Sunday, November 23, 2025 AM

Praise, Thanksgiving, and the Fear of the Lord

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day that you have made. We thank you that you have filled this world that you have made with your glory, with your life, with your wisdom, that everywhere we would look,.

We see.

The traces of you and your image. We are blessed, very, very blessed in this life. I thank you for the many times that you bring, the many opportunities that you create for us to pause and to reflect on what kind of a God you are and what kind of a creature you have made us to be.

I thank you for the opportunity this week for the celebration of Thanksgiving here. I pray that we would take the most opportunity we can that you would bless us in that. Lord, that we would do more than engage in the proper and good discipline of Thanksgiving, but Lord, that you would fill our hearts with thanksgiving.

That there would be an effusive praise from our lips, from our hearts to your name. And that we would be.

Bold.

And happily so to say who deserves all the credit and all the glory. Now Father, as we look at your word, as we consider the work of your son and his person, I pray that by your spirit you would cause there to be a warm amen in our hearts of this word that you have given to us from heaven.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs chapter 3. We'll be reading verses 19 and 20 this morning. It occurs to me that I've used this title before, but what comes around goes around.

Fundamental.

To the happiness of man and the wisdom that we were made to live by is this. The fear of the Lord. That we should think of God first and think of him most. As brother Ken prayed, that we would love God first and love God.

Most. That we would.

Confess him first and confess him most. The fear of the.

Lord.

This is the clearly expressed.

Purpose.

Of Solomon's.

Proverbs.

This is the goal of his systematic teaching of wisdom.

Another.

Way to say it is that we should become so heavenly minded we're of some earthly.

Good. Because of all of.

The senses that we possess, there is one without which we are blind, deaf, and numb. A sense of God. A sense of our maker governing all things for his own glory. And our verses in Proverbs help us with that this morning.

I invite you to stand with me if you are able to read God's holy word. Proverbs 3 verses 19.

And 20. This is the word.

Of the Lord.

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth. By understanding he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths were broken up and clouds dropped down the dew. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

You may be seated. You may have noticed, those of you who are interested in this, that the calculation boards of scientific consensus are a mess. In just the last couple of decades and even the last couple of years, that wall-sized chalkboard.

Full of.

Subatomic and cosmological certainties has all been changing. Certainly, the case with the other wall-sized dry erase board full of microbiological and zoological assumptions. The classroom of scientific consensus is full of smudges and smears.

There are new gaps and there are fresh question marks. The erasers are having a hard time keeping up. And why is that? Because the technology of our tools is outpacing the imagination of our scientists.

In the very place where the scientists have loved to say,.

This is the edge.

Of the world as we know it. We have come to the brink. There is nothing else in that direction. In those very places,.

The.

Hadron Collider and the James Webb Telescope, cryo-electron microscopes and the deep-sea submersibles are all saying, wait a minute, there's more. Oh, and here's some more. And there's.

More over there. And the.

More that the scientists see, the more certain.

They are.

That they are not.

Certain. They are.

Less certain, they and their students, about the edge of the world and the shape of tomorrow. Now, this current disruption has less to do with what is being daily discovered and more to do with what long has been forgotten.

It is what our text reminds us of, that God created all things and he governs all things. He has founded all things, he governs all things, and whatever we are able to know for sure that is true, God reveals that to us as well.

What.

We are reminded of in this short passage is what confronted David and Moses and.

Israel, Abraham.

And Noah. This is what Adam knew from the very first moment that he breathed the breath of life, that God is almighty.

And needs nothing. God.

Is almighty and he needs nothing. The giver of all life.

Rules all.

Life. He is the.

Alpha and the omega, he is the author of all things. He is the author of the introduction and the conclusion, the forward and the epilogue, the title, the footnotes, and everything in between. Oh well, then you're saying that God is the author of evil, sin, and injustice too.

I do believe there was a class action lawsuit filed by Job and Associates. If you're interested to see how that went, you can read the end of Job. If you're interested in getting in on the legal action, you can dial 1 -800-WOE-IS-ME.

Wisdom, Praise, and Creation in Proverbs 3:19-20

Solomon's purpose in composing this brilliant couplet of verses is praise. This is obviously praise, but praise is the.

Proper form.

To carry so much doctrinal significance in such a small package. A vast expression of truth expressed in a very small amount of words. That's what praise accomplishes. Praise is God's gracious choice, and it makes sense, given that he puts galaxies into molecules.

Praise is so full of his truth in such a small amount of.

Space. Praise.

