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Sermon: The Source of Science Date: October 23, 2022, Afternoon Text: Isaiah 28:23–29 Preacher: Conley Owens Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2022/221023-TheSourceOfScience.aac
I call us to worship with Psalm 113.
Praise the Lord.
Praise, O servants of the Lord.
Praise the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.
Please turn in your hymnals to number 256.
Break thou the bread of life, 256.
You may remain seated as we sing this.
Bread
of life, dear
Lord Let's break the loaves beside the
sea Of sacred
pains for
thee, Lord
Please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 28, Isaiah 28.
We'll be looking at verses 23 through 29.
And just as a reminder, Isaiah 28 starts a section that goes on for
about seven chapters regarding trusting in the nations, that we should not trust in
the nations, but we should rather trust in the Lord who is above all.
When you have Isaiah 28, beginning in verse 23, please stand for the reading of God's word.
Give ear and hear my voice.
Give attention and hear my speech.
Does he who plows for sowing plow continually?
Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat
and rose and barley in its proper place and emmer as the border?
For he is rightly instructed, his God teaches him.
Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out
with a stick and cumin with a rod.
Does one crush grain for bread?
No, he does not thresh it forever.
When he drives his cartwheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.
This also comes from the Lord of hosts.
He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.
You may be seated.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your truth that is in your book
revealed.
Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that as we look at this passage we would understand your truth all the more deeply,
that it would draw us into a greater appreciation of you and of your son and of the salvation that he has provided,
and that our hearts would be subdued in such a way that we are full of joy and
love, and that our place in your kingdom would be one that fills us with a great
peace.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Well, a common question that people ask is the question whether or not faith and science can
coexist.
Can faith coexist with science?
Maybe you've seen different talks where people address this, and the answer that the Bible gives is
not just yes, they can coexist, but in fact, that apart from God,
there would be no science.
Apart from God, there would be no knowledge to give.
Apart from God, the world would not be made in such an orderly way that things could be derived from it, that
understanding could be gained from observing the world.
It appears to many that these two things are contradictory because one seems to involve seeing without your
physical eyes, and the other involves seeing with your physical eyes the things that are in front of you.
But in truth, what God is doing through nature and through the way he has ordered it so that there are truths
discoverable about it is not just revealing something about the world so that we can
master the world, but revealing things about himself through this world that is
discoverable and understandable.
Now, you might wonder why are we talking about that at this point in Isaiah?
Well, it does come up here in this passage in Isaiah, and the reason why is because
God has been communicating to the people about their need to trust in him, about their need to
cease trusting in the nation, specifically the nation of Egypt as they're about to be
attacked, assaulted by Assyria, to cease trusting in the nation of Egypt.
And he points them to creation, and moreover, not just pointing them to creation, but pointing them even
to man's understanding of creation, his mastery over creation, specifically the science of
agriculture.
And we'll look at this here, and we'll see that it shows that God is the source of all wisdom, he is the source of all science,
and that this shows that God, when he acts, he is not delaying in his judgment, and two, he is not
delaying in his salvation, but doing exactly what needs to be done.
Because if mankind can understand an orderly world and decide what the right seasons are
for doing the right things, if he can manipulate the world in such a way to create great outcomes,
then certainly God, who has created this world in such a way, is even higher, and has an even greater purpose
in the things that he is doing.
So let's go ahead and begin here with this first verse.
Give ear and hear my voice, give attention and hear my speech.
Now, Isaiah has spoken of this people as being a senseless people, as being a people
who do not understand God's truth because they are drunkards, they are filled with wine, they do
not humble themselves before the Lord, and so he calls them, he has called them repeatedly to
repentance.
And here, interestingly, he calls them, he says, if you will not hear the words of the Lord, if you despise the word of the
Lord, calling it line upon line, precept upon precept, let me also show you what you know to be
true, even from nature itself.
So he calls them, if they will not hear the word of the Lord as he has spoken verbally, then hear the
word of the Lord as it is revealed simply in creation
itself.
Now, we live also among a people who are very senseless, who are not sensible to the
things of God, and yet they are very sensible to the things of creation.
They're aware of how creation works.
The people of our generation, but most especially of this valley, have mastered
technology.
They understand the way the world works.
And this is supposed to teach people about who God is and the way that God works.
And yet, people take that knowledge and they do not recognize what it is revealing about God
himself.
You know, there's a way that theologians in the past have spoken of nature,
revealing God's truth.
Specifically, they've called it a second book.
Now, the Bible is one book.
They've referred to nature as being this second book from God about how he reveals who
he is.
You know, even Galileo, who's known as the father of modern science, referred to
nature as a second book that God has given us.
