God has made us
all different and given to us differing interests and so we study and
pursue education to know God better in his world, yet we also want to serve
our neighbors and our community and in doing this we will glorify
God. Why do you study?
Do you study? Why do we want to learn more things? Why should
we be interested in the different fields of knowledge?
Because all that we study, all that is revealed in creation that gives to
us our different fields of study, is given to us so that we might know God
better as well as to know ourselves as humans created in His image.
Let us look at a few ways that study and education can help us to
glorify God and to know him better. Are you interested in the way God
has providentially ordered, arranged, and watched over this world?
Perhaps history would be something interesting for you. Do you find yourself
wondering how different parts of God's creation or matter can be broken
down into microscopic elements? Perhaps chemistry would be
fascinating as a pursuit of study. Do you find yourself interested in
how man has written stories about his existence, his different problems,
and wanted to vicariously visit different times and places around the world
to walk in other's shoes? Then perhaps literature would be
interesting for you to pursue. Do you find yourself pondering
questions about beauty, goodness, truth, existence, and being? Maybe
you would enjoy philosophy.
Historically, Christians have had a rich education in the liberal arts
or humanities because they knew that God had created all things well and
they were interested in knowing foundationally a little bit about a great
variety of subjects in God's real world. Why? Because God's glory was revealed in these areas
and after God created all things, he looked upon what his hands had made
and he said that it all was very good! This is still the reason
why we should pursue learning and education today, just for the sake of
learning and education. Learning and education was not a
result of man's pursuit for more money before the fall (or merely learning
how to do one thing like produce a nice Power Point presentation and write
HTML code). Learning and education was the result of pursuing a great
knowledge of God and man, and then passing this knowledge on to the next
generation of people in order that God might be glorified. Learning
and education was to be fully human and real as image-bearers in God's
world.
But all of the facts that we learn in creation need to be rightly
interpreted. If you have not thought about it yet, you must be aware
that all facts are interpreted facts.
This means that we should study and know God's world, but we must seek to
rightly interpret his real word and for this task we need God's real Word.
IV. The Real Word
Now that we have looked at the importance as Christians of living among
God's real world and fully learning in God's real world, it is important to
stress how we are to fully understand the world in which we live since the
fall. The fall of man brought sin and blindness in man's heart.
The creation was cursed and man was no longer able fully to acknowledge God's
glory in creation. Rather, as Romans 1 teaches, man began to suppress
this reality so that he might live in God's creation as he pleases without
restraint and according to his own law. Man became a law unto
himself. Therefore, when considering God's real world, we must also
remember the interpretive key to understanding this world through God's
real Word.
God's real Word teaches man of his sinful condition and of his need of a
Savior. This real world clearly reveals that God is indeed powerful
and is the Great Judge of sinful man. Although the creation shows
God's attributes and power, the real Word specifically and clearly spells
this out. Although the Law of God is written on our hearts so that we
know what is right and wrong and how we are to live in the real world, the
real Word of God specifically and clearly spells this out for us so that
what we knew within ourselves subjectively might be confirmed for us
objectively by the Living God.
As human beings made in God's image yet fallen, we have a tendency to
pervert and skew the data of God's existence we find in our
understanding of the real world. We not only make up our own rules
for living contrary to God's Word, we also make up alternate "real
worlds" through our skepticism, unbelief, doubt, as well as substances
of our own making such as the abuse of drugs and alcohol. We use
God's world functionally and pragmatically so that we can prosper and so
that we can rule in our tiny kingdoms with the great end goal of taking
over the world (if we were all honest enough to admit it).
Fallen man wants to conquer certain intellectual domains, now genetic
engineering in these recent days, so that we as men can fully rule and be
in control our own worlds and destinies. The Tower
of Babel incident is not merely
something that happened back in Old Testament days, the same intent that
caused man to make a name for himself at Babel,
and the ongoing desire and attempt to dethrone God (Psa.
2), is the same intent and purpose for which many live pursuing today!
