Psalm 104:1-35

“Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of wind: who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed forever. Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth. He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies. He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. Man goeth forth unto his work and his labour until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are they works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD. Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.”

Introduction

“Psalm 104, as we head in to this Psalm, it sits with Psalm 103, 104, 105. Psalm 103 is certainly a Psalm, song of God’s grace. Psalm 104, it begins “Bless the LORD, O my soul,” like Psalm 103, many think David also is the author, his name is not ascribed to the Psalm. But if Psalm 103 is the Psalm of God’s grace, and it is, it says ‘he’s merciful, slow to anger and so forth, that he won’t always chide, he doesn’t keep his anger forever, he hasn’t dealt with us according to our sins, he hasn’t rewarded us according to our iniquities, as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those that fear him, as the east is from the west, so far he’s removed our transgressions, like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth those who fear him,’ it’s a song of the grace of God and his love for his people. As we come then to Psalm 104, it is a song of God’s power and his majesty in his creation. So it’s an interesting picture, because the picture of his grace is given to us first, and then as you look at God in his power, and in his majesty, you think ‘Wow, for him to stoop down, for him to make his ways known to Moses,’ for him to say to us that he doesn’t deal with us according to our sins and our iniquities, our transgressions, is a remarkable, remarkable statement as we now look at this picture of the LORD brought before us in regards to his creative powers and his majesty. So the Psalmist begins here by saying “Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.” (verse 1) Now he goes from his soul, lifts his head, to the LORD. As he goes into verse 2 he starts to talk about God’s creative acts, and he starts to describe the creation of the universe, and the stellar heavens, and then the atmosphere around the earth, and then the seas and the land masses, and possibly the flood and the mountain ranges being thrown up, and the valleys going down, and the way he sustains the ecology and the animal life and so forth. And he goes through this huge and remarkable description for anybody who loves nature, loves creation, it’s one of the most remarkable songs in regards to that.

A Song Of God’s Power & Majesty In His Creation

‘You Cover Yourself With Light As A Garment, You Stretch Out The Heavens Like A Curtain’

