Genesis 1 verses 14-19 Then God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so. Then God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good, so the evening and the morning were the fourth day." Tonight, with God's help, we'll move on in our Puritan study, the study we began a couple of months ago. It's called Matthew-Henry on Genesis 1. The creation itself calls attention to the Creator. Henry says it reveals a good deal about Him. For example, it tells us who He is. He is not a first cause, or an unmoved mover, or an impersonal force, but it is God the Father Almighty who is maker of heaven and earth. It hints at His nature. One God made all things out of nothing, Yet the name he chose to reveal himself by is a plural word, something like God's, but not quite. This suggests the Trinity and makes it possible for Bible-believing Jews in the first century to accept the full divinity of Jesus Christ without giving up their lifelong belief that there is one God only. The creation defines God's character. God is not an empty word that we fill up with our own meaning. No, He is a being with definite features. He is some things, and He isn't other things. Genesis 1 says that God is wise, powerful, and good, and not just to some degree, but infinitely all of these things. And then Genesis 1 proves His claim upon us. If God is the Maker and Ruler of all things in heaven and earth, then He is your Maker and Ruler as well. Thus you are bound to obey His Word and to put His interests above your own. The heavenly choir got it right. You are worthy, O Lord, to receive honor and glory and power, for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are created. These are some of the highlights of our study so far. To this point we have looked at the first three days of the creation week and seen that the Lord made everything on the first day and then began setting things in order. First he separated the darkness from the light. Then he divided the waters above from the waters below. Then he separated the waters from the dry land and made the land spring up with grass and grains, fruits and vegetables, trees and bushes, flowers and vines, and all the other green things that feed us and make our lives so much happier than they would be without them. Now we come to day four and the creation of the sun, moon and stars. Matthew Henry was a great commentator with a sharp eye for things other people overlooked. but here it seems to me he missed something that I want to put in for him. The good thing about teaching from a Puritan instead of from the Bible itself is that I can add to his words or take away from the words of this book without getting a plague or having my name taken out of God's book. Though Henry doesn't say it here, it is a true doctrine and it seems to me it's taught here. Over the last couple of weeks I've stressed how orderly the creation week was going. If the Lord is going to create man on day number six, he has to have somewhere to stand, something to breathe, and something to eat. Thus the Lord made the dry land, the atmosphere, and the plants before he made man, which is just what you would expect. But here we have a change. Plants were made on the third day, and of course they depend on sunshine for their life. But the sun was not made until the fourth day. Did you get that? Plants on the third day, plants depend on the sun for life, but the sun was not made until the fourth day. What does this mean? It means that though the Lord ordinarily uses natural causes to further His will, He does not depend on them. If He wants to keep the plants alive and well without the sun, He can do it. He is sovereign over the plants, and over everything else too. Ordinarily God uses work to feed his people, but he doesn't depend on work. In the wilderness he rained manna out of heaven for 40 years. When he sent Elijah into hiding, he sent ravens to bring him meat twice a day. When the people were fainting with hunger, the Lord took a boy's lunch and fed 5,000 men with it. The same thing is true about our health. Normally God uses things like bed rest or medicine or therapy or exercise to keep us well. But God does not depend on these things. If he wants to heal a deaf man by putting his fingers in the man's ears, he does it. If he wants to restore a man who has a speech impediment by spitting on his tongue, he does it. If he wants to open a man's eyes by rubbing mud into them, he does it. If he wants to heal a leper with a word, he heals a leper with a word. If he wants to raise a man even from the dead, he does it with a simple command. There is nothing that can stop God from acting with or without ordinary means, with second causes or without them. Natural causes, in other words, are always second causes. The Lord uses them most of the time, maybe 99.9% of the time, but God doesn't need them. So, is it better to work for a living or pray for food? Is it better to save for the future or to hope God works things out for you? Is it better to take medicine or to trust the Lord for healing? The answer is all of the above. Although the first and second causes are not identical, there is no contradiction between them. Proverbs 10 says both things. The hand of the diligent makes rich, and the blessing of the Lord makes rich. Solomon saw no problem combining the two. Ordinarily a man becomes successful by working hard, and yet it is not the work itself that makes him successful, but the blessing of God. Thus the old saying about war is true. Success in war depends equally on trusting the Lord and keeping your powder dry. Not 50-50, but 100-100. How wonderful it is to know a God who is both orderly, so we can plan wisely, and also sovereign, so that we don't have to trust our plans, which are never perfect. That's the first doctrine and lesson taught on the fourth day. What are the sun, moon, and stars for? They are lights by which we can see and markers for the passing of time. These things are true, of course, and Henry gets to them shortly, but first he reminds us of their higher purpose. What are the sun, moon, and stars for? Henry says, This is the history of the fourth day's work, the creating of the sun, moon and stars, which are here accounted for, not to satisfy the curious, but to furnish us with matters of praise and thanksgiving. The scriptures were written not to make us astronomers, but to make us saints. So before He says anything at all about the heavenly lights, He calls us to praise God for them and to give thanks for the good they do to us. Have you done that? And if you have, when was that? When was the last time you thanked God for the sun? This week? This month? This year? When was the last time you thanked Him for the stars? Maybe the last time you went camping? Living in artificial light must never dull us to the greatness of God's mercy in giving us lights in the daytime and at night. The sun to warm us, the moon to move the tides, the stars to guide ships, and all of them