Splendor that Preaches
- Strength For Life
- 29 minutes ago
- 5 min read
A few weeks ago, Pastor Johnson challenged us to identify our favorite Bible verse, life verse and psalm. Genesis 1:1 has always been my life verse, and it addresses the same themes as my favorite psalm, Psalm 19. I picked Genesis 1:1 because it is the foundation for everything that follows in Scripture. If the first verse is a lie, then the entire Bible is a lie. But I know Genesis 1:1 is true, and therefore I know Psalm 19 is true as well.
As I read Psalm 19, and my favorite verse, 19:1, it reminds me that there is something ancient in a man that awakens when he steps outside at night and sees the sky. The part that responds to the night sky is not the part of him that answers emails; it is not the part that pays bills, nor the part that sits under fluorescent lights and acts like spreadsheets matter more than eternity. No, it is something older and truer. There is something in him that remembers Eden and still hears the echoes of the creation week.
Mankind resonates with the night sky because “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Ps. 19:1). The firmament shows; it does not suggest. The heavens do not hint; they declare. There is no subtly in their message. There is no quiet politeness. This is thunder without sound. This is divine authority written in fire across the black canvas of infinity. The tapestry of the heavens above is not decoration. It is proclamation, a sermon burning at nuclear temperatures, preaching a message older than the Fall. You can feel it.
It is night as you step into your backyard. The grass lies cool beneath your feet. The air smells alive. You lift your eyes. And then it happens: the noise inside you quiets. The striving stops. The pretending dies. Because the firmament is shewing you His handywork. What you see not an accident; not chaos; not random collisions. Handywork means there was intention. Handywork means design.
When I turn my telescope toward a distant nebula, I am not looking at meaningless gas, but at the fingerprints of God. The colors burn with impossible beauty—crimson, violet, blue—and they exist because He spoke them into being. The same voice that said, “Let there be light” still echoes through those ancient, gigantic clouds of gas. And they answer Him by reflecting His glory to me.
David understood that the heavens speak. It was he who wrote that “day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge” (Ps. 19:2). The night speaks, but not with human language. It has speech, but not with syllables you can write down. Its language is something deeper, something the soul recognizes even when the mind cannot explain it. The stars pulse and flicker. They breathe. Astronomers call them variables, pulsars, giants and dwarfs. But I know better: they are speaking.
“Night unto night sheweth knowledge.” The heavens teach mankind scale and power. They communicate knowledge of a God so vast He flung galaxies into the abyss and called it good. Yet, He is so personal that He formed Adam from dust with His own hands. Standing there in the dark, you begin to realize something: you are not alone, and you never were. After all, “there is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” (Ps. 19:3). The heavens' voice reaches everywhere and everyone. It reaches the shepherd in the field and the soldier in the desert. It reaches the father in his backyard bending over his telescope while his family sleeps inside. No translation is required. No education is necessary. The message bypasses the intellect and strikes the heart directly. God is here, it says. God is powerful, and He is alive.
Modern men forget the glory of God. We live under roofs and ceilings lit by artificial light. With our modern habits, we have insulated ourselves from glory. And in doing so, we have lost something essential. Man is intimidated by the dark, so he illuminates the night with LED lights to make it look like the day. But if he steps outside long enough, where it is dark enough, the feeling returns. You feel small next to the stars—not in a way that diminishes you, but in a way that frees you. The burden of being your own god lifts from your shoulders. The heavens are already declaring His glory; they do not need your help or your approval. They have been preaching since before you were born, and they will continue long after you are gone. “Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world,” Psalm 19:4 says.
“Their words.” Think about that. These are words without sound, language without syllables, and truth without ink. Yet God understands every bit of it. He knows the rhythm of every pulsar. He knows the burn rate of every star. He knows the precise moment a photon leaves a distant galaxy and begins its journey toward your eye. Nothing escapes His attention. Nothing drifts beyond His authority. “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names” (Ps. 147:4). The stars obey Him. And something inside you wants to obey Him, too, because this is what your heart was made for. You were not made for the cage, the routine, the endless cycle of distraction. You were made for glory. You were made to stand beneath the heavens and remember who your Father is.
David saw it. He felt it. The heavens declared to him too. They are declaring even now, not tomorrow or someday. Now. And every time you step outside and lift your eyes, every time you place your hand on cold steel and look through a small circle of glass into eternity, you are stepping into a sanctuary without walls. And deep in your chest, beneath the noise of modern life, beneath the fatigue and the responsibility and the wounds, something rises and answers back, “Yes. I hear You.” And as you gaze at His handiwork, as you see a meteor streak across the sky, or as your eyes adjust to the darkness of a zone with no light and you are suddenly able to make out Orion’s Nebula as a blur, “thine ears shall hear a word behind thee”—the Word of God—saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it” (Isaiah 30:21).
The above article was written by Jonathan Thornton. He is a military veteran and member of NorthStone Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. To offer him your feedback, comment below or email us at strengthforlife461@gmail.com.
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