The Heavens Declare the Glory of God — Psalms 19

0:00 The title of my message is The Heavens Declare the Glory of God. We're going to be taking up Psalm 19 this morning. In Bel MacDonald's commentary, he calls this the of two books, and the first book is the book of creation, God's witness of creation, and the second book is the wonderful book of the inspired Word of God, which we hold in our hands. And so let's just start off with the first four verses. The heavens declare the glory of God The firmament shows his handiwork.

0:47 Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. The witness of creation. So let's start off with the first half of the first verse.

1:11 The heavens declare the glory of God. The magnificence of the stellar heavens is a declaration by God concerning His greatness and glory. What kind of a being could create such a magnificent work? His power and wisdom exceed our ability to perceive or to measure. He's all powerful and all wise.

1:39 He's God. Creation remains throughout the ages of time as the revelation of who God really is. I'd like us to turn to a couple verses, one in Isaiah chapter 40. We'll be coming back to Psalm 19. Isaiah chapter 40.

1:57 And I'm going to start reading with the twenty fifth verse. Isaiah pondered the wonder of our great God. Verse 25, to whom then will you liken me or to whom shall I be equal? Says the holy one, God speaking here, isn't it? To whom then will you liken me or to whom shall I be equal?

2:20 Says the holy one. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these things. Who brings out their host by number, he calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, or my claim is passed over by the Lord. It's a message to the Israelites at this time, and he's basically saying, if he could do that, then couldn't he handle your little problems?

2:57 And then the twenty eighth verse, have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, faints nor is wiz... Nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

3:15 It's just magnificent, isn't it? That is the witness that stands before our eyes daily in creation, folks. Wonderful. Turn with me to Romans chapter one. Romans establishes men's responsibility before Almighty God.

3:39 In Romans one and two, we're given three tremendous witnesses that God has placed before us. In Romans one, we have the witness of creation. In Romans two, we have the witness of conscience and in the end of Romans two, we have the witness of the word of God and that goes into the beginning part of Romans three. Romans one verse 20, For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead or divinity so that they are without excuse. That's the wonderful witness.

4:27 How do we know? What what is the universal witness that's put before us? It's the witness of creation that God has placed before us that tells us of the all powerful divine being who created this wonderful world in which we live. Let's go back to Psalm 19. So the heavens do indeed declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork, that's the end of the first verse.

5:42 I suppose as David went out there in the fields and he was shepherding his sheep and he's out in the night sky and sits there, and he stares up into the heavens, and he was filled with awe. I suppose the Milky Way came across, not a city light to dim it, and he examine it, he would look at it, and then his heart was lifted up. It means expanse or the arch of the heavens, but what I thought was interesting is that Strong said that that word comes from a base word, raca, which means to pound, and it was used often relative to the artisans who would take a malleable piece of metal and they would pound on it and they would shape it out, the craftsman would take it and pound on it and they would shape it out, it became eventually to be used for a word that they used for overlaying, like they would pound out a sheet of metal and then they would maybe have an image or something that they had made out of stone or wood, and they would pound that metal onto it, overlay it. And so it had a special significance relative to the creation of a craftsman, and that's what I thought was kind of neat as I studied that out, that to understand that the spirit of God used that very word to explain to us the expanse of the heavens that which he, the craftsman, the master craftsman had created.

7:34 Thus the word firmament was applied by the spirit of God to the skilled craftsmanship of God in creating the expanse of the heavens, which appears like a gigantic arc over the head of the observer. The firmament shows the handiwork of God and it displays it continually throughout the lifetime of every man. Now what I'd like to do here is to go through a little slide, a little slideshow of the heavens. These slides are taken from the Hubble. In a way I wish we had a little dimmer light, this looks much nicer on my computer screen than it does up here, but this is actually amazing, an amazing galaxy.