Kindly leads us to confess God's glory. Truth and goodness are best conveyed upon the course of beauty. So in the poetry of Solomon, as he conveys forth the wisdom of the fear of the Lord, he does so by means of.

Praise. And the.

Truth, goodness, and beauty of God are all best seen in the person of Jesus Christ, who we are informed is the firstborn over all creation. For by him, by Christ, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. In verse 19, we see this very basic point that God founded all things by wisdom. Verse 19 says, the Lord by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he established the.

Heavens. Now Solomon is.

Just about to provide a protracted list of instructions to his son. They are full of do's and do not's, and they are attended by various reasonings and promises, and you can read that in Proverbs 3, verses 21 through 35.

But before.

We get there, and.

Having just talked about the recipe for happiness, Solomon emphasizes that the starting point is God. Let's pause and reaffirm the basics. God is the starting point for everything, and missing this means missing out.

Missing out on happiness and life and losing our way forever. Many have proposed other forces that make the world go round. Money, love, politics, but God created the world, God founded and governed all things by wisdom, therefore wisdom makes the world go round, in that.

Sense. The.

Lord directly creates everything, and then the Lord directs everything. This is the simple yet profound message of the Bible. The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he established the heavens.

We've done a lot of thinking about the importance of wisdom in our lives. We need wisdom and we're told to pursue it, we're told to keep it, to cherish it, to use it. We've been saying over and over again that wisdom is the skillful mastery of life to the glory of God, meaning wisdom is the true good and beautiful conveyance of all of our relationships, responsibilities, and resources in righteousness.

But what does it mean that God by wisdom founded the.

Earth? That God.

Is doing things by wisdom. We say something like, what is wisdom to me versus what is wisdom to God? It's the same thing as saying, well, what is knowledge to me and what is knowledge to God? What a huge difference.

God's knowledge compared to my knowledge. God's life versus my life. God's righteousness versus mine. God's goodness versus mine. The same with wisdom. When we think of the Lord by wisdom acting in such a fashion, we ought not think of God going to the same bank that we do, standing in line, though making a withdrawal from a vastly larger account.

It isn't that we go to the same bank of wisdom and we're both using the same wisdom, no. God is the origin, the backer, the issuer of the currency of wisdom. We go to him for wisdom. He's the definition of wisdom.

So by wisdom, by understanding, he created all things. Wisdom and understanding, the parallel here, is not meant to convey some sort of awkward dichotomy. God used wisdom in the earth, but he reserved his understanding for the heavens.

That's not how the Hebrew parallels work. They are there to reinforce one another and inform.

Each other.

What we're being told is that God made all things, the heavens and the earth. He made all things with a depth of skill and a complexity of intelligence. God's wisdom in creation, for instance, is seen in his skillful arrangement of all things into their categories.

You read about this in Genesis chapter 1. For example, verse 4, God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. He made an arrangement, a skillful arrangement, putting things into their proper place.

Genesis 1 verses 6 and 7. Then God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. Let it divide the waters from the waters. Thus God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.

And verse 9. Then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.

Very.

Skillful, orderly arrangements putting everything into its place just as he desired and all that he desired was very orderly and good. Many other such orderly separations and arrangements were skillfully made such as the cycles of day and night, the week, the seasons, the years, and every instance of the phrase according to its kind.

Count those in Genesis 1. According to its kind. According to its kind. According to its kind. Very orderly arrangements. Now his understanding in creation is also seen in both the density and beauty of information met at every level in creation.

Repeatedly throughout Genesis 1, we are told that God spoke into existence the various parts and participants of heaven and earth. And then he named them, and he saw them, and he evaluated them as good, indeed very good.

All of this testifying to his intelligence. His understanding is beyond reckoning, but it is not so but he is not so transcendent that we may not behold him in reverent worship. And what else are we really supposed to do when confronted time and again with inexplicably inexhaustible information?

Our world is not so much made up of subatomic particles, DNA, and energy as it is the language of laws and the language of genetics. Language, language everywhere. Yes, of course, there's atoms and molecules and so forth.

It's all there, but what we discover time and again, that it's written in a poetry.

That.

So astounds us and often baffles us. Scientists are simply, time and again, trying to learn how to parrot the language that they find at every level, let alone being able to decipher it and become.

Fluent in it. God made.

The world for life. He made it to be filled with life. Isaiah 45 verse 18 says,. For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited.

He says, I am the Lord and there is no other. God created all this. He created it to fill the heavens and earth with his traces and his image. All this grace that redounds to his glory, and he did so with a skill astounding and unmatched.

