Job 12:7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; 8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. 9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? 10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
Job 37:14 “Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God’s wonders. 15 Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash? 16 Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge?
Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Genesis 1:2 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 2:7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Revelation 5:13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
Hebrews 3:4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Psalm 8:1 “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.” 8:3-4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
Psalm 19:1-4 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.
Psalm 33:6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! 9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
Psalm 65:9-11 You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.
Psalm 95:4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Psalm 104:19 He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. 24 How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. 24 O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom has thou made them all; the earth is full of thy creatures. 31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works.
Psalm 121:1-2 A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth
Psalm 124:8 “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Psalm 136:5-9 to him who by his understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever. who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. who made the great lights— His love endures forever. the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever. the moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever.
Psalm 139:13-14 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Psalm 147:8-9 He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call.
Psalm 148:1-7 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens! Praise him from the skies! Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all the armies of heaven! Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars! Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapours high above the clouds! Let every created thing give praise to the LORD, for he issued his command, and they came into being. He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked. Praise the LORD from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths,
Isaiah 40:26 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. 28 The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable.
Isaiah 45:12 “It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.”
Isaiah 55:12 For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Jeremiah 10:12 But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
Jeremiah 32:17 ‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.’
Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Nehemiah 9:6 You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
Amos 9:6 Who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth— the Lord is his name.
From Pureflix.com by Billy Hallowell “These Bible verses about nature remind us of some powerful realities. Here are just some of the take-aways:
1 We should pause to marvel at the wonders God created.
2 God created everything we see before us.
3 The Lord created everything we see in nature out of darkness and nothingness.
4 God holds the power to create stunning beauty.
5 Everything we see in creation points back to the Creator.”
Hallowell goes on to suggest doing prayer walks through nature, devotions outdoors, or just pondering the wonders of it all.
My. thoughts. God takes pleasure and rejoices in his works of creation. An artist looks at his/her finished painting and takes pleasure just looking at it and it makes him happy. I love cutting my yard, edging, and weed eating. When I get through, I enjoy just looking at the finished project. God does that with his works. It is interesting that the objects of his creation are given human characteristics (anthropomorphism). The stars, animals, mountains, etc. rejoice, sing, and clap when they see their Creator. If we could just hear them speak, they are praising God non stop. Use your imagination as you observe nature and listen to them speaking. You can see God’s love in how he takes care of his creation (watering it, etc.) just as we take care of a garden that we grow. We can learn a lot about God from his creation.
God’s creation is amazingly designed. “Intelligent design”: the theory that life, or the universe, cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity. I am amazed when I go to an aquarium like the one in Chattanooga, Tn. The diversity of colors and designs of the fish amazes me. The same with the diversity of all animals, birds, and plants. The same with the design of the human body with all the systems in the body that must work together for human life to exist and function. The design of the periodic table with each successive element adding exactly one proton to the nucleus. The laws of physics and math that exist. The universal constants that govern the universe. The designed movement of the heavenly bodies that allow us to send astronauts into space.
I always have 2 thoughts when I look at intelligent desirn. 1) Such diversity and design could not have evolved by chance. I look at a car with all the engineered parts that have to all work together for a car to run properly. That car can’t be a product of random chance from nothing. It had a designer and material to form the parts out of. If the material that the parts of the car were formed were eternal, they would have rusted making them useless (the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics). They didn’t just pop into existence from nothing (the 1st Law of Thermodynamics). The same goes with the intelligently designed parts of the universe and all life. Matter could not be eternal or it would be in a state of disarray and decay to the point of being useless, not designed (2nd Law). Matter can’t pop itself into existence from nothing (1st. Law). But we find matter and life is so well designed. As Paul said in Romans 1:20, there is no excuse for anyone not seeing that there is a creator God whose power made and designed everything. There is no excuse for not believing in a Creator God. Psalm 19:1 calls the atheist a “fool”. Psalm 104 might be my favorite of the creation texts above. Go back and read the entire psalm.