8:33 This is called the Whirlpool Galaxy, and it has these beautiful, graceful spirals, full spirals that spiral all the way around like, well, at least they're way past 180 degrees, they seem to spiral almost all the way around, we are impressed by the magnificence of this. The Whirlpool Galaxy is found in the constellation Canis Venaudix, the one that's called the hunting dogs. This galaxy has been called the darling of astronomy because it's graceful winging arms have a majestic spiral to them. It's estimated to be 31,000,000 light years away, 31,000,000 light years, tremendous, tremendous. Huge, huge, huge, far, far way beyond our, even our imagination, and what does God say about this?

9:40 God says, The heavens declare the glory of God. This one is called Stefan's Quintet. It was discovered by a man called Edward Stefan, clear back in 1877. I looked at it, I said, oh, I only see four, one, two, three, four, but this one here is actually two, and they're so close together that they're interfering with one another. You can see that they do have a sort of a spiral, but their spirals are being connected together.

10:14 I suppose that they're in the process of two huge galaxies coming together to be one, I suppose that'll be a big bang. One of the interesting points in this is that these three here are more or less clustered together, or these four here, these two are actually interfering with themselves, there were some statements somewhere that implied that this one is somewhat interfered, maybe the spiral of it is being pulled into it. This one here is actually a near star compared to these ones, not really near at all, of course, but these ones are estimated to be two ninety million light years away, and this one's estimated to be 40,000,000 light years away, or seven times closer, it just happened to be in the same approximation as from our viewpoint, so it laid it close together. Amazing, amazing, the heavens declare the glory of God. This one here is called a barred spiral galaxy.

11:30 It's estimated to be 69,000,000 light years away, it's in the constellation Eratimus. These barred spiral, they are not quite as perfect a spiral as that other one, but they almost form a Z, don't they, or is that an S? It's a Z, yeah. I'm dyslexic, I guess. It's amazing, amazing.

11:56 Indeed, the heavens declare the glory of God. This one, I thought, was very interesting. It's called the Butterfly Nebula. I had argued with myself, well, should they have called that the kissing angelfish, or should they call it the butterfly? So, I thought the angelfish were kissing them, but this one's kind of interesting.

12:21 This one is actually within the Milky Way itself. This is relatively near, only 3,300 light years away, but it's, they measure the width of the, or the extent of the butterfly nebulae to be about two light years. It's a portion. No doubt there was some tremendous explosion that happened here, they say that these are masses of gas that are blown away from a center, and I don't understand the nature of an explosion that would come out like that, but there it is folks, amazing isn't it, and we view it with wonder. Truly, the heavens declare the glory of God.

13:16 This one here is called the Carina Nebula. I had less information about the Carina Nebula. It's photographed with infrared film, and I think that simply means you would not see this much detail in regular, natural light. This is a time exposure, so they can pick up the darker and the lighter areas of it. It's masses of gas and dust that are blown up, it's called a pillar, it's blowing up from this direction from some kind of a gigantic explosion over here, and I had, you can't see this quite as well as I could in this picture here, this had kinda looked like a cow's head to me, this is his nose, and up here is his eye, and so I had all my imagination going, and then I saw this thing right here, and when you see it with a little more distinctly, it looks almost like a trunk and I said, oh I'm wrong, this is an elephant, this is not a cow.

14:58 The next one goes, day unto day utters speech, and night unto night knowledge. And this is the idea that here is a witness that stands up, every day it's there, and every night this glorious sky is stretched up, and on it goes, year after year after year, day after day, day unto day, utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge. Utters speech. It's like God's talking to us. He's giving us this message and then it says, Night unto night reveals knowledge.

15:40 It's an understanding that we receive from the majesty of the stellar heavens that tells us something of the power and magnificence of God Himself. The next verse, there's no speech or language where their voice is not heard. This is interesting because what it's saying is that creation bypasses the confusion of languages and the diversities of culture. It's a message that's out there for anyone. It doesn't need to be in a particular language.

