FBC Adult Sunday School – February 6, 2022

All right, this series that Dr. Foreman has started a few weeks ago and is continuing to teach and will for the next several weeks has been really a fascinating study, studying about the intricacies of the human body and last week got really into some nitty -gritty regarding the details of the cell, the body on the cellular level, and it was just fascinating to see the factory that goes on in every single cell of the human body.

And one of the things that just fascinates me is this whole subject of homeostasis, that our bodies, from a cellular level to the different systems of our body, they work to maintain homeostasis, a level condition, as much as possible.

And I thought about that, the other day I was walking to the church and on my walk listening to an audio book and this latest one

I'm listening to, this is, I can't listen to audio books that are of a real serious nature where I need to take notes.

I listen to audio books that are more, I wouldn't say entertaining, but they just have a different level.

And this one is on a guy, written by a guy who trekked the

Pacific Crest Trail. So that's a trail that runs from the border of Mexico all the way to Canada.

And you have to start that thing in like April at the southern terminus because you have to start late enough so that when you get to the

Sierras there's enough snow melt that you can actually walk on the trail. Anyway, so I'm listening to this thing and he's talking about hiking through the desert of Southern California.

And he says the first day he got up it was freezing cold in the desert of Southern California.

And I understand that because several years ago we visited Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California in February.

And that's high elevation, but it's desert. And it was cold.

In fact, it actually snowed on that thing. So anyway, he gets up, it's freezing cold.

There's like a little layer of ice over some water at this place where he was. And then when he ventured out, the sun was shining brightly, as it always does in Southern California, sun shining brightly.

A couple hours later it's warm. In fact, later in the day it got very warm.

And I thought about homeostasis and that different changing of the temperature.

I thought about homeostasis when he was describing his meals along the way.

And when he starts out, he's got plenty of food in the pack, he eats what he wants to eat and some pretty decent stuff.

But as the days go on, the food supply dwindles and you pretty much eat whatever you can eat because you're starving, you're hungry.

And a lot of it's just junk, you know, carbs and all that kind of stuff. And I thought about what in the world goes on in the human body as this different fuel, some good, some high octane, some not so good.

And what goes on in the human body on the cellular level to maintain homeostasis for, you know, in dealing with all of these external effects and impacts on the human body.

I wouldn't have thought of that apart from this study from Dr. Forman.

And I'm wondering, what are some of the things that he's pointed out that have struck you, really fascinated you and have left you a little bit awed.

Not odd, but awed. All right? Anybody? Yeah, Dave.

Oh, yeah. A cartoon, right?

He said it looked like a cartoon. Right. Right. Yeah.

We're going to get to that word here in a little bit. Jim? I think he's complex.

Right. I thought about Jim too in this study because, you know, Dr. Forman is taking the subject of creation and going down on a micro level.

And the complexity and the fascinating complexity of God's creation on a sub, really an atomic level, a cellular level, a very small, tiny level.

It is just fascinatingly complex. And I thought about Jim, who loves the subject of astronomy, which takes the subject of creation and look at it at a macro level.

And the fascination just goes on. Well, anyway, so this study, as Dr.

Forman began this series, he emphasized the theological foundation of the series, and especially focusing on Genesis 1 and 2.

And the fact that you have to, you just absolutely have to hold to the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2.

That Genesis 1 and 2 is writing history. It's not some mythology. It's not some symbolic stuff.

It's actually historical writing of God's work of creation in those six literal days there in that passage.

Well, in today's lesson, I want to go to that passage that Dave just mentioned in Psalm 139, which is another passage that emphasizes the fascination of these bodies, and the fact that our human body has been divinely created.

It's a fact that if we contemplate it, if we think about it, and really understand what the passage is saying, it will inevitably lead us to glorify the

Creator. I want to read verses 13 to 18, and then look at this passage together.

Verse 13, the psalmist David writes, he says, speaking to the Lord, he says,

So, I want to look first of all at the context of this section of the psalm.

The psalm as a whole is a psalm of praise, a psalm of exaltation.

It extols God for three major non -communicable attributes that are true of God.

Non -communicable attributes means these are things that are true of God that He does not communicate or pass on to us.

You've been through this psalm before, I'm sure, and you've had these things pointed out, but let's just review.

Verses 1 to 6, the first stanza of this psalm extols

God for knowing everything about me. Now, by the way, as the psalmist looks at these non -communicable attributes, he does so not in a clinical sense, like he's standing aloof and examining something that is so, but he's looking at these attributes of God as they relate to him as an individual.