Psalm 104:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
2 covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind;
4 he makes his messengers winds,
his ministers a flaming fire.
5 He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they fled;
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down
to the place that you appointed for them.
9 You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills;
11 they give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;
they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth
15 and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
16 The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has her home in the fir trees.
18 The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.
19 He made the moon to mark the seasons;[a]
the sun knows its time for setting.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they steal away
and lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
and to his labor until the evening.
Meditating on God’s creation and His care for His creation led the psalmist to this conclusion: 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!”
Let the atheist gloat in his denial of the existence of God, but I will praise the Lord for his creation.
2) But then I have a second thought. You see, I believe in a six 24 hour week of creation. I firmly believe that the Bible states that as a fact. The Hebrew word for day is “yom” always means a 24 hour day in the Old Testament when it is used with a number or numerical adjective (2nd day) or used with “morning and evening”. Genesis 1 uses “yom” in both ways. In Exodus 20:9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. That was the basis for Israel working 6 days and resting on the 7th. That is the basis for the “week” as a measure of time. All other measures like year, month, season, day, etc. have a natural law of the universe that dictates those time period. I believe that the Bible teaches that the earth is young, around 6,000 years old. The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 yield about 2,000 years from the creation to Abraham. The years in those genealogies are very specific. Adam was 130 when he fathered Seth. Seth was 105 when he fathered Enosh. Etc. Those are not imaginary numbers. They are the same kind of numbers that you would use in doing your family genealogy. Then Matthew 1 gives 42 generations or about 2,000 years from Abraham to Jesus. The word genea there is always used of a period of about 40 years or the people living in a 40 year period in the same way we speak of the x or z generation today. It has been about 2,000 years since Jesus to today so that adds up to about 6,000 years. There is no way around the fact that the Bible claims that the creation week was about 6,000 years ago.
Some say the whole creation story is just a myth or allegory, but an honest look at the facts I just gave refutes that. You can’t just allegorize all that. You have to just say the Bible is wrong in its claims if the earth is 6 billion years old. You can’t just allegorize the creation of man from dust. That happened on the 6th 24 hour day. It either happened literally that way or the Bible is wrong. If macro evolution (micro evolution is variations in each species and that does occur; macro evolution involves the changing of a species into a totally different species, like reptiles to birds or fish to men, and that has never been shown to occur) is true (either atheistic or theistic evolution), then man evolved over millions of years instead of being formed full grown from dust in just a moment of time as the Bible claimed. Jesus said in Matthew 19:“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? He is quoting Genesis 1 and 2. Apparently he believed the creation story was literal, not figurative or some allegory. Paul said that Adam was the first man. If macro evolution is true, then death existed for millions of years before the fall in the Garden. But the Bible claims that death was the result of the sin of Adam and only began after Adam sinned. There are plenty of evidences for a young earth (google that).
The measure used to say that the earth is 6 billiion years old is radiometric dating using the half-life of radioactive elements, but that method involves several assumptions that can’t be proven. Mainly, that the original rock sample had 100% mother element and 0% daughter element (the element that the radioactive element decays into each half life). The earth looks old (apparent age) even though it is not that old. God made everything full grown, with diamonds, rubies, and coal in the ground ready for man to use and enjoy immediately after he was created. Some say that would make God deceptive to make it look old when it really isn’t. Adam seconds after he was created would have looked old, but he wasn’t. That’s not deceptive. It’s just the way God chose to do it. He could have chosen to do it over millions of years (theistic evolution) but the Bible claims that he did not do it that way. Either believe the creation account to literal or reject the Bible, which can lead to rejecting all the Bible if we reject Genesis. The theory of evolution (macro evolution) is just that, a theory that cannot be proven. The fossil record does not confirm it either, with no fossil record of one species evolving into a completely different species. In Genesis 1, God created eveything to reproduces “after its own kind” and that is the way it has always happened. Mutations and natural selection, the supposed mechanisms of macro evolution, do not account for the creation and diversity of life and do not support the theory of evolutioin. Many atheists even acknowledge Darwin’s theory to be false.