Verses 1-2, “Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:” But he begins here, it seems, before creation, and he basically says to us, ‘Creation is God’s garment.’ [It also says, literally, that light is God’s garment, and it is true, God, Jesus glows with unspeakable light, so powerful that it would melt ordinary human beings.] What he’s done in creating the universe and the world is he’s given something for us to view. But because before he did that, he was already clothed with majesty, before there was a human and angel created. Before there was another being outside the Triune God to worship or to appreciate his being or who he was, he was already clothed, it says here, with honour and majesty. So as creation comes into view, he clothes that part of himself in creation. In Romans 1 it tells us that ‘The invisible things of God are clearly seen in the things that are made, his eternal power and his God-head.’ Not the Gospel, but just the fact, Romans tells us, people can’t honestly look at creation and say ‘This all happened by itself.’ Anybody who takes a genuine look at the world around them is struck with order and design. And the more we know, the more, these days, scientists, DNA, the genetic code, epigenetics now, the things that they’re discovering, there’s no way to look at this and say, you know, Darwin said it was a simple cell. He had no idea of the universe that was going on inside that cell. Every scientist that’s worth anything now, has to admit there’s no such thing as a simple cell, it’s incredibly complex. [Comment: For absolute proof of that, order and read Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box.] You know, at John Hopkins they teach Intelligent Design. They don’t say there’s a Creator, they don’t say there’s God, but they said there’s intelligent design, there’s design in all of this, it’s undeniable. So here, before any of that, this is before anybody would say there’s the Big Bang [which in and off itself proves there was a beginning] or anything, there’s God, he’s eternal. It’s created from nothing, before he created, again, there was nothing. It doesn’t say there was just empty Outerspace, without stars, without planets, or light, just darkness and space. No, no, that’s something [something physicists have come to call Space-Time]. Before he created there was nothing, we can’t conceive of that. We have no idea what nothing is. But God was there, and in nothingness, relative to our conceptions, he’s clothed, it says, with honour and majesty, before anybody could ascribe it to him, that’s eternally who he was, remarkably. And then it says here, “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment:” (verse 2a) the idea is to enwrap yourself, he enwraps himself now with the physical, “let there be light,” in the days of creation we hear this. “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:” (verse 2) now all of a sudden there’s something visible. That word “curtain” is used 53 times in the Old Testament, 47 times it’s used of the Tabernacle, it says ‘he stretches out the heavens like a tent, like a tabernacle.’ You know, we look up and see the heavens, one old author I read said “Our roof is his floor.” We look up and see what we see, that’s what’s under his feet, and he’s above all of that. It says here that ‘he covers, enwraps himself in light,’ that helps explain some things to me. Because when you go through the Book of Genesis and the days of Creation, he says “Let there be light” there was no electricity, there was no fire, there were no light bearers, when he creates the sun, the moon and the stars, those are “light-bearers” in the Hebrew, something to bear the light so everybody wouldn’t be freaked out that there was light without it coming from anything. [This concept of light coming first, a short while after the Big Bang, is explained at: http://www.unityinchrist.com/Does/Genesis%201%201-31.html, which is one of the few significant explanations for the Genesis 1:1-31 Creation, which is given from the perspective of God outside of Space-Time, looking at the 6 days of Creation.] But he creates light before there’s a source. Because it says here, he enwrapped himself with it. Yes, he’s going to create stars, the sun, the moon to reflect light, the stellar heavens with light traveling to earth so human beings can see it, it says, to mark off times and seasons and so forth. But before he makes something to bear the light, he makes the light itself. And it says here, it’s because he enwraps himself with light, God’s glory was there in Creation, both making him, evidently, visible and invisible at the same time, dwelling in unapproachable light. It’s an interesting way it’s described in the song, “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment” if there’s light, we know now we have an electromagnetic field, we know we have, there’s something coming into existence. You know, it’s interesting too, because for the longest time, in Einstein’s theory [now law of] Relativity people said ‘Well light, there’s a constant, 186,000 miles per second,’ and that’s very important, to people like Stephen Hawkings, because the only way they can get some of the physics equations they get relative to astrophysics is light has a constant speed. You know, Wilder-Smith when he was here, he has three PhD’s in, and he was friends with Stephen Hawkings, and said, “You know, we had a conversation, because once we discovered black holes, he said Isaac Newton postulated that when light went past the sun, it slowed down and it bent. Because he thought about gravity, and he said, way before anybody could prove that,” He said, “Now we see light being sucked into black holes, we know there’s no constant speed of light across the universe, it bends, it stops, it gets sucked into some of these things.” He said, “What it does is it throws all of their equations out the window and leaves them all scratching their heads.” He said “The more complicated part of it,” I’m just having fun, do you mind? I don’t understand anything I’m saying, but I like stuff that confuses scientists. He said, “The interesting thing about it is, if light is subject to gravity, then we known light itself is matter.” And he said, “And because of Einstein’s theory, we know light is relative to time, then time is relative to matter or part of matter itself, which tells us that you have to have matter to get time, and not time to get matter.” And he said, “It tells us the evolutionists have everything backwards, there couldn’t be time until there was matter, you don’t need time to get matter, you need matter to get time, which only leaves creation as an option.” Here it says ‘he covered himself with light,’ so there’s an electromagnetic field, all this stuff’s happening, ‘as with a garment.’ “who stretched out the heavens like a curtain:” (verse 2) himself, he stretched out the stellar heavens, like a curtain, like a tent, he spread them out. “Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters:” who knows what this is saying, I don’t. The Hebrew says, it doesn’t say “layeth the beams”, it says literally “who causeth to meet the waters with his upper chambers.” It’s a very strange construction. “Who causeth to meet” not “layeth the beams.” He causes these thing to come together, “he causeth to meet the waters with his upper chambers.” Which means it’s up above the stellar heavens, you know, you hear in the creation account, ‘he separated the firmament above the heavens from the firmament below the heavens,’ here it seems to indicate where the throne of God is, there’s some waters there, and he causes something to come together there to meet. It says “who maketh the clouds his chariot:” and if it’s talking about the LORD’s heaven, these are the clouds of his glory [what the Jews term as his Shikinah glory], “who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:” (verse 3) And these are all participles, so the interesting thing is these things are continuing to happen, it indicates. So, that’s why he says ‘LORD, you’re clothed with majesty and glory.’ This is wonderful, to make all of these things happen. And then it comes to the angelic realm, “who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:” (verse 4) some try to say it’s making his ministers like the wind, well Hebrews chapter 1, verse 7 doesn’t agree with that. “who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:” it tells us in Hebrews, it says, “And of the angels he sayeth ‘Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire, but unto the Son he sayeth, Thy throne O God is…’ in other words, he doesn’t say any of that to his angels, we’re told in 2^nd Thessalonians ‘And to you who are troubled (about what’s going on in the world), rest with us. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.’ So it says here, ‘he creates his angels, he maketh them, these ministering spirits, a flaming fire,’ “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.” (verse 5) go on perpetually.