And God has indeed given us much in creation.
And this is something that's, I'd say probably one of the biggest changes, or biggest advancements
in my understanding of God and his word throughout the past few years, three or so years, has
been in appreciating more and more what he is communicating, not merely through his written word, but also
through nature itself.
Now, there are many times that this comes up in scripture, where he says that this law, for example,
was not written for the ox, but rather for man, right?
So God reveals things about nature to teach man things about
God.
It is frequently the case that God speaks, and for example, Psalm 19,
Romans 1, he repeatedly talks about how he is showing people who he is through creation.
And that's what he speaks of here in this passage, that he has spoken to us
through creation, but not only through creation itself, but through man's understanding of creation,
not just creation itself revealing things, but as man discovers creation more and more, God revealing who he
is through man's advancement and understanding creation itself.
Verse 24 says, "'Does he who plows for sowing plow continually?
When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, soak cumin, and put in wheat and rose and
barley in its proper place and emmer at its border?'.
So here you have a description of a farmer.
A farmer plows, but he does not plow continually.
He plows to a particular end in order so that he might sow things.
In addition, he is not just scattering things all around,
but rather he recognized where each thing goes.
He puts wheat and rose, he puts barley in its proper place, he puts emmer, another kind of wheat,
at the border.
There are all sorts of techniques in agriculture that people use, not
because this wisdom has come from themselves, but because it has come from God.
God is the source of that wisdom.
God has designed the world in such a way that is orderly, that it responds to
different kinds of manipulations, and he has set it up in such a way that mankind himself
can see these things.
Now, I believe the reason that Isaiah is pointing this out, this particular point, is because in the previous
section, if you recall, he talks about the fact that God is coming in judgment, and people think that
God delays in judgment.
People imagine that the fact that they aren't currently being judged for their sins means that God will continue
delaying in judgment.
Perhaps he is not even present at all.
But does the one who plow for sowing plow continually?
No.
The point here is that God, who is plowing, he does not plow continually, but in order so.
What is going on now does not go on now continually, but to a particular end.
In Ecclesiastes 8, 14, it says that it appears that the same happens both to the righteous and
the wicked.
That's how many people think.
The same thing happens to the righteous and the wicked.
They have the same end.
Why bother serving God if it's the case that it's the same thing for every man?
Well, it is not the same thing for every man.
God is working toward a particular end.
You know, things are not just a matter of chance.
What even is chance?
You know, if you've never thought about this, what chance would be if it were a real thing?
What kind of a principle would chance be?
You know, if you're a Christian, if you believe that God has created the world, that would be a second creative power
influencing the world, you know, deciding what happens and what doesn't happen.
But God himself who created the world has decided how things will operate.
Everything operates according to his design.
There's nothing that operates in some other design.
Now, people say, well, couldn't God have created something like chance if he wanted to?
Well, what would that mean, that he created something that operates in a way independent of how he designed it?
What does that even mean?
Proverbs 16, 33 says the lot is cast in the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord.
Even the roll of dice is from the Lord.
There is no chance.
God is working in the world.
He is working to a particular end.
And so where it appears he delays in judgment or he delays in salvation, he does not, but he is working
towards a particular end.
He is not plowing continually.
And it speaks of the farmer in verse 26 and says, for he is rightly instructed.
His God teaches him.
God has taught the farmer.
Now, that's not how you usually think of it.
You usually think of the farmer having taught himself or other farmers as having discovered things and therefore having
taught farmers in subsequent generations.
Yet the Bible says that God has taught the farmer.
Now, how could that be?
How can that be?
Well, as I've said, God has created the world in such a way that it might be understood.
One, that it's understandable, and two, that it might be understood.
He created the world and told Adam to subdue the earth.
He gave mankind this command to master and understand this creation that
we have been placed over.
And why has he given us that command?
Not merely so that we would enjoy this earth that we are on, but in the process of learning
these things from God as he has set them up so that we might learn them, we would learn more of him and his
nature, of his character.
That's what this passage speaks of.
When he makes this analogy to the farmer, it's not just telling us of farming.
It's not just telling us of the science of farming and putting certain things in one area, other things in another area,
but rather an illustration is being made to God.
If the world has this kind of complexity, if the world has this kind of order to it and mankind has managed to master it,
then how much more is it the case that God, who has set the world up to be understood in this way, have such
an order to what he is doing in the world?
You know, it's a lot like if you've ever made a scavenger hunt for kids.
You know, you don't hide things in such a way that the kids can't find them.
You put them in fairly easy places so the kids can find them.
This is how God has ordered his world.