He did so by an intelligence unfathomable and breathtaking. The truth is the further we gaze, the deeper we look, the more carefully we count and name all the creatures God has made, the more we are confronted with his skill and intelligence displayed in every direction throughout every dimension.

And.

Why is it important to say? Yes to the praise of God, for we are to be giving him praise as his special creatures. But also this, the book of general revelation unfailingly repeatedly booms a resounding amen to every claim made by the book of special revelation.

Why? Both are given by.

The same unfailing.

Revealer. They testify to one another. Now he founded the earth, he established the heavens by his wisdom and by his understanding. The heavens and the earth that we read of in Genesis 1 and 2, these very same environs in which we live today, these heavens and this earth have been directly and wonderfully founded and established by God and his wisdom and understanding.

The term founded looks at the source, the term established looks at the nature, we can say this, by God it is good. We can say in his sovereignty he made it solid. He is the why and the how of creation.

And so wherever we drill down to the bedrock of some scientific investigation, man inevitably blunts our bits upon the wisdom and understanding.

Of God. Now we.

Can't fathom the gospel of Jesus Christ from photosynthesis, we don't learn about the atonement from the speed of light, we don't learn about man's condition and man's salvation from the properties of radiation or the chemistry of atoms, but in all such areas of observation and investigation we are confronted with a skillful intelligence that boggles the mind and ought to humble the heart.

God is praiseworthy for all that he has made and to fail to praise him for his glorious creation is one way that man falls short of the glory of God. When we read of the earth and the heavens that takes us right back to the beginning and we're just never going to outgrow the immense profundity of the very first verse of the Bible, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

That language is comprehensive and it is.

Exclusive.

And so saying, there's just no room for any other God to do anything. What is any other God going to do after Genesis 1 -1? Nothing. There's not room for any other God after Genesis 1 -1. But this has to be re-emphasized.

Isaiah brings this up again and again in his polemic against idolaters and their idols. Isaiah 44 is a great example. I'll read two verses from a very hefty chapter. Verse 8, God says, Do not fear, nor be afraid.

Have I not told you from that time and declared it? You are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other rock. I know not one. Verse 24 of Isaiah 44, Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by myself.

When we encounter.

The language of heaven and earth, we are not only being told about everything that has been made, but also how everything is that has been made. There's an order to it. There's an arrangement of it. There's a hierarchy to it.

It makes sense from God's point.

Of view.

God did not make a monolithic mayhem of material in motion. He made a precision complexity of elegant design. The heavens and the earth are not all there is, because before the beginning, God says of himself,.

I am.

Everything that has been made, he has made, but before the heavens and the earth, God. In the beginning, God was already.

There.

So when we think about what God has created, the heavens and the earth, we immediately then need to think about the arrangement God has made in all of his creation. It wasn't some chaotic sneeze from a chaotic God, like the pagan myths portray time and again.

No, the creation of the heavens and the earth tells us of an orderliness, an arrangement that God has made in his creation. And so, throughout the scriptures, over time, we begin to find heaven and earth as an expression of God's governmental and covenantal arrangements.

But wherever we are in the scripture, whatever we're learning about the heavens and the earth, we find in Christ the fitting end. We find in Christ the conclusion of the creation and the covenants. All of creation has been skillfully arranged by him and through him and for him.

The heavens and the earth have all of their questions answered in the works of his incarnation. Charles Spurgeon says, our faith has Christ as the center, the circumference, and the substance.

He is.

Both the word of creation and he is the word of covenant. John chapter 1, the beauty of John chapter 1 is just this, that Christ is both the word of creation and the word of covenant. In the first chapter, verses 1 through 4, we read this, 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. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Do you hear that Jesus Christ, that Christ is the person of Christ?

He is the eternal word. Through him all things have been made.

That have been made. But also.

Verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, tabernacled among us, is John's choice of term, on purpose. The word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

He's not only the word of creation, he's the word of covenant. Verse 17, and of his fullness we have all received. Grace for grace, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. God has founded all things by wisdom, and this wisdom is ultimately seen in his Son, Jesus Christ.

God's Governance of Creation by Wisdom

But secondly, God governs all things in wisdom. God governs all things in wisdom. Notice verse 20, by his knowledge the depths were broken up, and clouds dropped down the dew. First we're told about how things began, and now we're told how things go.

We should be.

Unsurprised to find God at the root of both considerations. This is the most natural one-two combination of all theology, indeed thinking. If God is the maker of all things, he's the master of all things.