The Earth In Its Initial Creation

And then it says, “Thou coverest” again, it’s interesting, I’m having fun, I’m sorry, I’m hanging in here, I’m not even looking up to see if everybody’s sleeping. Look, it says, “Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.” (verse 6) the foundations of the earth, is what he’s talking about. So this seems to describe the earth in its initial creation (i.e. a water-planet), if there were no mountains on the earth, if the earth just had a level surface, the entire surface of the earth would be 6,000 feet underwater. The entire surface, 6,000 feet underwater, if there were no hills and no mountains [also if there were no continental shelves, or Pacific basin. When the earth was 2 billion years old or less, when the rocks were still molten, the tidal effect created by the sun on the molten rock built up due to a certain harmonic imbalance which almost all geologists feel threw off a huge ball of liquid granite rock, granite which makes uppermost of the outer crust of the earth, underlying the deeper basalt layer. Thrown out as a liquid it formed into a ball and assumed orbit around the earth, solidifying into what is now our moon. Deep core drilling in the Pacific basin finds almost no granite beneath the sediment, only basalt. The Pacific basin holds more ocean water than any other part of the world’s oceans. The continental shelves are up-thrusting parts of the earth’s crust.] This seems to be that description, because it’s not, because it’s a couple days in when he finally separates the land from the water. It says here he “laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. Thou coverest it [the foundations of the earth] with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.” (verses 5-6) Then it says “At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.” (verse 7) and the question is, as we get to verses 7, 8, 9, is he talking about Noah’s Flood? The change that took place. Now the people, Henry Morris, some of the scientists say ‘Well first of all, there couldn’t be thunder, thunder is relative to lightning, relative to rain,’ down in verse 13 he says “He watereth the hills” that’s post-Flood, in verse 21 he talks about the lions seeking their meat, their prey, that’s post-Flood, so somewhere in here it seems to be, he talks about the primeval earth, before the Flood [and before man], the way it was designed, the way it was pulled together, he clothed himself in light, the things that he set above are the stellar heavens in the divine heavens, relative to us. And then the earth pulling together into a mass, electromagnetic field, and the fact that the surface of it, even the original mountains were all underwater. Then it seems that, and you can have your opinion, I’m happy either way, to tell you the truth. He says “At thy rebuke” now there seems to be something there that’s wrong for a rebuke, “they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.” [Comment: the subject is the water that covered the earth like a garment, verse 6. So “they” in “they hasted away” is the waters covering the mountains. Could be at the original creation of continents, the waters flowing off of them as they were created. It could also double as a statement of the waters of Noah’s Flood hasting away from the mountains as that water dried up. This verse 7 could cover, and probably does cover both events] “They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.” (verse 8) Dabers says here “The mountains ascended and the valleys descended,” that’s the idea. “They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.” (verse 8) The idea is, the waters running off, you see the destruction, the valleys around the earth, and the Grand Canyon and so forth. You know, the huge impact of the water running off. You have a picture here of mountains pushing their way up, coming up, and then of these deep places, the valleys, going down, and the water pouring into those basins, and he says “Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.” (verse 9) “that they turn not again” so something had happened before. Look, “that they turn not again to cover the earth.” It’s not going to happen again. Next time it happens, the earth is destroyed by fire, not by a flood (cf. Revelation 20:14-15; 21:1). So, interesting picture. Look, you know, every spring you take your car and your tires need to be aligned. Particularly now that we had pot-hole heaven all winter. And folks here in the church with tires, the stores, they can’t keep tires in, they can’t keep rims in, everything was just getting beat up, and then you have to align them, you put them on that machine, and they spin it, and then you hammer on those lead things, and the light goes on and tells you when the tire is balanced. Well this is what he had to do, it says here, with the earth after the flood, he put the mountains up [and this could, as I said, refer to both the original creation of oceans and then continent building, and later also be referring to Noah’s flood period], and then he had to hack out some trenches, and hammer on some lead on the other side [creation of the moon by extracting a mass of molten granite and basalt rock out, creating the Pacific basin and the moon, which is a huge counter-balance for the earth, a perfect counterbalance, that makes the ocean’s tides moderate instead of huge], you have the Marianna Trench, over 5 miles deep, think of the thousands and thousands and thousands of feet how deep it is, so that the earth spins and it’s balanced. Ah, ‘let’s put another mountain range here, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, you know, water’s heavier, you gotta put it here,’ And there’s this remarkable system, there’s 330 cubical million miles of ocean on the planet, 330 cubical million miles on the surface of the earth. And there’s a hydro-system, 1.5 trillion tons of rain fall every day on the planet, 1.5 trillion tons of rain fall every day. I forget, forgive me, how many lightning strikes there are around the planet every day. The scientists are just coming to understand the necessity of evaporation, what has to take place for that to happen, and then for the particles to become ionized, and then through thunder and lightning, for them to coalesce into particles big enough, wet enough, to turn into drops to fall again, because you couldn’t have all those tons of water fall out of the sky, they’d kill everybody and crush everything. So they have to coalesce into drops, so when they come down, they can be productive. The whole science of how that happens is still something that they’re getting down on paper and figuring out. He says here, balance the planet, mountains on one side, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Grand Titons, Kathy and I got up last summer to the Canadian Rockies, I like the mountains. I married into a beach family, I don’t know what to do, they all want to sit on the beach and get sand between their toes and sand in their ears, sand in their fingers, sand in their clothes. I want to sit in the mountains somewhere with a hoodie and a cup of coffee, and my Bible. I married into beach people, so it’s, heaven’s going to be different I’m sure. [Actually Pastor Joe, the Millennial Kingdom of God is going to be spent on earth, and then after the new heavens and new earth are created, the New Jerusalem is going to come down to earth, where resurrected, immortal mankind will spend eternity with God---on earth.] They go up, the mountain ranges being thrown up, the valleys and places like the Marianna Trench being thrown down, look, his genius, “unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.” (verses 8b-9) God has this hydro-system, it’s functioning, it’s gracious, and he set the boundaries of it, so everything stays in balance. [I’m reading Rachel Carson’s books about the oceans, all of them, and oh boy, are the oceans a balanced and highly complex system, including all the life-forms in them. It’s astounding, the balance. And when something changes, such as global warming, the system and the life-forms are self-compensating, amazingly enough.]