Fallen man wants to deny the real Word that is pure, enlightening,
bringing true wisdom and understand to us (Psa.
19:7-9):
The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the
simple; 8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the
heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 the
fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are
true, and righteous altogether
Man seeks to deny God while living in his real world. It is so sad
that fallen man is so blind without the real Word that they cannot see
their useless and weak plight against the Living God. Some men
actually use their great learning and education as tools to deny the existence
of God. Why? Because they know that if they affirm his
existence, they must also humbly submit to him as LORD and judge and they
must live according to his real revelation in his Word. So, they use
God's intellectual gifts and abilities given to them; they use the energy
and the breath; they use the tools that God has provided for them to
continue a great war against the Almighty. They use all of the gifts
that God has given to them in the real world and in their humanity made in
God's image in order to deny him. All the while fallen man does not
realize that he must rely upon the Living God in order to deny him.
In other words, all men need God in order to try and act as if they do not
need him.
V. Christ the Real WORD
Yet it was in this real world that God so loved that he became a human
being, the Real WORD in order to redeem fallen man, to glorify him, and
to bring about the restoration of all creation. God's real world
was the place, the context in which God humbled himself to come and reveal
truly and finally the Real Word. The Apostle John says in chapter 1
of his gospel:
John 1:1-4,14: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with
God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not
any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life,
and the life was the light of men.... 14 And the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only
Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This is a powerful statement of God's love and concern for those whom he
loved in His real world. Because of our inability and blindness to
see fully the saving hand of God and cry out to him in belief through
merely his creation, God came into his creation, the real world as a man so
as to truly reveal the Living God through His real Word. The very
Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. IN Jesus Christ we find
true life in God's real world as well as truth. The Word has revealed
God's glory and he is full of grace and truth. The grace he extends
to us as we look to him by faith as the Son of God who died for
sinners. The truth of God is manifested and revealed clearly in who he was and what he taught to us concerning God and
who we are! Those who receive his grace begin to understand his
truth.
Many in Jesus' time and our time today allow their minds, their
intellects, their stubbornness, to get in the way
of believing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many say that if God will
just prove his existence to them, THEN they will believe. But that is
wrong. In fact, the creation constantly and clearly speaks and
proclaims God's existence, yet many deny it. The Word of God became
flesh and revealed clearly God's truth, yet many denied it. What more
can God do? He has revealed himself in the real world and in the real
Word, yet men deny his existence and trample upon his grace and goodness.
As Aurelius Augustine ("St. Augustine") said
many years ago, we must believe in order to fully understand. We
should look to Jesus Christ by faith, knowing that in our seeking God in
Jesus Christ, we will come to a better understanding and knowledge of God
as well as of ourselves. Let not your pride hold you back from
believing. Do not wait for so-called "proof" before you
believe. Remember, as Jesus taught in the story of Lazarus and the
rich man that even if someone rises from the dead men will not believe:
27 And he said, 'Then I beg you,
father, to send him to my father's house- 28 for I have five
brothers- so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place
of torment.' 29 But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the
Prophets; let them hear them.' 30 And he said, 'No, father
Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 31
He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither
will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'"
Jesus tells them a powerful statement that we must all keep in mind when
witnessing the gospel to fallen men and sinners: "If they do not hear
Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should
rise from the dead." That means that if they do not believe and
heed the real Word of God (Moses and the Prophets), then they will not
believe anything else.
God has given his final and Real Word for us to know and interpret all
things rightly, including the revelation of Jesus Christ risen
from the dead. The Word of God is sufficient for our life and
salvation. Because God has clearly revealed himself in the real world
as well as the real Word, all men are without excuse if they do not
believe!
Repent, and believe the good news that Jesus has come into this world to
save sinners! Christians be careful that you live in God's real
world, while being obedient by his grace to his real Word. As we seek
better knowledge and education, by his grace may we be able to say with the
Psalmist in Christ:
May the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be
pleasing in your sight, our LORD, our ROCK AND REDEEMER.
CRB
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