The originator is also the owner and operator. He made all things according to his own values for his own purposes, to his own glory, and so he governs all things by his wisdom. This doesn't go over well with man and pride and rebellion.

Atheists and agnostic scientists, these cult followers of materialism or naturalism, they're all flat earthers, in a sense.

They.

Flatten the world that they study into isolated bits, each governed by its own little set of assumptions. Without a grand theory of cohesion, they feel no accountability for getting life so dreadfully wrong.

The segregation, now the segregation, of academic disciplines and the exercise of study, the exclusion of certain presuppositions, questions and data in the interest of clarity, the consistent application of mathematics and formulae and rigorous testing, they all have their value.

But when those skill sets are turned into doctrines, and to say that these skill sets are the doctrines which comprise reality, science has ceased to serve but to be served, trading the lower case s for a capital S.

And the scientific consensus then begins to operate as the cult magisterium, and all are proselytized, even persecuted, to accept the official group think handout in order to ignore all of the smudges and smears on the calculation boards in the.

Classroom. When we read the Bible,.

We discover.

That God made all things. Therefore all things are in his active jurisdiction, which means that we are all accountable to him, and we are all dependent upon him. As the song goes, he's got the whole world in his hands.

And that's the move that Solomon makes from verse 19 to verse 20. The Lord directs creation. By his knowledge the depths were broken up, and the clouds dropped down the dew. It is by his knowledge, it's accordance with his skillful and creative word, that God governs all things.

He is the judge, he is the provider of all. We see in his sovereign hand judgment and blessing. We see that his sovereign hand is responsible for the upheavals in history, and also in his quiet, persistent giving in each day.

By his knowledge the depths were broken.

Up. By his.

Perception, by his skill, by his discernment, by his understanding, by his wisdom, the depths were cleaved and rent open and split open. And what is that talk? What is that referring to? It only can refer to one thing, and that is the great flood.

The worldwide flood, Genesis chapter 7 verse 11, in the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month. On that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven.

Were opened. Solomon.

Looks for one particular occasion by which he can clearly demonstrate one great event that he could point to to say, if you're ever in doubt, that God is in charge of all things, and that all of life is accountable to him.

Look at this one example right here. The flood. God governs all things by his wisdom.

This was proven.

Without a doubt in the flood. That God is in full control of his creation is made perfectly clear in the story of Noah and the flood. God knew how to break open the deeps and flood the earth with the waters that he had stored up below.

God perceived the wickedness of man, that it was great upon the earth, and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. He discerned it was time to bring a vast judgment upon mankind.

By his understanding and wisdom, the deeps were broken up, and he rent them open and flooded the earth. And in that, what do we see? God directs creation for the purpose of judgment, because he governs all things in his wisdom.

But notice also, by his knowledge, clouds drop down the dew. Now, if there's a greater contrast in the study of what we would call natural history, the tumult of the great flood versus a nice, soft rain.

The reference of rain, of course, goes very well with the story of Noah, but it's not a part of judgment. The Hebrew word for drip means to drip, surprisingly. It means to trickle. It's a very soft, peaceful, overnight rain.

It's the kind of rain the farmers pray for. And remember that this was God's promise to Noah and all of his creation, that he would no more destroy the whole earth, but preserve it in its seasons and for the productivity of life.

In Genesis 8, 22, while the earth remains, see time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer and day and night shall not cease. And then God elaborates on that in Genesis 9, 9 -17, in describing the arrangements he would make for the fruitfulness of the earth and the preservation of his.

Creatures.

Jesus refers to the same matter, alluding even to the sign of the rainbow when he says of God, he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends his rain on the just and the unjust. This is God.

He governs all things. By God's knowledge, the clouds drip dew as a blessing upon the undeserving. When Isaac blessed Jacob, he said, therefore may God give you of the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.

I don't think Jacob deserved that, as he was deceiving his father in the very same moment. In describing the blessing of God upon his chosen people Israel, Moses wrote this,. Then Israel shall dwell in safely the fountain of Jacob alone, in the land of grain and new wine.

His heavens shall also drop the dew.

When.

Paul and Barnabas preached to idolatrous crowds at Lystra, rebuking them for their idolatry because they were trying to worship Paul and company as gods, what did they say? They said God did not leave himself without a witness, in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

And so Solomon looks for the great moment to teach us that God governs all things, and then he looks for the common moment to teach us that God governs all things. There's the great flood, and then there's the rain.