A Calvary Chapel Digression Into Alcohol Abuse

“He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.” (verse 10) the aquifers and so forth [as well as the entire river and spring systems], “They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.” (verse 11) God is gracious to his own creation. “By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.” (verse 12) that’s an interesting idea, by the way, sing among the branches. There’s some scientists that feel, you know, you don’t care, there’s some scientists that feel that certain of the birds in their migratory patterns, when the buds, the frequency of certain birds returning, singing, help open the buds on the trees, there’s a whole science, worthless to anybody, but I love this kind of stuff…It says here ‘he causes the fowls to sing among the branches.’ “He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.” (verse 13) rain, this is post-flood for sure. “the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;” (verses 13b-14) and it says, “and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.” (verse 15) Isn’t interesting, it’s not just he’s supplying food for the animals so they can live, but for man, it says he’s producing something that gladdens the heart, it makes his countenance shine, that strengthens his inner being, it’s very interesting this structure of what it’s saying here. It’s not, by the way, ‘Now that’s my favorite verse, I’m going make a bumper-sticker out of it, God makes wine that gladdens the heart,’ it’s not all that wine does, by the way. [by the way, Calvary Chapel’s teach total abstinence, even though it’s not Biblical. The Bible teaches extreme moderation in the consumption of alcohol. But since they started out as a hospital-type church/denomination, ministering to the Hippies, who had a large percentage of drug and alcohol abusers who were coming to Christ, that is why they have always taught total abstinence. They continue to reach out to those hurting from those abuses. But in reality, the Bible teaches extreme moderation for alcohol consumption. If partaken in that manner, a person will never cross over into becoming alcoholic.] Proverbs says this about wine, it says “Who hath woe, who has sorrow, who hath contentions, who hath babbling,” you’ve heard some of that, some of the contentions, wine-courage, beer-courage, “who hath wounds without cause” I’ve woken up with some of those, long time ago, BC, “who hath redness of the eyes, they that tarry long at the wine, they that go and seek mixt drink. Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth it’s color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright, [this last part of the verse quoted is referring to wine that is still in the process of being fermented, which in OT times people used to drink for an extra kick], “at the last it biteth like a serpent, it stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women,” and the longer you drink the better they look, that’s just the way it goes, “thine eyes shall behold strange women, thine heart shall utter perverse things,” it intoxicates your inner being, “yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,” I remember those days, put the foot on the floor, trying to keep the bed from tossing and turning [or spinning around], “like him that lieth in the midst of the sea or as he that lieth on the top of the mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, I was not sick, They have beaten me,” I’ve been there, “and I felt it not.” That’s till the next morning. “When shall I awake, I am going to seek it again.” That’s a stupid person. And I was one, I was an expert in it, trust me. And he says this, this is the wisest man that ever lived [until he married 700 wives and took for himself 300 concubines], “It is not for kings, Lemuel, to drink wine, nor for princes,” civil authorities, “to drink strong drink.” Just for your information, Washington D.C. has more alcoholics per capita than any place in the country, but that’s an aside thought. “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, to drink wine, nor for princes to drink strong drink,” why? “lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert judgment of any of the afflicted.” It’s not for leaders to indulge. And the priests weren’t allowed to come and minister under the influence of wine, the Nazarite took the vow not to touch the grape and so forth. ‘Well I want to be like Jesus, Jesus drank, I want to be like Jesus too.’ And he said ‘I’m no more going to drink the fruit of the vine until I drink it anew in my Father’s Kingdom,’ when Jesus gives me wine, I’m drinking it. But until then, I ain’t touching it. And besides that, look, the economy’s crumbling, folks, they struggle to put money in the offering, the pastors on staff know, we find out your drinking, you’re fired, because it’s a sacred trust, you put the money in the offering to do the Lord’s work, that’s not so somebody can go to the State Store and do something stupid with it. So, and besides, look, the guys we work with here, I think, without saying a word, they’re just such great men of conviction. [Comment: Notice this is talking about the abuse of wine consumption, not drinking it in extreme moderation. My ex’s grandparents were old-world Sicilian, came over from Sicily when they were both 14 years old. Papa, as he was called, would sit at the head of the table with a big jug of homemade wine next to his feet. He would dispense out tiny glasses of wine for everybody at the table. It was very seldom if ever that anyone dared ask for a third refill. The Bible teaches extreme moderation, not abstinence. Solomon was pointing out what the abuse or over-consumption of wine does, as does all types of alcohol. Drinking in extreme moderations will never lead to alcoholism. Again, this is a Calvary Chapel teaching to avoid all consumption, basically because they still minister to alcoholics and drug abusers, and they don’t want to cause those people who are recovering to stumble. You have to understand where their ministry is coming from, and who some of the people they minister to are. But their teaching of total abstinence is not entirely Biblical. Alcohol is one of the biggest drug scourges in our society today. But he has steered way off course in this discourse, because he’s taking this verse out of context to suit Calvary Chapel teaching, instead of putting the verse into proper context. This they cannot do, due to their stance on teaching about alcohol consumption, to accommodate those who come into their churches struggling with alcoholism and drug abuse. It’s a sensible stance, but they ought to be more honest about what the Word of God actually teaches, and why, extreme moderation in consumption, and if you can’t abide by that, abstain completely.] So, but here, in the Old Testament, understand this, when you crushed the grapes, there was no such thing as Welch’s Grape Juice, when you crushed the grape, it was wine. If it was a minute old, if it was an hour old, if it was a day old, it was wine. There’s nothing here, it says here that God in his creation, what he provides from the ground, through the rain, it’s talking about his genius, the idea is, there’s wine, the blood of the grape, to make the heart of man glad [I think he’s not being accurate here, wine is wine, and grape juice is grape juice, or else the Bible would have said “fruit of the grape.”] there’s the oil to make his face to shine, health and so forth, the bread which strengthens the heart, God had all of these things in mind as he designs the ecosystem.