16:16 There's no speech or language where its voice is not heard. It stands equally before everyone as a witness, as evidence that demands a verdict. What conclusions will we draw when we look at the magnificence of this heavenly creation that God has placed before our eyes? The next verse is, Their line is gone out throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. It's like creation is a book that can be read in any language which testifies of the majesty of the one to whom we must give account.

17:01 Every mature human being is responsible before God as to his or her response to the witness of creation. Since we ourselves are part of this creation, we could deduce that we will be held accountable for how we function within this creation. Interestingly, this verse, the fourth verse of our chapter, is actually quoted in Romans chapter 10, and I would like us to turn to Romans chapter 10 and look at it because I believe it makes the point to us that of the universality of the witness that God has given us. Romans 12, we'll start with verse 17. So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and then he reasons with them.

18:01 But I say, have they not heard? Oh, yes, indeed. Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. And I know I was reading through, sometime back was reading through the book of Romans, and I got to this, and I had not initially said, well let's look back and see what this is referring to, but I got to us, and I just was reasoning with myself. I said, I wonder, how is it that it says that the sound has gone out into all the earth?

18:39 In what sense is that true? And then later on as I was studying it, looked at the references and I found out that this was referring to this chapter, Psalms 19, which talks about the heavens declare the glory of God. And I said, oh, now I understand. I understand the sense in which every single mature adult in this world is responsible before God for the witness of creation that is placed before him. It's a universal witness to all mankind.

20:06 By faith we understand that. The next theme that I ran across relative to creation is this, our infinite God is far greater than His creation. Well that should be obvious, but it's interesting that scripture itself makes that point. Men often miss the real lesson of the magnificence of God and they begin to worship the creation instead of the Creator. In Romans one twenty five, shortly after the verse we read, it says this, They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

20:52 Amen. Here's a couple of verses that I thought were really neat. The first one is from one Kings eight twenty seven. But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold heaven and the heaven of the heavens cannot contain you.

21:13 Think of the magnificence of this God that we hear about in the scriptures. The next one is kind of neat, it's Psalm eight verse one, O Lord our God, how excellent is your name in all the earth who have set your glory above the heavens. And then a final one is kind of neat, it's from Isaiah. It's Isaiah 60 six:one. Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool, where is the house that ye will build me?

21:46 It's just interesting to see that though the glory of the heavens stand before us as a wonderful witness to God, no matter what they witness, they're not as great as what they're witnessing about. Just think of the magnificence of the Lord Himself, He's the creator of it all. Creation, here's another theme, creation is a sort of parable or a teaching tool that God has used to instruct man about how insignificant he is compared to his God. Just as the universe exceeds our capability to measure, and just like the world itself is barely a speck in the vast expanse, even so man is entirely insignificant compared to the God who made him. Now there's a couple of really good verses on this one.

22:52 One is found again in Psalm chapter eight. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, it's neat, isn't it, the way it says it? When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have ordained. What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you visit him? When we were looking at these slides up here, was quoting some of the magnificent distances out there beyond comprehension.

23:22 They're so far out there, and yet, God, and yet God made them and it stated that God is greater than them, and when we look at those tremendous beyond imagination distances, then we have to understand that God is great beyond our ability to perceive. Here's another one, God speaking here. My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts, God speaking. Interesting.

24:08 The Lord Jesus Himself was the creator of this physical universe. This is another theme in scripture. This fact is quoted as proof that He is God. Our Lord Jesus Christ is also the sustainer of the universe for in Colossians it says, in Him all things consist, or subsist, He sustains it. Similar verse in, in, in Acts seventeen twenty eight, He is upholding, or rather in Hebrews one:three, He is upholding all things by the word of His power.

24:49 He's sustaining this universe that we're in, so He's the creator and the sustainer of this vast universe. In Colossians, in John one ten, it says, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him. And in the first of that chapter it says, 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, nothing was made that was made.