simply to enjoy. David was a shepherd and a soldier who spent much of his life out of doors. As he lay down to sleep, he would look into the night sky and bawl at the mercy of his king. When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him? The God who made gigantic stars of unbelievable heat and planets far larger than the earth and full of mysteries no man can divine. He not only made all of the big things, but He's also interested in the smallest detail of our lives. The God who made the sun and the moon and the planets also has numbered every one of the hairs on your head. Could you imagine a president being interested in the price of toilet paper, a king taking interest in the sneeze of a small farmer, a prime minister worried about a little boy who thought monsters were in his bedroom closet, Yet the God who is far above these earthly powers cares about the price of toilet paper, hears the sneeze of the little farmer, and feels for the boy who can't sleep at night. What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him? That's David's question. The majesties of sun, moon, and stars ought to make us praise God who made them all, and cares for them all, and who also finds time for us as well. Henry goes on to point out the practical value of the sun, moon and stars. These lights were to be in the heavens and be conspicuous to all. They must be for distinction of times of day and night, summer and winter, and for the direction of actions such as a sign in a change of weather. The heavenly bodies do three things for us. They give us light, they mark time, and in some ways they tell us what to do. For example, they tell a farmer when to plant and when to harvest, and they tell the rest of us when to take an umbrella to work and when not to. This is not the deepest thing Henry ever said, but as usual he has some very practical lessons to draw from it. Firstly, it reminds us that light is for shining. God did not put the sun inside a huge iron planet, but he put it in the clear heavens so we could see it. Does that remind you of something? Well, the Lord Jesus said, no man, when he has lighted a candle, puts it under a bushel, but he puts it on a candlestick. If God put the light of nature for all to see, He wants you to put the light of the gospel out there for all to see. You do this in your life and also by your words, by living a godly life and by witnessing to the lost. Secondly, it reminds us that time is passing. I once read a prisoner's life, a prisoner's story of life in solitary confinement. And he said the hardest thing about that was that he lost all sense of time. because he couldn't see the sun or feel it, he didn't know if it was day or night, nor how long he had slept, nor how long he had been up, or anything else. He nearly lost his mind because he had no sense of the passing of time. But with the passing of time, Henry reminds us that we've got to work for Christ now, or not at all. He says how ungrateful and inexcusable we are if when God has set up these lights for us to work by we sleep or play or trifle away the time of business and neglect the great work we were sent into this world to do. The Lord Jesus Christ said I must work the work of him who sent me because the night is coming when no man can work. Henry closes the section with a word of warning and a word of encouragement. We'll start with the warning. Learn from all this, the sin and folly of that ancient idometry, the worshipping of the sun, moon and stars. But the account here plainly shows that they are both God's creatures and man's servants. Therefore, it is both a great affront to God and a great reproach to ourselves to make deities of them and give them divine honors. See, Deuteronomy 4.19. So, it tells us here to not worship the sun or the moon or the stars, and of course We don't do that, but you know millions of Americans do in one way or another. They follow horoscopes and astrology and other things related to the movement of the planets. And yet Deuteronomy 4.19 says, Take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. In other words, God has given these things to the whole human race for their good. Not to corrupt them into idolatry, but to help them and to serve them. Astronomy is good because it is a study of God's works. Psalm 111 says, The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. But astrology Do you understand what I said? The difference? Astronomy and astrology. Do you understand that? Do you? Yes or no? You do? Good. Astrology is wicked because it gives a sovereign to the sun, moon and stars that belong only to God. I hope no one here needs to hear this, but we shouldn't read horoscopes and don't worry about what's seen in the stars unless it's the glory of God. Comet went by a few years ago. There was all kinds of talk on the radio that this was a portent of some staggering change in something and all kinds of New Age fanatics were looking at this as the age of something, either the end of the world or the beginning of the millennium and so forth. But I just looked at that comet and thanked God for it and laughed at the fools who thought it portended anything but the sovereignty of God. Now, the encouragement, that's the warning, and the encouragement is a repeat of what he said all through the passage. The duty and wisdom of daily worshiping that God who made all these things. The revolutions of the day and night oblige us to offer the solemn sacrifices of prayer and praise every morning and every evening. Does God cause the sun to rise in us every day? If He does, it calls us to worship Him every day. Does the Lord cause the moon to rise every night? If He does, it's a call to worship Him every night. The regularity, the orderliness of the sun and moon tell us to be regular in our devotions to the Lord. So, on the fourth day, God did what? Made the sun, what else? And the moon, and what else? And the stars. Very good. So on the fourth day of the creation week, God made the sun, the moon, and the stars. So, how did plants exist before there was a sun? They lived because God told them to live. And although God uses the sun to give life to plants and to photosynthesize, He doesn't depend on the sun. He does it all Himself. And what does the regularity of the sun and moon mean to us? It means we ought to be regular in worshiping the Lord every day and every night. Let the sun be your alarm clock and let the moon be a marker as well to spend time every day and every night in the worship of the Lord. Well, that's Matthew Henry on the fourth day of creation. Let's pray please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this good word, and we pray that you would make it a blessing to our souls, that you would use it to cleanse us from our sin, and that you would use it to draw us into closer fellowship with you. We thank you again, Lord, for each one who's come tonight, and we pray a blessing for each one. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.