The Trees Of The LORD

“The trees of the LORD are full of sap;” they’re verdant, they’re full of life, “the Cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;” I think that may be my favorite tree, let me think, I think it is, Cedrus Lebanai, I like the Diadoras, don’t get me wrong. You know, in the Himalayas they get 200 feet tall, we got a couple planted around here. I like the Redwoods, but you can’t get them to grow on the East Coast, they just won’t do it, they grow in Scotland and a few places in Japan, but mostly on the West Coast, they like the updrafts, the dampened air and everything. But you can get the Sequoias to grow here, we got a couple planted around the church, and they won’t look good for 800 years, but they’ll grow back here. So, during the Millennium I’ll stop back and say ‘See those huge Sequoias, that’s where the church was.” Won’t be much else left, but it will mark where we were right here, I got one growing in my yard too. But the Cedrus Lebanai, the Cedars of Lebanon, you know, some of these, they’re spherical, they have a point until they get aged, then they spread out, there’s no more, there’s this huge tree, they put out their branches. And some of them, harvested by Hiram for Solomon and David when they built the Temple, those trees where 2,000 years old. Here God right after the Flood, put those things in the ground and started growing them, because he knew he needed them for the Temple someday. These incredible, incredible trees, “The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;” (verse 16) famous throughout the Bible, throughout the world, the cedars of Lebanon, “which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.” (verses 16b-17) because little babies like the fir, stay with me here, storks, it’s a joke in the middle of all this, Discovery Show stuff, “where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.” (verses 16-18) you go to Israel, you see this little, they look like ground hogs, but they live in the rocks and they’re all over Israel when we go there, and the wild goats. [Maria, Joey and I discovered while rowing in an uninhabited Maine harbor, where four or five Great Blue Herons were roosting in very tall pine trees. Herons are related to storks.]

The Order Of Things

“He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.” (verse 19) It says that right in Genesis 1. “Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.” (verse 20) so, nocturnal animals come out to go after their prey. “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.” (verse 21) that’s definitely post-Flood there. “Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.” (verse 23) so a lot of the beasts of prey, it says, they’re out at night. Man goes out during the daytime to do his work. We’ve confused a lot of that in our culture these days. There’s a lot of wild beasts out during the day right now, and there’s too many men that are nocturnal. But the idea is here, there’s even order in the response to the daylight, the sun rising and so forth, the things that are going on around us, just remarkable. Because the bigger it is, the more burns at a time, because the surface is greater. You go back a million years, you almost have the surface of the sun touching the surface of the earth. The sun, rising and setting. You think, you know, we’re 93,000,000 miles away, so we don’t think about it a whole lot. The sun is burning, presently, they estimate, 4,200,000 tons of mass a second. 4,200,000 tons of mass per second, right now. Think of that, for a few seconds [or 2.52 billion tons per minute]. You’re way up in the millions after a few seconds. And no doubt, it was bigger before, must have had more of a surface, but just, you think of that, you take that equation, they say the earth is so many billion years old [4 billion], they say all this stupid stuff [it’s not stupid, it’s science, based on solid physics]. If you take that 4,200,000 tons a mass per second, and back that up 100,000 years, you have the oceans boiling on earth. It’s too hot, because the bigger it is, the more it burns. [Something’s wrong with his solar physics, he needs to consult an astronomer, as the sun has been a very stable medium/small size star for billions of years, maintaining its size over that time period, as all your astronomy books show. Less than 2 percent of the sun’s hydrogen has been converted to helium. Mass loss in a star does not equate to size loss, for a star is a giant burning ball of gas, with it’s size determined by outward force of light balanced carefully with gravitational forces at the center. A star, for the most part is a highly balanced and stable thing, that maintains size, luminosity and temperature over billions of years for the medium/small sized yellow-white stars like our sun. Blue stars, far more intense in temperature and burn-rate, can die out much quicker. Something’s wrong here, dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago, according the accurate geological record of the rock. Pastor Joe must believe in the literal six days of creation interpretation, from the creation of the heavens in Genesis 1:1 to the earth and all its life-forms. But his mentor and protégé, Pastor Chuck Smith in his NKJ study Bible expressed firm belief in the Gap Theory, which allows for the ancient age of earth and the universe, and yes dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and for the six literal days of creation of animal and plant life-forms conducive to man, and man himself, within six literal days. So there’s difference of opinion here, right within the Calvary Chapel pastors here, and what they teach in this secondary area of Scriptural interpretation. See p. 107 of THE WORD FOR TODAY BIBLE, New King James Version, Nelson, 1755BG, comment, “CREATED IN SIX DAYS?” to see what Pastor Chuck Smith wrote and said on this subject. The Gap Theory interpretation is one of the two interpretations for Genesis 1:1-31 that I have presented on this site at: http://www.unityinchrist.com/Does/Genesis%201%201-31.html.]…”The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.” (verse 22) and then man goes about his work, to labor until evening, “Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.” (verse 23)

