Lead from you there, brother. You are most welcome. I'm just sad that it was late in coming. I am the riddle wrapped in an enigma that is Steve Rains. As some of you already know, and the rest of you are probably about to find out. I ask you to turn to the book of the Psalms, Psalm 19. I understand that you already heard about insidious sins and presumptuous sins, but I wanna talk about something that's at the beginning tonight of this psalm. It has to do with books. I wouldn't trust a preacher that says, I don't like books. I don't want books. I never read books. I work with a man who holds his PhD from a renowned institution up Fayetteville. I won't mention the school. And once he got his diploma, he said, I made up my mind. I will never read any book cover to cover again. I've read enough. And when he said that, I said, I've heard enough. Books are exciting. Books can inform you. Books can anger you. Books can confirm some things. Reading a book, even just opening a book, can be so rewarding. I believe Brother Roy Smith and my wife and I were at a book sale once in Kansas City. And I came across a book. It was a history book of all things. And I started to browse through. And between pages 11 and 12, I found a $20 bill. You were there, weren't you, brother? And so I went up and I said, if you find a $100 bill in one of these books, it's yours to keep. Well, okay, that's all I wanted to know. It was on a table for $5. So I bought that book, took it with me all the way back to Benton, and Marcia said, How soon do you think you'll read that book? I'm not sure how soon I'll read it, but there's something of value in it. And I turned to show, between pages 11 and 12, there was a $20 bill. She says, wow, that paid for itself. I said, hey, wait a minute. I turned the next page, between pages 12 and 13, there was a $5 bill. You better believe I've checked between the other pages as well. But I want you to know that of all the books, if we speak in the broadest of sense, I want you to know that there are but two great books. In the 19th Psalm, it talks about both. I want to talk about the first tonight. The Lord willing, tomorrow night, I want to talk about the second. The first is what we could call the book of creation. God has said some wondrous things. And I want you to read with me these first six verses, because herein we find an open declaration of God. He says some great things about himself here in the book of creation, what God has made. Don't make the mistake of speaking of mother nature. There is no mother nature. It's our great God, the creator. And I want you to know that in the creation, God has put himself on record to say things, and some of those things are found millions of miles away. And other things can be seen only the benefit of a microscope. So between the telescope and the microscope and everything else, the physical universe itself serves as a great book, the book of creation. Let's look at the first six verses of this song. The heavens declare the glory of God. and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night after night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it. And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. I stop there because we have essentially a great statement about this book of creation. The balance of this psalm tells us about the second book. I call it the book of creation. of Revelation, not to be confused with the Apocalypse, the 66th book in the Bible. But by the book of Revelation, I mean that which God has been pleased to reveal by means of His Spirit, giving His Word so that men could have it, and men could read it, and men could know it, and men could do it. So if you want a little heads up, for tomorrow night, or if the Lord should call me home, don't feel you left out because the second book is right here in this same psalm. You know, mom used to say I watch the commercials on TV more than I watch the shows. I can believe that. I remember when they sold, I think it was for search, they say it's two, two, two minutes in one. Y'all remember that? Well, this is two, two, two psalms in one. So, you're gonna double your money here. Plus, we already heard something about Psalm 19, 13. So this is a real Psalm-sensitive conference, isn't it, brother? All right? So let's talk a little bit about what it is that is declared about God. If you were to come to a people that have never heard the name of Jesus Christ, Never has a passage of God's Word ever been cited to them. They've never met a Christian or any reasonable facsimile thereof. What could they possibly know about God? God's Word tells us right here. Look at verse 1. The heavens declare the glory of God. You don't have to have read from Genesis through the book of Revelation and say, somebody made something out there. Somebody is keeping this whole thing together. Somebody has a lot more power and a lot more smarts than we do. Now they call by many different names. You know, there are two basic words in the Old Testament for God. One of them, we might call it the generic term. In the singular, it's El. In the plural, it's Elohim. And that means, that which receives worship. When the Lord says, all the gods of the heathen are idols. He's talking about Baal. He's talking about all the others that were worshiped by the heathen. Now, just because somebody worships a thing and calls it a thing doesn't make it that thing. In the book of Galatians, Paul says, before you came to know the truth, you worshiped things which by nature were not God's. Just because somebody worships something. Paul says, of course I know it's in the Greek originally, but the same idea in the book of Philippians. He speaks of some people whose God is their belly. They live for pleasure. They live for gratification. That's what pleases them. And so when you talk to people, do you