25:31 I just, the absoluteness of it, it says, without him, nothing got made. It just didn't happen. He's the one that did it. He is God, Jesus Christ is God Himself, wonderful witness. This next one that I'm gonna give you is, there's a certain amount of deduction in it, there are suggestions of it in scripture.

25:54 The fact that man has come to understand much detail about the mechanisms of the physical world does not detract, but rather enhances the creatorial majesty of the God who made it. So do we understand that just because we learn a great bit through science about the magnificence of this creation, that doesn't make it less. The more we study it, the more grand it comes to us to be. And so one of the neat ones was that when God stood before Job and had this little conversation, and it's an interesting conversation, you may want to look into this sometime, but it's an interesting conversation. God stands before Job and he says this to Job, now prepare yourself like a man, and I will question you and you shall answer me.

27:25 Can't you kind of stand in Joe's shoes for a minute? Where were you when I laid the foundations of work? Tell me if you understand. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know.

27:37 Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Who laid its cornerstone? Then the Lord proceeded to enumerate the wonders of creation. It lasts about two to three chapters.

27:52 It starts in Job 38, near the beginning, and it ends at the beginning of chapter 42. Read it sometime. God just proceeds to enumerate the wonders of creation. Job was awestruck. He went anyway, even from God's sneaky day, went to be awestruck.

28:10 Well, Job was awestruck. He responded, I know you can do anything, I know you can do everything. There's no purpose of yours that can be withheld from you. Job was appropriately awed by God. Shouldn't we be too?

28:28 Shouldn't we be too? Shouldn't it have that effect on our own souls? Indeed, it should. The more we study, the more we understand it. Now this final one is also a conclusion to, or a deduction from it.

28:46 Perhaps the most revealing and most challenging aspect of creation is this, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator God, allowed Himself to be hung on a material cross by His created beings. Imagine, as Jesus Christ hung upon a cross, nailed to a cross, nailed to a cross, He was the Son of God. Now, I know that when Doctor. Lennox was talking about this, he said, Now you're gonna have to answer a question. He said, You're gonna have to answer this question.

29:26 Why would the Son of God be hanging on a cross? And dear people here today, answering that question must draw you to an understanding of the wonder of redemption, that God was doing something that could not be done in any other way, and he brings his son into it, and he allows his son to be nailed, brutally nailed onto a cross, and there he hangs, and we're told in scripture that he was the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, he's the one who's, who's, was the sacrifice for our sins, and thank God for that. Yes, I would say that is, to me, the most challenging aspect of all, in all of creation. Now what I want us to do, and I kind of laughed ahead of time to Laura. I told her I'll probably only be talking about the first six verses, and I'm looking at the time and said that's probably about right.

30:38 I may nudge at the rest of it, but I wanna do this one right. I wanna talk about creation in such a way that where our own hearts are lifted up to glorify this God of the heavens. Chapter 19 again, verse four, we're gonna start in the middle of verse four, that's where my own Bible here puts the paragraph break. Verse four, In them He has set a tabernacle for the Son, which is like a bridegroom coming out of His chamber and rejoices like a strong man to run its race, rising from one end of heaven, its circadist to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. This was my take on this.

31:33 Within the magnificent display of the physical heavens, God has built an allegory concerning Himself. The expanse of the sky provides a setting or a tent into which the sun enters every morning as it begins its magnificent circuit across the sky. This display of majesty is like a strong man running a race who displays his incomparable glory publicly so that all must stand in awe of Him. Furthermore, there is nothing hidden from its heat, so we know that the sun is the source of very life itself of the earth here, that which warms it. So all life is dependent upon this wonderful light of the world, the sun.

32:26 Just like the sun, our God stands above creation. He proclaims His glory through creation in a way that all can see and glorify Him. Certainly, no one is hidden from spiritual energy that emanates from God, as illustrated by the sun. He is the source of life itself, not only of physical life, but of spiritual life. All men sense His presence, whether they discern it clearly or not, whether they discern clearly what it is or not, but they sense His presence.