The Oceanographer’s Verse

“O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.” (verse 24) just what God has done, and what we’re discovering, and the more and more we learn, the earth is just filled with the riches and the wisdom of God. “So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. “ (verse 25) [Comment: proven by what we’ve discovered within the past century in oceanography. I’m currently reading all the books written by Rachel Carson, and it’s amazing the intricacy of atmospheric, chemical and biochemical, and life-form balances within the world’s oceans. When something changes, such as the effects of warming seas, which she says actually began in the 1930s through 1950s, and really accelerated in the decades after she died, but she noted that the ocean’s bio-systems, as intricate as they are, adapt quite amazingly to such changes, there’s amazing resiliency built into the oceananic biosphere.] The LORD’s order, of nature itself. And you know, the Jews were not really a maritime people. [Comment: Under David, and later Solomon, an alliance was made with Hiram and the Phoenicians he was king over, and under this alliance was formed a naval-merchant marine force of ships, which under Solomon circumnavigated the world, mining wealth, even out of North America, such as copper, and tin out of Wales. This alliance remained strong under the 10-tribed northern kingdom of Israel right up past king Ahab and queen Jezebel. So whoever wrote this Psalm has some knowledge coming in, probably from that source. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/kings/1.html for an interesting study on this subject. Refer also to Barry Fell’s two books Saga America and America B.C. which document this thoroughly through archeological and linguistic finds on the North American continent.] The Phoenicians surpassed everybody during those ages. Solomon had several navies [and they were in direct alliance with the Phoenician navy and merchant marine, in fact, they were combined, so that Israelite sailors served right alongside Phoenician sailors, so much so, that inscriptions have been found in the American Midwest, bearing both Hebrew and Phoenician letters (Punic Iberian/Hebrew)], and no doubt sailed the Indian Ocean, and from the Red Sea [out through Gibraltar, to Wales, northern Europe, across to the American continent, and even across the Pacific ocean], and sailed the Mediterranean maybe to Britannia, maybe that far [you still don’t have a clue, Pastor Joe], but the Phoenicians made those voyages all the time. So for the Jew, standing out looking at the Mediterranean [after the civil war between the Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of Israel], most of the time the Jewish people were land people. And they would just hear these tales of, as the sailors would come in, of these great creatures and these different things. And here the Psalmist says “So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.” (verse 25) [To me, this is the oceanographer’s Psalm, and I’m a frustrated oceanographer, always wanted to be one, but never had the chance, educationally, being a remedial reader, way too much college involved. But I’m always reading about things to do with the oceans and their lifeforms. I also wanted to be an astronomer, but again, same problem.] “There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.” (verse 26) By the way, leviathan, not a crocodile, the leviathan is not a whale, ok, if you go get the tapes on Job, we took a lot of time and looked at the leviathan there and in the other places, where he shows up in the Scripture, and a lot of historic events, captain’s logs and so forth of different things they’ve seen in the ocean, cryptozooloogy, you get those books, you hear about all those things. But these types, seems like a plesiosaurus it seems, type of a creature, but much larger, even talks about fire-breathing. “There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.”

What Is This ‘Breath Of Life’?