So, this psalm is a psalm of exalted praise to God for his attributes, but it's very, very personal.

So notice how he personalizes this. This first section, this first stanza, he says,

God knows everything about me. He says, oh Lord, you have searched me and known me, and he goes on with that theme, with that discussion.

And so in that stanza, he is praising God for his omniscience, that God knows everything.

He knows everything about me. In the next stanza, verses 7 through 12, he in essence is saying that God is everywhere that I am.

God is omnipresent. Where can I go from your spirit, or where can

I flee from your presence? And that's the theme of verses 7 through 12. God is omnipresent.

And the third theme, the third stanza has the theme that God made me. God made me.

It emphasizes the omnipotence of God, the power that God has in his creative work.

And then in verses 19 through 24, he just really kind of brings us all together, these ideas and the personal application of those ideas, pointing out that God is personally interested in me.

So in verses 19 through 22, I can appeal to God regarding those who hate me.

This God who is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, I can appeal to him regarding those who hate me.

That's the theme of verses 19 to 22. And then the last couple of verses, I can appeal to God regarding my own inner life.

Search me and know my heart. Try me, know my anxieties. See if there be any wicked way in me.

Lead me in the way everlasting. All right, so another thing I want to point out when just looking at the whole context of this section, of this stanza, if you will, of the song, is that sections 1 to 3 highlight a key attribute.

Omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, they highlight that attribute.

But what I want us to see is that those attributes are interrelated.

You can't really have one without the other. And the section that we're looking at this morning, verses 13 and 19, for example, in verse 13, you see the interplay between the fact that God is omnipotent with the fact that he is omnipresent.

You formed me in my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb.

So the omnipotent God who crafted me in my mother's womb was there. See, you have omnipresence and omnipotence together.

And he knows, here's omniscience, he knows the structure of my body and the content of my days, verse 16 says.

He knows the content of my days, the structure of my body before they even exist.

So the omnipotent God is omniscient and omnipresent.

All right, now let's look at this stanza itself. Let's focus on verses 13 through 18.

And the focus of this stanza is that God's powerful work is involved in making me who

I am. God's powerful work is involved in making me who

I am. Notice the verbs that are used in this section, verbs you learned in grammar school are action words.

Let me take that a step further. In this case, in this section, they are not only action words, but they are words of power.

They are words of power and action. So let's look at the verbs, verse 13.

You formed my inward parts. That verb formed means to bring into existence.

It doesn't literally mean that you've taken stuff that already is and created, you brought it into existence.

You brought something that did not exist before, you brought it into existence. You covered me, the next verb in verse 13, you covered me.

That verb means to knit together, to knit together. So some of you, some of you perhaps ladies have done some crocheting.

And so you understand this whole thing of knitting together. You've got all these different colors of yarn and you'll take this color and you'll do something for a while with this thing as you're knitting your thing.

And you'll get another ball of yarn and you'll bring in another color.

And you are covering this product, whatever it is you're making, an afghan or whatever.

But you are knitting together all of these threads to make this particular product.

God is knitting together the different elements, components of my body in my mother's womb.

Now, verse 14, these two words in our English language,

English translation, you've got an adverb and a verb, wonderfully made, wonderfully made.

But those two words translate one Hebrew word. And the

Hebrew word, now get this, it means to make distinction, to be separated.

Now, what's the significance of that? What's the emphasis of using that action word, that word of power?

I think what the psalmist is communicating here is the truth that I was made with distinction, separated from every other human being who now lives or who has ever lived on the planet.

You've often heard the adage, and I've wondered how do they know this, that there are no two snowflakes that are exactly alike.

There was a guy in Vermont who many, many years ago developed the skill of photographing snowflakes under microscope.

And I remember as a kid seeing pictures of snowflakes under microscope, but probably in a science book or whatever.

And I got for Christmas one year, a microscope set.

So I said, oh, I want to see that. Oh, cool. I want to see snowflakes under microscope. Anybody else ever tried that?

And what did you see? Water. Yeah, a little droplet of water. Because you put that snowflake on the slide, and then you stick it under the microscope.

Well, you have to have a light source to see from behind that. So the light creates heat.

And by the time you can get your eye down there to look through the microscope, the eyepiece, the thing's melted. Well, Bentley Snowflake, Snowflake Bentley, I guess was his nickname, he developed this way.

And truly, all the photographs of snowflakes that Snowflake Bentley produced, you didn't see any that were alike.

Somebody on Facebook, I think he's in the Illinois Nature group, does the same thing.