33:05 I thought there's kind of an awesome verse in Ecclesiastes three eleven. I'm just gonna read it for you. It says this, He has put eternity in their hearts. What does that mean? He's put eternity in their hearts except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.

33:27 It's like God has put into each of our hearts a sense of eternity, that there's something outside of this life, and He's put that sense in our hearts, it's part of our spiritual inheritance, that He's given us this sense so that men seek after God. It's interesting that the Lord Jesus Himself picked up this spiritual allegory. He said, Jesus said, I have come a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not walk in darkness. He picks up the allegory of the light, just as God picked up the allegory of the sun and said that's like himself. Now Jesus says, yeah, I'm the light of the world.

34:12 I am the light of the world, Jesus said. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. I think that's like it says up above, there's nothing hidden from its heat. Both in life and in his death, our Lord Jesus provided the light of life to mankind. I enjoyed this verse from two Corinthians chapter four because it pulls creation into the thought.

34:45 God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the light of the world, the one that gives light to our souls. We are accountable to God for the light that He has given us. Every bit of the light that God has given to us, we're accountable for it. In John three nineteen, it says this, This is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

36:12 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

36:36 The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Moreover, by them your servant is warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Okay, let's kind of examine this. The first statement is, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.

37:04 I had found it interesting as I read through these six declarations. Think Mr. McDonald called this a eulogy to the scriptures. As I read through them, there were so many words that were synonyms of one another, and I was trying to somehow pick up the little nuances, as I've heard it said like this, trying to tease it out, trying to understand why did the Lord say it like He said it. The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul.

37:37 The Law here is the word Torah, which generally is speaking about the five books of Moses, what we call the Pentateuch. It's full of the precepts and statutes of God and that word Torah simply means that, precepts and statutes. In a broader sense for you and me, it would no doubt be referring to the entire inspired word of God, which is recorded for us in the Bible. I enjoyed this verse from Hebrews chapter four, and I'm gonna share it with you. For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

38:39 So here are you and me, and we, in this, here in the chapel here, and I suppose in many many churches, the word of God is opened and it's before us, and we seek to take from the word of God and apply it to ourselves. It has power to the converting of the soul. God's word has power to us. It's able to bring conviction into our hearts and change us. It's got changing power.

39:11 I enjoyed the idea, first of all, a verse from one Peter that says, we're born again, we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Interesting, isn't it? That the word of God... Okay, let me read one more verse. This is found in John five twenty four.

39:41 Most assuredly, I say to you, Jesus speaking here, he who hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. I believe that the way that this works is this way. As the word of God is ministered to you and me, it's opened up just like faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It's opened up and it's ministered to us, and the spirit of God works in our own hearts and it brings it to bear upon our consciences such that we become convicted in our lives. It's life changing, it's converting.

40:24 And as the power, as the conviction of the Holy Spirit is working in my heart and your heart as He applies the word of God, we get born again. Something happens. Something happens. There's a change, and we are now children of God. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.

40:46 It's magnificent, isn't it? The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Now, I like this, the testimony has the idea of a witness of something, just like the creation is a witness, but the Word of God is a witness. That's the very character of the Word of God. The Word of God is the ultimate testimony or witness of God to mankind.

41:13 God's testimony is sure and certain. It can be dependent upon completely. It is faithful. It is as faithful and true as God Himself. That's how faithful it is.

41:30 Here's a couple of verses from Psalm 119. Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Wow, forever, never to change. God has said it, and it won't change. And then the entirety of your word is truth and every one of your righteous judgments endures forever.

41:54 God's word is capable of granting wisdom to us humans who are simple, foolish, and certainly unwise. And we're told also in Psalm 119, the entrance of your Word gives light. It gives understanding to the simple. God's word is magnificent. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

42:23 The next one, The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The statutes are like mandates from God. God's saying, this is the way it is, is a mandate. It's like a tremendous commandment. That is, they are orders or commands which must be obeyed because they bear all the authority of the one who gave them.