Even leviathan is dependent upon you. “Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.” (verses 26-29) isn’t that interesting? The breath of life. What is that? You know that doctors and scientists still don’t know, they understand very well the breathing apparatus, and how air is taken into the lungs [or filters oxygen out of the water via gills], the pressure of our atmosphere, how oxygen then gets into the bloodstream, supplies. They understand the breathing apparatus, but they don’t understand what life is, it’s immeasurable, they still don’t understand what life is, what the breath of life is. They understand what the brain is, a piece of meat that sits in your head, they still don’t quite understand the mind, which seems to ride above the brain. [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm for an interesting study about the spirit-in-man.] When you’re born you have a brain, you got a piece of meat in your head, it’s in a place where it’s protected, because you’d ruin it if it was in a soft place. But when you’re born that piece of meat is not a Republican, it’s not a Democrat, it hasn’t decided whether it likes chocolate or vanilla or strawberry, it’s not a liberal, it’s not a conservative, it’s just the machine that processes all the data, and somehow arising out of that there’s something different, which is the mind itself. It says ‘We have the mind of Christ,’ the New Testament tells us. But here it says when God withdraws his breath, the breath of life, there’s death, and there’s the return to the dust. Then he says, but “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.” (verse 30) every spring the earth comes back to life, we’re watching that now, I love to watch it. But it’s saying here, that when new life issues forth, God gives to it the breath of life. Human beings, no doubt, more complex than animals, because it seems a triunity, a body, soul and spirit [actually the clear Biblical definition of “soul” is that the soul is comprised of the spirit-in-man and the human body, this is what makes up the soul in the true Biblical sense. When one marries, the spirit-in-man of both man and woman intermingle, making a picture in a sense of the Triune God, Jesus, the Father, connected by the Holy Spirit. That is probably why God hates divorce so much. For an interesting study of the spirit in man, again see http://www.unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm.] But the idea is, every time, in Hebrews in chapter 2, it says ‘He breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of,’ and it’s plural, ‘the breath of lives.’ So, at conception the breath of lives, that were breathed into Adam by God, is present at conception [i.e. the spirit-in-man goes into the egg at conception, so human life, Biblically speaking, begins at conception.]. The child is a child at conception, not at birth, something is passed along. And it’s a mystery to the scientific world. “Thou sendeth forth thy spirit, they are created:”, there’s an entity, and individual entity, “and thou renewest the face of the earth.” (verse 30) “The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.” (verse 31) I’m glad. aren’t you? And the greater works are still yet ahead of us. It tells us in Revelation chapter 21 that the present heavens and the present earth are going to flee away, and it says there, ‘Behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth,’ and when it talks about it in Isaiah, it specifically uses the word bara, that he creates a new heavens and a new earth, that word means “create something from nothing.” So the present heavens and the earth are going to flee away, and we’re going to be with our heavenly Father, washed in the blood of his Son, and we’re going to get to hear him say ‘Let there be light,’ we’re going to get to watch our Father in an act of creation, as he brings into existence a whole new heavens and earth, a whole new realm for us to dwell in with the holy city of Jerusalem. So it says “the LORD shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.” (verses 31-32) there’s volcanic activity, things going on. “I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.” (verse 33) so will you and I. amen? That’s a good thing to do. You know, Don and Jean McClure here, her mom had Alzheimer’s, and at the end, Don said it was the most interesting study of the difference between the soul and the spirit, because she would say “Who are you again?” you know, you kind of loose your…it was very heart-wrenching. And at the end she couldn’t remember anything, she couldn’t talk. But he said, “If we started a hymn, the whole thing would just pour out of her mouth.” [That was the Holy Spirit indwelling her, giving her spiritual memory, the Holy Spirit coupled to her spirit-in-man, which is all linked into her physical brain, that is probably closer to what the “soul” is.] He said, “If we started a Psalm, the entire Psalm would just come out of her mouth,” and the thing is, it says we’re to sing and make melody to the Lord with our hearts, it’s the spirit-of-man that’s able to be involved in these things of God, not just our mental consciousness, but the very spirit-of-man, which doesn’t get effected by all Alzheimer’s. He said it was the most interesting study of the difference between the soul and the spirit. Here in her consciousness she can’t remember anything. But if you started something, her spirit would step right into it [her spirit-in-man coupled to God’s Holy Spirit].

‘May It Be Pleasing Beside Him, My Pondering’

“I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My mediation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.” (verses 33-34) You like the way that sounds? ‘My meditation of him shall be sweet.” And it should be, shouldn’t it, as we sit around and think of him. The Hebrew says this, “may it be pleasing beside him, my pondering.” That’s the way it is literally written out, it says “may it be pleasing beside him, my pondering.” You know, David was saying, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, my LORD, my redeemer.” Here it says “may it be pleasing” what? ‘my pondering, may it be pleasing beside him, my pondering.’ You know, in the presence of God, the things that we ponder in our mind, and we wrestle with, and we go over and over, David says, or the Psalmist says, ‘I want it to be pleasing to him, and I don’t want my mind to be going places it shouldn’t go,’ Paul says ‘We should bring every thought into the captivity of Christ.’ But yes, I think, my meditation of him is going to be sweet, because we love him. But it’s also wonderful to think that he cares how we think, ‘may it be pleasing beside him, my pondering.’