believe in God? Unless they're just a flat-out atheist, oh yeah, there's some kind of God somewhere, somehow, or maybe a whole bunch of gods out there, but they have limited knowledge. But you can look, and you can listen, and you can be attentive to the creation itself. And we see in the first part of verse 1, the glory of God is declared. This is why all things transpire as they do. Now if you want scripture to back that up, no problem. Ephesians 1 tells us that the God that we know, the personal name for the God of truth is that other name. That's why God says, I am jealous about my name. Don't you go calling, you've got a little carving over here. Don't you go calling that Jehovah. God's name is something he is very jealous about. And don't you dare take a golden calf or anything else and start calling it as if it were the true God, the covenant God who revealed himself, the great I am. I don't pretend to be a Hebrew scholar, but I sat under Lawrence Crawford for three years, so that counts for something, I guess. And he pointed out that Yehi, in Genesis 1, it says, Yomer Elohim, Yehior, wah, Yehior, and God said, light be. You see, Yahi means to be, calling something into existence. That's what God did in the creation. He didn't have to order a universe kit, you know, just add water or something like that. No, he spoke it and it was so. That's how God operated. And so when he identifies himself to Moses from the burning bush, he says, you tell them, I am. sent you. I am that I am. If you wanted to literally translate that you could say his name means the being one. The God who is. He's not the God who used to be. He's not the God who's a gonna be. He's not the God who might be or could be or should be. He exists in an eternal present. He is the one who inhabits eternity according to Isaiah. And so all things transpire to the glory of God. And of course, you probably pretty well versed in Ephesians 1, a couple of passages therein. And we are directed to operate as Paul talks. For example, go to 1 Corinthians 10, and it tells us in verse 31, Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. The heavens declare the glory of God, and we should be conscious of that. Because one way or the other, we do. We need to know that. We need to operate in that light. And in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, turn with me for a moment there, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse number 15. For all things are for your sakes that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. God is going to be glorified. whether we obey him or we disobey. You know, the psalmist, it says, even the wrath of man shall praise him. The remainder he shall restrain. The image I have is of God drawing a line in the sand. He says, I'll let you fuss and fume and cuss and jump up and down and all that, but there's a line I'm drawing, and you're not gonna cross that line. God just might put you to sleep. God just might make you sick. God might just end your life. Don't think you're gonna go beyond the limits that God has established. Now, we're in the Psalms, and of course, the psalmist speaks a lot about God and what he's doing. In the eighth psalm, it opens with this verse. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens. God's glory is not a third-rate concern. He has advertised it. He has boldly declared it. He's put it out there. And you have to be willingly ignorant not to recognize what's going on. The 72nd Psalm says, let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. And we say amen. Now we talk about the glory of God. We see stars. We see planets. We see comets. There are other things in the night sky. But even if it's a cloudy day, or if it's dark at night or there's something else going on that blocks your view of things beyond this biosphere. There's plenty here on the earth to declare that as well. And the firmament showeth his handiwork. God has gone to great lengths to demonstrate his creativity with structure. You know, the evolutionists say, well, look, this flying thing, it's got this wing, and here's another flying thing, proves they came from each other. You know, you can only go so far in just trying to pass that off to some people. Because the evolutionists will tell you that the lowest backbone animals are the fish. Then you move up to the herpeton, the amphibian, and the reptile. And, you know, they have some kind of skin. And then you move up to the birds. And birds have feathers. No reptile has feathers. No fish. Even the ones that live in the cold part of the ocean, they don't have feathers. They don't have a fur coat. They just got skin and scales. When you get to the birds, suddenly you got these creatures with feathers. But then you get to the mammals, where'd the feathers go? You can find mammals with hair, with fur. You never see a mammal with feathers. if you didn't know better, you would realize that God has put a little kink in the explanation of the so-called scientist. All the cycles of life that God has placed, it's amazing when you think about the fact that he made these creatures that do some things over here, and we don't think about the fact that things are interrelated. I think it was Einstein that said, if the last bee on this planet died, man would have four years to live. And think of that the last time you smacked a bee. I'd show you, Mr. Bee, I could squish you. If everybody squished all the bees, the clock's a-tickin', according to the scientist. The seasons that we have. You know, as a little kid, Dad would take us up in the high Sierra in California, and I'd say, Why is there snow up here? It snowed back in the winter. It's 100 degrees up here in these mountains, and some of it's still in the shade. Now, my dad never claimed to be a theologian. He said, well, just think of it, son. The snow falls now, and