But my second leads to other questions even if I believe God created everything. How did God create all the diversity of plants in a 24 hour day, of land animals in another 24 hour day, of all the planets and stars in the many galaxies of the univers in another 24 hour day, of fish and fowl in another 24 hour day, of mammals and man in another 24 hour day? The problem is that I picture God as if he were a man sitting down to think up the design for all the fish, for example, and then programming the natural instinctive habits of the fish. Then he has to disperse the fish over the entire planet. All that within a 24 hour day. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? But God is not like a man with limited powers doing all that. In Numbers 11, God told Moses that He was going to give meat to the complaining Israelites. 21 But Moses said, “The people among whom I am number six hundred thousand on foot, and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month!’ 22 Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, and be enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, and be enough for them?” 23 And the Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.” Jeremiah 32:17: “Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” God is an all powerful, all knowing, all present spirit (John 4:24 God is spirit) that fills the universe. That God spirit can be creating from nothing animals and fish all over the planet simultaneously, all within a 24 hour day.
Now, I must admit that even that thought seems unbelievable to me even if it helps explain how God could do it. But the other option is atheism, that there is no god, that it all came about by random chance evolution from nothing. The belief that God created it all in six 24 hour days is still the best option. Thankfully, we have other evidences that the Bible is the inspired word of God, such as fulfilled prophecies of nations and kings (like the statue in Daniel 2 that predicted the next 4 empires and Daniel 8 that predicts the breaking up of Alexander the Great’s Grecian empire into 4 lesser kigndoms after his death), fulfilled Messianic prophecies (like Isaiah 53), the miracles of Jesus (which the enemies could not deny had happened, they just attibuted it to the work of the devil), and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (the ultimate proof, Acts 17:31 because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people [x]by raising Him from the dead.”). These proofs help reinforce my belief that God indeed created all this diversity in six 24 hour days.
Then I just pause and think,”Wow”! Look at what God did. That evokes praise just as the psalmist in Psalm 104:34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!”
Hallelujah, which means “Hallel” (praise) “yah” (shortened form of YHWH or Yahweh). So I hope this article helps increase your faith in God and remove those moments of doubt that most of us have from time to time. The song in our songbooks, Hallelujah Praise Jehovah is based on Psalm 148 invoking all of God’s creation to praise him (whiich would include man, the height of God’s creation).
Hallelujah, praise Jehovah, from the heavens praise His name;
praise Jehovah in the highest, all His angels, praise proclaim.
All His hosts, together praise Him, sun and moon and stars on high;
praise Him, O you heav’ns of heavens, and you floods above the sky.
Let them praises give Jehovah, they were made at His command;
them forever He established, His decree shall ever stand.
From the earth O praise Jehovah, all you seas, you monsters all,
fire and hail and snow and vapors, stormy winds that hear His call. [Refrain]
Let them praises give Jehovah, they were made at His command;
them forever He established, His decree shall ever stand.
From the earth O praise Jehovah, all you seas, you monsters all,
fire and hail and snow and vapors, stormy winds that hear His call. [Refrain]
The refrain or chorus at the end of each verse.
Let them praises give Jehovah, for His name alone is high,
and His glory is exalted, and His glory is exalted,
and His glory is exalted far above the earth and sky.