He has made his world with things that are in one sense difficult to discover, yet he has set it up in such a way
that mankind will discover.
You know, how did they decide that wheat should be put in rows and barley should be put in another place and different
techniques should be used in agriculture?
Well, it is because God set it up in such a way, not only that it's true, but so that mankind
could discover it.
And this is true of all the sciences.
Think about the wonderful technologies that exist here in this valley, the creation of the internet, all kinds
of things.
These things are things that God placed in the world in such a way that they might be discovered
that you could use our universe in such a way.
And he did that not so that mankind could turn around and consider himself greater than God
and say that because we've discovered all these things, that shows that there is no God, rather just the opposite, so
that in discovering these things, we would realize how much greater God is.
If there is such an understanding that man can have of the world, how much greater is
God's wisdom, the one who designed this world to be as it is?
You see, God created man and God created him in his image.
And that makes a lot of sense because as God being the creator, naturally his fingerprints
will be on this thing that he created.
But there's a secondary sense in which that's true of the rest of the world as well, the rest of the world is not created in his image
so properly with righteousness, holiness, dominion over the creatures, but the rest of the world also has
the fingerprints of God.
It's something some theologians have referred to as vestigia dei, meaning
traces of God.
Now God's traces are all over creation.
And so when we discover the orderliness of the world, that is not just
communicating to us something about the world independent of its creator, but as those are marks of the
creator himself on our world, they are teaching us about him.
And in particularly, what are we to learn about him in this context?
In this context, he does not delay.
He has a purpose in what he is doing.
Things are not a matter of chance.
Rather, he is working.
And so this time when he is not acting in judgment is a time for repentance.
It is a time to turn to him.
Now, of course, many people take technology and take the exact opposite
from it.
They look at it and they say, this shows that mankind is independent.
Mankind doesn't need God.
No, all these things are taught to man by God because God has ordered the world in such a way
that they would be discovered, not only are discoverable, but would be discovered.
Now, there are several implications of this.
One is that, you know, nothing is, nothing is truly creative
in the way that God is creative.
God has created this whole world.
When we are discovering things, that is exactly what we are doing.
We are discovering things.
We are not actually creating something that didn't exist before.
And additionally, when you think of sin, well, what about sin?
That's not something that God had created, right?
So what are we doing when we're making sin?
Well, sin, just taking something good that God has made and perverting it.
It is simply a perversion, a destruction of what is good.
You know, another implication to this is how we think of education.
And a lot of times you think of education, secular education as being independent of theological
education.
You know, you can learn secular things over here and then learn religious things over here.
But the fact of the matter is that if God is behind all knowledge, if he is the source of all science,
you know, the Greek word, excuse me, the Latin word, scientia, where that comes from.
I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right.
I can't speak Latin.
But that word just means knowledge, right?
Science and knowledge, wisdom, these are all very similar concepts.
If it is the case that God is behind all these things and they are supposed to reveal who he is, then a purely secular education will
always be a deficient education.
Because it will, rather than revealing to you who God is, it will attempt to suppress that truth,
as Romans once said.
So it's important, no matter what you are learning in the world, no matter what you're doing, to think of everything in light
of the God who created it and what this communicates about him.
You know, he is communicating to you at all times, not just in this book, although this is the clearest revelation he
has given to us, but rather at all times and all places because his traces
are on all creation.
And moreover, this shows the great folly that atheism is.
To conclude that there is no God because mankind seems so self
-sufficient is to not realize that the knowledge that man has, it has come from God.
How could you have this world that is more orderly than its maker, whatever
principle it comes from?
How could you have, if you have even persons in this world, how could it be that there is
not a personal creator of them?
How could this arise from nothing or from little?
None of that makes sense.
Rather, what this passage is saying is it's the opposite.
If this is orderly, how much more orderly is God?
If there is a purpose to the farmer, how much more does God have a purpose?
You know, that whole logic where you're saying, if this is great, then God must be
less, that is a great folly, a great folly.
Rather, it shows the opposite.
If the world is orderly, how much more orderly is God?
Verse 27 says, "'Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, "'nor is a cartwheel
rolled over cumin, "'but dill is beaten out with a stick "'and cumin with a rod.
"'Does one crush grain for bread?
"'No, he does not thresh it forever.
"'When he drives his cartwheel over it with his horses, "'he does not crush it.'".
And so here, a different point is being made.
Before, we're talking about how God does not delay in his judgment.
At least that's my understanding of that people have come to different conclusions.
But given that Isaiah has previously talked about the fact that God is not delaying judgment, I think it makes sense that the previous section
refers to that.
But here we have a change, because he now moves on to speaking of threshing.
Does the one who thresh, thresh continually?