it melts gradually over time, and it flows into the rivers. If it weren't for that, the rivers would dry up. Oh. You see, there's a lot higher intelligence designing this world than we often give anyone credit for. There was a man, he was known as Colonel Robert Ingersoll, and he boasted that there was no God. He thought he really had God in a corner or eliminated from the thinking man of modern time. And one fellow who knew about that boarded a train when Ingersoll was riding along. And with him, he had a globe. It was up to date. It showed the shapes and the contours of the continents and had major rivers and other bodies of water indicated thereon. And Ingersoll saw that and he said, may I look at that? Absolutely, Colonel. So he looked at it. And he said, where'd you get this? Oh, I was just out in the woods someplace and found it. They said, no, no, where did you get it? Somebody took a lot of time and was careful to check all the facts, and they put, this thing is, somebody went to great lengths to duplicate what we see in the world. But Colonel Ingersoll, You can't believe that this just kind of came about on its own, just some fluke of something that happened in a mud pit or something, and yet this is just a scale model of what God did. I don't think the good colonel, if we could call him that, could answer that objection. And there are an awful lot of things that if we really point out to folks, well, I want to move on. The glory of our great God shown in the universe and we look at the handiwork of heaven, or here on this earth, what we call conservation. God has been pleased. We talk about the conservation of, you know, energy, matter. God made it so we consume matter. and our bodies turn matter into energy. That's how you get strong to run your fastest and jump your highest and all that other stuff. But yet the plants, they take in energy and it turns into matter. It seems like somehow they just magically evolved that the plants help the animals live and the animals help the plants live. That's why when you go in a florist shop, The air smells a lot better sometimes even than outside, unless you live on a farm or whatever. Tremendous diversity throughout, but without disharmony. Now I want you to know that there's something declared about God. This Psalm tells us His glory and His handiwork. But while we're in the Psalms, look over in Psalm number 50. Did you know that even the person who's never seen a copy of the Bible can see that there is great being. Our Bible tells us that the righteousness of God is seen from the book of creation. Psalm 50, look at verse number six, and the heavens shall declare not just his glory, but here his righteousness for God is judge himself. That helps us perhaps to better appreciate what Paul is telling the Romans in the first chapter of his epistle. So turn with me please to Romans chapter 1 and let's look at verses 18 and 19 for a moment. Romans 1 It's always wonderful to have a fan over the preacher so that the pages turn sometimes quicker than you want them to. Look at verses 18 and 19. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, not only from the Bible. from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them." He's not talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He's not talking about the apostles. He's not talking about the prophets. He's talking about This world in which we find ourselves, the book of creation, that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. Somebody says, I never read the Bible. Just look at this world. Pay attention to what God has declared in the creation. Now notice also in the next verse, His eternal power and Godhead are declared in the book of creation. Look at verse 20, for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world. are clearly seen. You have to be in great denial not to see this and not to say this. Being understood by the things that are made. Wow. God sure is smart. God sure was creative. God has really taken care of things. I mean, this planet, somebody figured out that if the earth were just a little bit further from the sun, or if it was a little bit closer to the sun. Even the 23.5 degree slant maximizes life on this planet. God made most liquids such that as they cool, they condense, which would mean they would sink. Now, did you have ice in your drink tonight? I'll bet you did. When you put an ice cube in a glass of Diet Pepsi or any other beverage, It will float. You know why? Because as water condenses, as it gets colder and colder, it gets denser and denser. But then right before it goes to the solid form, we call that ice, it expands, which causes it to float. If that were not the case, you'd go out to a lake on a winter day, and it'd freeze from the bottom up. That'd kill all the fish. That'd kill all the plants. That would ruin your economy if you're trying to get things out of that lake to survive. But God, with his wisdom, he knew what would happen. And so the most universal of liquids, and it's almost a universal solvent, that's no accident. Nothing happens by accident. Even the scientists who's studying things, y'all might have heard of a man named George, Washington Carver. He was a believer and he asked God to show him something from the lowly peanut. Do you know what he called the place where he worked? God's little laboratory. He went into that place and he says, God, I'm not so smart, but I know you're wise and just show me something we can make out of peanuts. Now, I can't list all of them, but I read somewhere that he came up with 300 different things you can make from peanuts. I mean, just making peanut butter, creamy and crunchy, that's two things, that's okay with me. I don't know if anybody ate peanut butter before that, but I think Mr. Skippy and Mr. Peter Pan must have bought them out or whatever, because they're probably making a lot of money now because of what God put in the humble little peanut. So his eternal power, his Godhead, his righteousness. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians 1. God is so wise and God is so strong. You can know that without knowing a single Bible verse to back it up. 1 Corinthians 1, read with me please, verses 27 through 31. You know, we make reference to the fact, I believe, earlier today we were reminded that the Jews They stumbled over. And the Greeks, they said they wanted wisdom, but they weren't so smart after all. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are. Understand a man came before a king and he says, oh king, I'm gonna show you something that no man has ever seen before. And he said, if you can do that, I'll give you a bag of gold coins. And he says, well, not only that, after you and everyone in your court sees it, no one will ever see it again. And he said, if you can do that, I'll give you two bags of gold coins. Okay. And he pulled out a chicken egg and he cracked it open and he ate it. Two gold bags, please. You know, there are a lot of things we just don't think about. But God's got us covered. You know, God has shown such great diversity. These aren't just fingers. At the end of each finger, there's a different configuration. And forensic science has found that These are 10 different identification marks that God has put. Now, as far as I'm concerned, God could have given all five of these or all 10 of these the same. It still would have identified me. But the forensic scientists can tell by scanning a fingerprint. They could say, this was not only Steve Rains's, but it was his left thumbprint. If you become a teacher in some states, I guess they figure you're going to get frustrated with some kids sometime. And so what they do, they do each of your fingerprints individually, and then they do them as a group as well. So if somebody's got your prints, they can trace you, because that goes into a big computer bank, and I don't think they ever delete those things. at least while you're still alive, why did God go to all that? Would you? I don't think I would. But God saw fit to do that. He is so wise. Oh, I didn't quite finish this. He has taken the base things of the world and things which are despised, hath God chosen yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are. Why? That no flesh should glory in his presence. Now, you may know, I know I've met a lot of people, I think they think that when they die, God's gonna say, I'm so glad you're here. Heaven wouldn't be heaven without you. And you can just strut around heaven, because after all, you have just made God's day. You know, we sometimes take ourselves a lot more seriously than we ought to. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And we return to the theme of glory here, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now, what does this mean to us as the people of God? God has been pleased to communicate truth to us. Did he have to? Of course not. The creature can't demand of the creator. However, look at verse number two, for example. Every day this is going on. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge, not only every day, but every tongue. Look at verse 3. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. You know, we're finding peoples that are so technologically behind us. We have found people with no written language. We can find people who don't have shoes. We can even find some people who may not even know what fire is. But God has etched upon man's conscience the idea that there's some kind of supreme being. Every time he opens his eyes, he, well, I didn't make that. That thing in the sky that it's hot during the day, and another thing, it's bright sometimes in the night. You know, you can use that to count time. You know, the moon is full, and it's empty, and it goes back to being full. It's like the whole thing is a periodic thing, and you can keep track of how many moons, or how many winters, or how many summers. So it's every day, every tongue, and it's everywhere. Verse 4, their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun. That tells me that we matter to the one who created matter in the first place. Probably the oldest book in our Bible, the book of Job, the 23rd chapter, Job gets philosophical and he says, he knoweth the way that I take. And when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. He values us. In the 10th of Matthew, Jesus said, you know, you need to think about what's going on. The sparrow out there, it falls to the ground, but I want you to know it doesn't happen without your father's knowledge. The very hairs of your head are numbered. Now I would imagine 20 years ago, I had a few more. But I really have never taken the time to say, okay, Marsha, today I'm gonna do nothing else but count the hairs on my head. Well, I might start in the morning and comb it and number it however I would. But by the end of the day, I might have more hair or less hairs. I know as we get older, usually we have fewer hairs than we had before. But God doesn't have some angel. And by the way, angel, how many hairs does Brother Dan have down there? Well, let me look it up. No! You don't have to ask the angel. God already knows. He knows everything. You know, somebody asked Mr. Spurgeon once, do you really believe that everything has been ordained of God? He says, you know the carriage that brought me to the tabernacle today? I'm sure a lot of dust fell off the wheels. Every particle of dust that fell from those wheels God knew about that. See, our God doesn't just kind of sort of figure this and kind of that, and we'll just let the chips fall where they may. No, we talk about His universal knowledge, His universal control. That's why we can quote Romans 8, 28. It's like, you