I don't know how they do it, but I've never seen two snowflakes alike. So you get this notion that there are no two snowflakes that are alike.

Somebody can scientifically explain that, I'm sure. But the point of this verb is that there are no two human beings who are exactly alike.

And if that's true of a snowflake, how much more true is it of this more, far more, infinitely far more complex human body, bodies that populate this world?

All right, now look in the next verse, in verse 15, you've got another verb that's translated made, but it translates a different Hebrew word.

And the word in verse 15 simply means to craft, to make something, means to make or to do.

So for example, the pews that you're sitting on, they were made, they were made, but they're all essentially the same.

I mean, yeah, there's some variations in the wood and so forth and so on, but they're all basically the same.

They're not intended to be each one unique. And I think when you take these two

Hebrew words, verbs together, they emphasize the fact that you were made, you didn't become.

Why do I emphasize that? What does the theory of evolution say? That we became something just by random chance.

Over billions of years, different organisms developed and became something else.

They adapted to their environments and became a completely different kind of thing. And this stanza of the

Psalm is saying, no, no, you were intentionally designed and created, made, you didn't just become.

The next verb in verse 15, in the New King James is translated skillfully wrought, skillfully wrought.

And this verb emphasizes variegation, variegation.

The verb itself means to diversify in external appearance, to mark with different colors, to dapple, to streak.

Now think about that. The Psalmist is talking about your human body, the human body.

And he's saying, you have made me variegated. He's not talking about the fact that he's striped like a zebra.

No, he's talking about the human race and that within the human race, there's just a variegation of humanity.

Again, emphasizing the uniqueness of each individual. This verb, by the way, skillfully wrought is the word that is used in Exodus chapter 26.

Let me go back to that verse and look at it for just a minute. Exodus 26 verse 36, where it says the

Lord is giving instructions to Moses regarding the making of the different elements in the tabernacle.

And he says, you shall make a screen for the door of the tabernacle, this veil, a screen for the door of the tabernacle, woven of blue, purple, scarlet thread.

So you get the different colors of thread and fine woven linen made by a weaver, crafted, variegated, skillfully wrought by the weaver.

And then the last verb that we want to look at and emphasize in verse 16 is the verb fashioned, the days fashioned for me.

It's the verb that means to form, to be planned, to be planned.

And it emphasizes the intentionality of the forming. So he's saying that you intentionally formed me to fulfill a predetermined plan.

And if you look at the verse as a whole, he says, in your book, they all were written, all what were written, the days, the days that you fashioned for me when there weren't any of them.

You intentionally formed my days to fulfill a predetermined plan.

Another place where that verb occurs is in Jeremiah chapter one, verse five, where the prophet, well, the

Lord comes to the prophet, says, the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

That word translated formed in Jeremiah one five is the word fashioned in Psalm 139.

The Lord is saying to Jeremiah, I intentionally formed you for a predetermined plan.

Fascinating. Fascinating. Now, developing this stanza, let's begin in verse 13 with this compulsion to praise.

What compels you to praise God in his creative work? What compels you is in the first place the awareness of the detail involved.

He says, you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb.

God in his power, in his creative power, he brought into existence every every internal component of your body.

And as we've been listening to Dr. Foreman as he's teaching and showing us these slides and so forth, you begin to get an understanding that even

David didn't have of just how significant that is, that God brought into existence every internal component of my being, of my body.

So being aware of the detail involved and then being aware of the intricate process involved that you that God knit together everything, everything that makes up this body to work in perfect, precise harmony.

Everything in your body, he created, he crafted to work in perfect, precise harmony.

So several years ago, let me show you a little object lesson. Dr. Foreman brought a piston.

I bring Jan Teddy Bear, Neko Bear this is.

Neko Bear was crafted at the Vermont Teddy Bear Company in Shelburne, Vermont.

It's fascinating to visit the place where this little guy is made. We used to live just a mile or so up the road from the factory where he's made and been through the factory a couple different times on a factory tour.

And they show you how these guys come together. They show you these big sheets of the fur that makes the outer shell of the bear.

And it's just all a big sheet of the fur. And then they show you the stamping spot where they have the mold that cuts through a whole stack of the layers of the fur to form the different parts of the bear that are going to eventually be sewn together.

And then they show you this machine that stuffs the bear with the fiber stuff that fills the thing up.

They show you these little plastic joints. So this guy's arms all move and they'll rotate.

I mean, like your arm can, you know, like you can go if your shoulder's healthy, you can go like this.