No, he threshes to some end, particularly to make bread.
God has a purpose in the discipline that man undergoes.
God has a purpose in the difficulties and testings and trials that exist in the world, and that
is to produce something beautiful out of them, to produce something good out of them.
God does not introduce calamity forever, but to a particular purpose, to a
particular salvation, even.
And it's interesting here, because he uses the words rod and staff.
He says, but dill is beaten out with a stick.
Now, in other translations that says staff, it's the word that's used elsewhere in Isaiah for staff, and human
with a rod.
Now, maybe when you think of a rod and staff, your mind immediately goes to Psalm 23.
Rod and your staff, they comfort me.
But that phrase has also appeared here in Isaiah multiple times, in fact, three times
in chapter 10.
Does anybody remember what the rod and the staff were in Isaiah chapter 10?
Particularly, it was the nation of Assyria.
God said that the nation of Assyria was the staff in his hand, that they were his rod.
He says that three times, that they are his staff and his rod, three times in threshing and
disciplining his nation of Judah.
And here it is explaining that as was said in chapter 10, God is doing that to a particular purpose.
He does not intend to thresh forever, but rather, he is doing it to a particular purpose.
As 1 Corinthians 15, 33 says, do you not know that something cannot
grow unless it first dies?
The seed that goes into the ground must first die before it can grow.
And he says that anyone who's a fool who thinks otherwise, that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.
God, in introducing calamities into the world, is doing them for a particular reason.
A lot of people see the calamities in the world and they think the world is outside of his control, that everything is just going
mad, but no, God is threshing his people for a particular end.
He is making a beautiful bread.
Now, something else I'll add here is, you know, it's interesting to talk about
agriculture as a science, because we often think of it as something that's below the sciences, because we live in a very high
-tech world, but agriculture is not the lowest of the sciences.
It might be the most basic of the sciences, but it's not the lowest of the sciences.
It's a very advanced thing, even today.
I mean, I have several friends who, their job is, they apply modern -day machine learning to
decide when the best yields will be if the farmers use the land at a certain time and when they
should water it, et cetera.
So you have the highest technology being applied to farming today.
And even if you consider apples, you know, fruit is something that really astounds me.
Apples today are so much better than apples were when I was a kid.
Like, the technology of farming is increasing to such a point where now we have honeycrisp apples and just these
amazing fruits that taste so much better than they did in previous generations.
This is a science that keeps evolving, and that is high -tech stuff they use to decide how
exactly to go about farming.
So it is not, when he's describing here, you know, that the farmer has a particular
way of planting.
He has a particular way of threshing.
He knows that this implement is to be used with this kind of grain.
This implement is to be used with this kind of grain.
This applies to all the things that we might consider higher sciences.
It still applies to agriculture.
That is a science that has continued to advance.
You know, George Washington famously said that he'd rather be at home on his farm than the emperor of the world,
because he enjoyed not just farming as a
hobby, but particularly he enjoyed it as a science.
He was a great student of agriculture.
So this applies to all things.
You should have this in mind when you see other things as well, when you see other technologies.
It should remind you of God's purpose in the world.
If man has certain purposes, if man is able to create beautiful things out of
purposeful acts of destruction, out of purposeful acts of threshing and breaking things
down and building things up, then how much more is that the case with our almighty creator?
It should give us a great patience.
You know, as we deal with trials in our own life, as we see the things that go on in the world, it's very easy to
get very frustrated by these things, to feel like God is being slow, that he is not acting,
that he is not seeing.
But no, he has his purposes.
And so we should be patient.
It says in verse 29, this also comes from the Lord of hosts.
So this also comes from the Lord of hosts.
So these first several verses, after Isaiah says, give ear, in verses 24 through
26, he talks about how things are sown, how things are plowed and sown.
I believe that's referring to God not delaying in judgment.
And here, when he's talking about not threshing forever, and we see the connection to Isaiah 10, and the
rod and the staff there, God is not destroying forever either.
He is not disciplining forever, but rather he is working toward salvation.
He does not delay in judgment.
He also does not delay in salvation.
He is accomplishing something great.
And this also comes from the Lord.
Just as verse 26 said, for he is rightly instructed, his God teaches him.
Once again, even the fact that certain grains should be crushed or
beaten with different instruments, it is the case that this also comes from the Lord, who is excellent
in wisdom.
God is above all things.
He has his purposes in all things.
You can read his providence.
You can read what he is doing in the world and know that he is doing it for a purpose.
Consider the pandemic.
That was not some purposeful, or excuse me, purposeless act of chance.
Rather, that was a purposeful act of God.
He is doing something for his people.