know, the important things in your life are ordained of God. No, all things work together for good to them that love God. You know, if you have a headache, you say, well, Actually, part of God's plan. What happens, and with who, and how, and this reaction and that reaction. You know, as kids you like to line up dominoes, you knock over one. We see cause and effect, cause and effect. But God already knows. He's declared the end from the beginning. There are no surprises with God. You know, one of those commercials was for V8, and I could have had a V8. I told you, I paid more attention to the commercials than the shows. But God has never said, why didn't I think of that? I tell you what, Pythagoras? Yeah, you came up with this theorem and triggered, why didn't I think? No, God has never been surprised. We had a preacher brother used to say, did it ever occur to you that it never occurred to God? We need to know that. He values us. He cares for us. In 1 Peter 5, 7, it reminds us that behold, he careth for you. And the 17th Psalm, just two before the one we're looking at right now, the cry of the psalmist is, keep me as the apple of the eye. And for all of your life, what happens when you die? Does God know? He knows all the circumstances about your death. Years ago, my last pastor and I, we were visiting a guy there in Millington, and he was going to build something at the church house. And while we're talking with him, he said, hey, let me show you something. And he went over to his dumpster, and he pulled out a possum, what was left of a possum. He said, my dog's got a hold of this possum. They chewed him good, you see? And he got through and just flung him in the dumpster. I think that's what some people think, that's what God does with us. But the 116th Psalm tells us, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. How did he provide for Lazarus? Read Luke 16. How did he provide for my namesake, Stephen? Acts 7, the Lord stood to receive him. Don't think that you don't matter to God as one of his people. Now, while it is true that we can learn a lot from the book of creation, there are some people that say, I don't want to hear the Bible. I don't want to hear any religious book. I don't want to hear any religious teaching. I just figure I can understand everything about God from that book of creation you've been talking about. Well, there is limited knowledge that you can gain from the creation. I understand that St. Patrick decided he was going to teach his flock there in Ireland about the Trinity. And so he'd pluck a little clover. Most of them have three. Do you see the three? And that represents the Trinity. Of course, every once in a while somebody finds a four-leaf clover. What are you going to do with that, Patrick? So you got to think about stuff like that. But sometimes we try to illustrate things from the creation. It's rather difficult to illustrate the great doctrine of imputation from studying the birds and the bananas and everything else out there. Look at the stars. I think I can appreciate the doctrine of the atonement. No, there are limitations to what you can know. Somebody might call himself a natural theologian, which would mean I get my theology from what I study in nature. There are some real limitations. The person that says, everything I need to know, I can learn by studying, I can be like old John Locke, you know, I can be empirical, I can see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it. And if I can do those things, that's all that really exists. And you're just going to dismiss the book of Revelation, saying that everything you can or need to know, you get by studying the book of creation and forget about any book of Revelation. That's like saying, I believe in electricity, but only as it exists in what we know as lightning. You see, the Bible was not written primarily to show us how the heavens go, we're told how it is that we have a way to go to heaven. I want you to remember the one who was and is sovereign. He's sovereign over sickness. Likewise, he's sovereign over sin. I wanna close with the first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter nine. Let's take a look just there. I wanna read the first eight verses for a closing. Here's Jesus who demonstrated that he who was the word incarnate fully complied with the word inscripturated, the book of revelation, even within this context, the book of creation. This is, of course, Jesus. And he entered into his ship and passed over and came into his own country. And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed. And I want you to notice, Jesus was not a Christian scientist. He didn't say, fella, it's all in your head. No, it was all through his body. He was lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, son, be of good cheer. by sins be forgiven thee." Now he looks at a physical manifestation and he emphasizes the spiritual need. And behold, certainly the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemeth. That's how perverse they were. Presumptuous, insidious, okay? And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether it is easier to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise and walk, but that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then saith he to the sick of the palsy, arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose and departed to his house. But you see. When Jesus did that, people realized He had to be who He said He was. They had their own revelation because of what they saw right there. But when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God, which had given such power unto men. God has done some amazing things. He speaks loud and clear through the book of creation. Lord willing, we'll look tomorrow night at the God, rather, the book of Revelation. Thank you so much. God bless.