Listen to this song acapella. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0EZctgkSFY
Here is the story of the man who wrote the music to this song, William Kirkpatrick (1838 to 1921). He published about 100 major musical works. Here is an interesting quote from Hymns4Him at https://hymns4him.mjbhost.com/hymns/hallelujah-praise-jehovah-2/
“William J. Kirkpatrick died on September 20, 1921. He told his wife that night that he had a tune running through his head and he wanted to write it down before he lost it. His wife retired to bed and awoke in the middle of the night to find that he was not there. She went to his study to find him, and when she did, he was slumped over on his desk, dead, without having recorded that song. He was interred in West Laurel Hill Cemetery near Philadelphia. ”
Another quoted story:
“Kirkpatrick participated in many of the Camp Meetings the Methodist churches held. He often led the music portion of the meeting and enlisted the help of soloists and other musicians to perform for the attenders. During one of these meetings, he became saddened by his observation of the soloist, who would perform the required songs and then leave without staying to hear the preacher. William feared that this young man did not really know Christ and so he began to pray that God would somehow get a hold of the soloist’s heart. One evening while he was praying, a song began to form in his mind. He quickly jotted down the lyrics to go with the music and asked the soloist to sing the song that night. The lyrics of the song convicted the young man’s heart and he ended up staying and listening to the message. When the preacher gave the altar call at the end of the night, the soloist got up and went to the front of the tent and placed his trust in Jesus. The lyrics that so touched this young man, and many people since, are based on Luke’s account of Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. “I’ve wandered far away from God, Now I’m coming home; The paths of sin too long I’ve trod, Lord, I’m coming home. Coming home, coming home, Never more to roam; Open now Thine arms of love, Lord, I’m coming home.” Among the many other hymns for which Kirkpatrick contributed music, these are some of the most notable.” Here are the words to that song, Lord I’m Coming Home.
- I’ve wandered far away from God,
Now I’m coming home;
The paths of sin too long I’ve trod,
Lord, I’m coming home.
- Refrain:
Coming home, coming home,
Nevermore to roam;
Open wide Thine arms of love,
Lord, I’m coming home.
- I’ve wasted many precious years,
Now I’m coming home;
I now repent with bitter tears,
Lord, I’m coming home.
- I’m tired of sin and straying, Lord,
Now I’m coming home;
I’ll trust Thy love, believe Thy word,
Lord, I’m coming home.
- My soul is sick, my heart is sore,
Now I’m coming home;
My strength renew, my hope restore,
Lord, I’m coming home.
- My only hope, my only plea,
Now I’m coming home;
That Jesus died, and died for me,
Lord, I’m coming home.
- I need His cleansing blood I know,
Now I’m coming home;
Oh, wash me whiter than the snow,
Lord, I’m coming home.
Lisen to the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_M_x4qX3JU
I think of a friend and brother when I hear the words of that song. “I’ve wasted many precious years, but now I’m coming home”. I have spent 30 years at Madison Academy in Huntsville, Alabama as principal or teacher, preaching part time the first 10 years at Monrovia Church of Christ in Madison. There was only one year in that 30 years that I preached full time at Monrovia. During that year, I’ m sitting in the church office doing preacher stuff and I got a phone call out of the blue. The man said he was John Howerton, that he had been to our church service a couple of times (I never noticed him), that he had wasted most of his life by not following Jesus (he was in his 60’s at that time), and that he was ready to be baptized and devote his last years to Jesus. I baptized him. He went on to be a faithful Christian till death a few years ago. He went on a mission trip with our church to Baja, Mexico and helped the poor people in a village a lot. He was a brilliant man who wasted many years but came to the Lord. I miss him. He and another close friend and mentor, Hugh Minor, and I spent several meals together (John always bought). He was a political activist and would have loved to still be alive when Trump just recently got elected.
Kirkpatrick wrote some of our most familiar songs. Look up the words to these songs.
“’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V58-VcHJs
“A Wonderful Savior is Jesus My Lord” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC-jTDHYRus. Fanny Cosby and Kirkpatrick wrote this song in 1890.
“Jesus Saves! (We Have Heard the Joyful Sound)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxnFr-NLeLU
“Lead Me to Calvary” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE6qReRGmaY
Thanks for reading. I hope you will listen to all these songs just cited. It is very edifying.
Nicky's Notes 