42:49 These commandments are from God, they're from God Himself. He's Lord and He reserves the authority as our great Creator God to tell us what we must do. I'm gonna read a verse from Psalm 119. My heart stands in awe of your word. I rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure.

43:17 Let me read that over again. My heart stands in awe of your word. I rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure, Psalm 119. So this was the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

43:41 The authoritative commands of the Lord are characterized as pure. There's no moral dark side to God's expectations for His people. For He is holy and all that He says and does are holy. Your word is very pure, therefore your servant loves it. The next one is the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

44:39 Does it have that effect with me? One of the interesting verses, I'm going to turn to it, even though I know my time is essentially up here. I'm gonna turn to it. Exodus 20 verse 20, and this is, this verse comes after the Sinai experience, and so if you remember that the Lord appeared in thunder and and lightning up on the Mount Sinai, and the children of Israel were standing close to the mountain, and were told that God spoke to them with a God voice from mountain, and He gave the 10 Commandments, a magnificent scene. If you wanna study something that should bring the reverential fear of God into your heart, just read chapters nineteen and twenty of Exodus, and in the course of this occurrence, we're told that the trumpet began to blow.

45:35 Trumpet of God? When you hear in the New Testament we're gonna hear the trumpet, and we're gonna be caught up, well, the trumpet of God blew on Mount Sinai, and it was so loud that the people trembled. It was that loud. I mean, they were just in sensory overload, and then God spoke from heaven, and he gave the 10 Commandments. And so the children of Israel had been standing right up against the mountain, right behind there was a barrier that had been set up there and they were standing right by the barrier.

46:07 And then when it was all over and Moses comes down off the mountain, here are the children of Israel. They're not anywhere close to the mountain. They're way back, we're not told how far, but in my imaginary nation, they're a half mile to a mile back. And they're way back from the mountain, they're scared to death. In this chapter of Exodus, it says in the nineteenth verse, and they said to Moses, you speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die.

46:36 You know, they're just frightened to death. And this was Moses' answer, and I think it helps us to understand what the true reverential fear of God is. Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you that his fear may be before you so that you may not sin. It's interesting, almost contradictory, I mean, if you didn't seek to understand it, what it truly means. Don't fear, so that you might fear.

47:06 Don't fear, so that you might fear. So what does that mean? Well, I think it clearly means that there are two different kinds of fear. There's one kind of fear that we shouldn't have, and there's another kind of fear that we should have. So, I looked up the two words in Strong's again, I was curious about it, and the first fear, when he says do not fear, it's a fear that, he used the words afraid, terrified, affrighted, frightened, that terrible, agonizing fear of one who has no confidence in the God before him.

47:53 But the other fear, and I don't remember exactly what the two words were, but the other fear, the one that you ought to have, when I looked it up, was the reverential fear of God. Both fears recognize the magnificence of the God, but one doesn't have confidence in the God that he's looking at. The other says, yes, he's that magnificent, he's that awesome, but he's my God, he's my God. He's the one that cares enough for me. He would give his son to die on the cross for me.

48:30 That's the kind of fear I wanna have. The reverential fear that that looks upon God and says, You're so magnificent, Father God, but You're still my Father and I love You and I care for You. I wanna do what you want me to do. And dear friends, if there's anyone here in this room that has never come to the Lord Jesus Christ yourself to receive him as savior, I want you to be sure that you realize that that's where it starts. It starts with us believing the Lord Jesus.

49:51 Father God, we thank you for the truth of your scriptures which have been laid before us. They're magnificent, Lord. We're so happy that you have given us a revelation of yourself which is so full and that tells us that you love us even though we are sinners and that you have given your son to die on the cross for our sins. We pray that each one here will have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not only trusted in him, but willing to live their lives in reverential fear of the Almighty God of heaven. We thank you, Father.

50:32 In Jesus' name, amen.