The Only Thing That’s Out Of Whack In This Perfect Creation Of God

And then here, this, “Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.” (verse 35) you read this whole beautiful thing, this incredible Psalm, ‘I’m going to sing to him as long as I live, I’m going to sing praise unto God in my being, may my mediation to him be sweet, I’ll be glad in the LORD, and let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.’ It’s almost like the Psalmist comes to the end, and says ‘you know, the only discordant thing in all of this, the only thing that’s out of place, the oceans behave, the mountain ranges, the ecology, the hydro-systems, the genius of God, all of the things he’s done, all the things he’s doing, all of the wonder in the animal kingdom, and the great seas, the rain that comes, in everything there’s an order, there’s a genius. The one discordant thing is mankind, the thing that’s out of kilter are human beings, thumbing their nose at God,’ you know, and just ‘We’re gonna to decide what morality is, we’re gonna decide whether we came from monkeys or not.’ You know, that’s a real triumph, isn’t it? The Bible says we’re a little lower than the angels, I’d rather be a little lower than the angels than a little higher than the monkeys, but that’s up to people, they can make up their own minds. [I got it, Pastor Joe, when you’re saved, born-again, you’re a little lower than the angels. When you’re unsaved, you’re a little higher than the monkeys.] And the one discordant thing in the beauty of all this song, he says, is sinful man. “Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” Maybe he’s thinking of the first time God cleansed the earth, the second time comes with fire. “Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” Ah, I don’t think that’s the attitude God wants us to have here, as Christians. As long as we’re on this ball of dirt, we have an endeavor from God’s heart to fulfill. He says ‘You alone’ it’s emphatic in the Greek, he says, ‘you alone are the light of the world.’ You alone, the Church [greater Body of Christ], ‘You alone are the salt of the earth, nobody else, distinct from all others.’ And again, you don’t hear light, you see it. So, it’s the way we behave. People watch us. People that are never gonna read a Bible are going to read you. And you don’t hear salt, you taste it. And salt is a preservative, and right now the reason that this whole thing doesn’t go up in smoke, which is what the Psalmist was looking forward to, is because the Church is here, and we are a preservative. And look, again, I got saved in 1972, sometimes my attitude is ‘Now, ok Lord, I’m in, get us outa here!’ but there’s a lot more like me I know that he wants to save. If I can get in, anybody can get in. Don’t shake your head yes, if you got in, anybody could get it too. You should be worrying a little bit more about yourself there. But he is saying, the one thing that’s out of kilter, you look at the world that we live in, you look at the beauty, you go to the Rockies or the Alps, the mountains, you see beautiful valleys, look at the streams, the one thing, you turn on the news, the thing that’s all messed up, you turn on the news and see what people are doing, to each other, man’s inability to govern himself, you look what’s going on in the world, it’s insane [just for one example of this, see http://www.time.com/syria-white-helmets/], it’s insane. And again, just we’re told where we would be, we’re told what to watch [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophecies/2ndcoming_4.htm and

http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zechariah/Zechariah4.htm], again, the stumbling block of, the cup of trembling right now, the city of Jerusalem, all the nations of the world standing around scratching their heads, ‘What do we do about the Jews, what do we do about this people that have come back to the land, what do we do?’ you know, it’s a cup of trembling, ‘What do we do about this?’. “Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” that day will someday come. We have work to do until then. “Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.” (verse 35) and then this last statement, “praise ye the LORD”, first time in the Book of Psalms, the Hebrew word is “Hallelujah,” first time. The next Psalm, the next song is going to end with the same word, “hallelujah.”

In Closing

Incredible song, God’s power, God’s majesty, God’s genius, the song before this, but he’s gracious, he doesn’t deal with us according to our sins and so forth, doesn’t reward us according to our transgressions, as a father pitieth his children. And then he goes into this song, and says, ‘before the world was even formed he was clothed with majesty and glory, before anybody could ascribe it to him.’ And then he brings the physical universe into existence, and he clothes himself in light, so that he’s both visible and invisible, unapproachable at the same time, this is the way he laid out the electromagnetic fields, the way he laid out the stellar heavens, the spiritual heavens, the atmospheric heavens, this is what he’s done with the oceans, so forth, and he’s done all of this, and he cares about the sparrow, Jesus tells us, not one falls to the ground he doesn’t take note of, all of these things set up, in order, his genius, his love, his grace, and the only thing that’s outa whack is your neighbour, your aunt, you know.’ But he ends by saying, ‘You know what? I’m going to sing, hallelujah.’ That’s a good thing to do. Isn’t it interesting, that we can sing, in the world that we live in, and mean it from all of our hearts? So, why don’t we do that, we’ll have the musicians come, we will lift our voices and lift our hearts. I encourage you, these are long Psalms now, so as the Lord tarries, read ahead into Psalm 105, 106, 107, and then they get short again, you go through like 111, 112, 113, 114, and then when we get to Psalm 119, then we got a long one again, we’ll be in there for awhile. But I encourage you to be reading ahead. Let’s stand, let’s pray…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Psalm 104:1-35, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]