How common is rain? How often is rain? How dreary is rain? A slow rainy day, and yet what are we taught? This is God's governance. So what should our response be? Well, it's the same with the psalmist.

Psalm 147, verses 7 through 9. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Sing praises to our God on the lyre, who covers the heavens with clouds, who provides rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains.

He gives to the beast its food and to the young raven's.

Which cry. In all of.

God's dealings with creation, as he governs, bringing about his purposes according to what he has ordained, we have to understand that God has set Christ at the center of it all to reconcile all things by the blood of his cross.

Reconciliation is needed. Yes, God governs, but reconciliation is needed. Does not the flood teach us that we need reconciliation with a holy God? And even the rain that falls on that evil man's field and on the good man's field, doesn't the rain also tell us things still need to be set right?

Reconciliation is needed. This is the message of the covenants, given the marring of creation. Those who were made in God's image have exchanged the glory of God for idols, professing to be wise. They have become fools and have come under the wrath of God.

In Jeremiah 51, verse 15, the prophet says, God has made the earth by his power. He has established the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heaven by his understanding. When he utters his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens.

He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain. He brings wind out of his treasuries. What is man's response? Jeremiah says, Everyone is dull-hearted, without knowledge.

Every metalsmith is put to shame by the carved image, for his molded image is falsehood. There is no breath in them. They are futile, a work of errors. In the time of their judgment, they shall.

Perish. And so God has.

Set in Zion his Christ. Jesus governs all creation as the heir. He is the judge of all men. He is their king. He is lord provider. He is chief justice. He is our great king. And he who commanded the wind and the waves and the sea of Galilee also commands the jet stream and the hurricanes and the temperature of the globe.

Do you remember.

That Christ sits on a throne and surrounding the throne is a rainbow?

Why?

Because his throne.

Encompasses the whole earth. Nothing escapes his realm. Many rebel against him, but he shall reign until all his enemies are placed a footstool for his feet, and the last enemy thereof is death. God's governance demands our submission, and he has given us his son as our sovereign, not only as our king, but also as our savior and as our shepherd.

God Reveals Truth Through Wisdom and Humility Before Job's God

The last point is simply this, that God reveals all truth through wisdom. Everything we're supposed to know, everything that is truly true, God reveals that to us through his wisdom, not through.

Skepticism. Notice.

The way that these.

Verses read,.

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth. By understanding he established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths were broken up and the clouds dropped down the dew. I think this is a little redundant, but I think a vitally important emphasis.

All that we need to know regarding wisdom and understanding in our life is the image of God. All of that is revealed to us by God. We don't have truth as truth outside of God apart from God without God.

The only reason why we can have any kind of truth whatsoever is because of God. Even the most rabid atheist investigator discovering new, true information is simply reading what God has already written in the heavens and the.

Earth. So why are they so.

Against God? It's a heart matter.

Grandpa.

Always told me the right tool for the right job. So, when scientists go up to their calculation boards and use an angle grinder to write certain things there, you know it's on purpose. They want certain things to always be on the board no matter how much they erase.

They hope to achieve what D. A. Carson described as the gagging of God. They want to say no matter how wrong we are about the principles and details of the universe, we're never, ever wrong about God.

We know for certain, no matter what, He has nothing to do with whatever we discover. You see? They're flat earthers. They look for an edge and any slight crack will do. There at the edge, they declare its determinancy and they sigh in relief.

They love the edge of the earth. Why? Because it is there that man may safely say, God is not there. See? We found the edge. And there's nothing else. We have the edge and God is not there. And the comfort for them is this.

If God is not there, then He can't.

Be here. But He is there.

And He is not silent.

He speaks.

And reveals all truth we should know through His wisdom. Now we've had a lot of upheaval in the last few years and trust in institutions is at all time low. Because it's pretty clear how foolish men can be.

Let me encourage you that this does not mean that any counter consensus story is equally worthy of our affirmation and affection.

Right?

Just because the scientific consensus is a mess doesn't mean that any counter consensus story is equally worthy of support. The exposure of the fragility of scientific consensus is not an argument for your favorite conspiracy theory, but it's probably an argument against it.

Investigation of God's world is best done according to God's wisdom.

Which.

Would always, what, entail humility. How little we know. How little we know. How little we know. That's a hard thing to hear, but let us hear it anyway. Let us go look at that conclusion of the class action lawsuit of Job and Associates.

Job 38.

Then the Lord.

Answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth and issued from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band? When I fixed my limit for it and set bars and doors?