In particular, I think it's very reasonable to look at how he has, in scripture, oftentimes
stopped his worship when he was not pleased with his worship and what happened during the pandemic.
God shut down his own worship.
And many of the churches that were only there because it was something cultural or they were just
continuing on going through the motions, many of those churches have not restarted.
You'd be surprised how many churches have not restarted since the pandemic.
God is accomplishing his purposes.
And all these acts that look like they're purposeless acts of destruction, no, they are purposeful acts of
threshing.
God is at work in all of them.
And how much more is this true in Jesus Christ?
You know, when Jesus Christ came and his disciples could not understand why he was beaten, why he was
crucified, and then they learned, no, God has a purposeful act even in that.
And moreover, Jesus Christ is the very wisdom of God.
And that is not, that is not just something we find out much later in the New Testament.
Rather, it's something that even Isaiah continues with.
If you just look over at Isaiah chapter 30, verse 20, after he's talking about
the farmer being taught of the Lord, and this importance of being taught of the Lord, this is a topic that comes up a lot in
Isaiah.
Isaiah 30, verse 20 says, and though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher.
The Bible says that God is invisible.
He cannot be seen.
So what is this talking about?
That we would see our teacher, capital T, speaking of God.
This is speaking of the incarnation.
This is speaking of Jesus Christ revealing to us who God is, becoming man.
Becoming man and dwelling among us.
We will see our teacher.
He is the one who teaches us.
Yes, God teaches the farmer.
Jesus teaches.
In Isaiah chapter 50, verse four, it says, the Lord has given me, this is the Messiah speaking.
This is Isaiah speaking in a way that is fulfilled ultimately by the Messiah.
I'll show that in a minute.
The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I might know how to sustain with the word, him who
is weary.
Morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
This is speaking of Jesus Christ being one who is taught by God so that he might teach others, so that he might keep them from being weary,
so that instead of looking at this world around us and not deriving anything from it and being frustrated with God, thinking that
he has no purpose, that the things that are happening are to no purpose, rather, Jesus is the one that
teaches us.
He is the one who teaches us that everything has a purpose and that God is working
to that purpose.
It's said in verse five, the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious.
I turned not backward.
I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard.
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting, but the Lord God helps me.
Therefore, I have not been disgraced.
Therefore, I have set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
Now, I continued reading that passage so you can recognize how many of those phrases refer to Jesus.
You know, the pulling out the beard, turning the cheek, the setting his face like flint, this is
prophetically talking of Jesus Christ.
You know, he is the wisdom of God.
Colossians 2 .3 says that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
In Jesus Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
He is the wisdom of God.
God is the source of all wisdom and that is most fully seen in Jesus Christ because it is
only in Jesus Christ that we can begin to have our eyes open.
You know, these truths that technology, the creation, the way God has made it orderly shows us who God is,
people don't recognize that.
People continue to suppress that truth, just like Romans 1 says, until, until their eyes are opened
by hearing the message of Jesus Christ.
You know, what this does is this pushes us back to special revelation, right?
Isaiah had given special revelation.
That's the category that refers to God speaking with words, speaking in a special way.
And then he moves to natural revelation where he talks about the way God speaks to us just in creation itself.
And then ultimately, this should push us back to God's special revelation that he has given us
in Jesus Christ because it is in him that all wisdom is found.
It is in him that our blindness is dealt with so that we might not suppress the truth when God communicates us
through this orderly universe and man's ability to master this orderly universe.
And rather, when Christ deals with that sin so that we might understand, he fills us with a great,
with a great patience in understanding that.
He fills us with a great joy because he shows us what God's purpose is.
His purpose is a great salvation.
He is not threshing forever.
His purpose is not to thresh forever.
But rather, he is working on building something just as the farmer is working towards
making loaves of bread.
Jesus Christ, along with God the Father, along with the Holy Spirit, are working towards something
beautiful, a wonderful, beautiful kingdom that one day will be fully consummated.
So God is not purposeless.
He has a great purpose he is doing and he is communicating that to you with every bit of
nature you see and moreover, especially, with every bit of technology you see where man has been
able to master it and work towards some purpose.
How much more purposeful is God?
How much greater is his salvation?
Let's pray.
Dear only Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for communicating to us, not just through it, but through creation, most especially through
the incarnation of your Son.
Lord, we thank you for him who has revealed to us grace and truth and
light.
And we thank you that you have given us this encouragement.
I pray that we would have an excellent patience as we wait for your actions, as we know that
you do things in the right season, even more so than we who are tradesmen
or scientists.
Lord, we know that you have the ultimate wisdom and that you are doing what is right and good.