You can do the same thing with this bear. You can rotate his arm, his feet, his legs as well. You've got these little plastic parts inside that join together just like your hip socket and your arms, your shoulder socket and so forth.

And then they show us the room that has all of the different colors of eyes.

And you can pick out the color of eyes that you want your little bear to have. And let's see what else.

Oh, the pads on the feet. You can't see him because he's got his little jogging suit on. But there's different pads and stuff you can have written on the pads of this guy's feet.

And so they take you through and show you all these different stages of the making of a teddy bear.

And we got one of these guys for each of our grandkids. And they all have, you know, some little thing that has their name on it.

And each one is a little bit different in that they have a different outfit.

And I think the girls have different fur. I can't remember. The grandkids all got one of these.

Our kids never did. They were too expensive to give them to the kids. And, you know, when it comes to grandkids, what difference does that make, right?

Some of you grandparents, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And you parents, you also know what I'm talking about when it comes to, oh, it's too expensive for the kid.

But anyway, now what's the point? What's the point? This is really a very, very simple, simple product.

It's not even alive. It doesn't breathe. By the way, he comes with a lifetime guarantee.

So if your kid tears off an ear, you can pack him up, ship him to Shelburne, Vermont, and they'll put him in the teddy bear hospital and heal his ear and send him back to you whole again.

All right. So anyway, simple little thing, doesn't breathe, doesn't move on his own, eyes there but he can't see, ears he can't hear, mouth but he can't speak, you know, just like an idol.

What about you though? What about you? God, in a far more complex, far infinitely more complex process, intricately, intricately wove you together in this process.

When you're aware of that process, it compels you to praise. You're going to sit there?

Stay. All right. Don't go anywhere. Okay. I might knock him off, but anyhow.

And then the third thing that compels you to praise is just being aware of the realm of that process.

Where is the factory? Where is the factory? This factory is located in Shelburne, Vermont.

You can go there and visit. Where is the factory? He says in verse 13, you covered me in my mother's womb.

And that compulsion to praise, when you are aware of these things, you're aware of the detail involved in the creation of your body, the intricate process that's involved and the realm where that takes place, that all leads you to a commitment to praise.

As he says in verse 14, I will praise you. Make that commitment.

Think about this. Be aware of this, the creation of your body, and make that commitment to praise.

How can you not make that commitment? The rest of verse 14.

How can I not make that commitment when I am so fearfully and wonderfully made?

I am fearfully made. Your life is an awesome work.

That's the significance of that word fearfully. It is an awesome work. It is a distinct work, as we've already pointed out with that verb and adverb, wonderfully made, a distinct work, and it is an extraordinary work.

Marvelous are your works. Marvelous. If you think about it, verse 14 ends, you know it's true.

You know it's true. Even the pagans that believe in, that rest their hope, what hope they have, in the theory of evolution, they are astounded by this body.

They are astounded by the mechanisms and the systems and all the rest of it. But if you think about this, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, and how marvelous that work is, you know it's true that you were created, and you can't but praise.

What do you say? What do you praise? Verses 15 and 16. What do you praise?

How do you praise? What's the content of that praise? Praise the hands of a master craftsman.

Verse 15, my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

You see how the psalmist, how David is praising God as a master craftsman who with his hands is crafting and shaping and molding something of great complexity and great beauty.

And he pictures the womb as the workshop of the master craftsman.

Praise the hands of the master craftsman. And in verse 16, praise the eyes of a master artist.

Now I want you to see how these three areas of praise fit together, right? The hands of a master craftsman praise the eyes of a master artist.

He says in verse 16, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed.

You know that reminds me of? It reminds me of, I think it was Michelangelo.

I didn't run it down to verify it, but I think it was. And by the way, the word substance being yet unformed, again, one

Hebrew word. It's one Hebrew word. It's the word not golem like that character in the

Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, not golem, golem, G -O -L -E -M, one

Hebrew word. And it refers to an embryo, an embryo.

Your eyes saw my embryo. So what he's saying is you saw the finished product when

I was still just an embryo in my mother's womb. And the

Lord sees this. See, that's what I'm talking about, praising the eyes of a master artist.

As I said, it reminds me, I think, as again, I think it was Michelangelo who talked about carving a statue from marble.

And somebody would run this down and make sure I'm right on this, if not correct me next week, all right? But I think it was

Michelangelo who said, I don't see a block of marble.

I see the final product that I want to craft.

And then I chisel away, I chip away everything that doesn't belong. The point is that he doesn't see a block of marble.

He sees the final product. This is what the psalmist is saying about God. He has the eyes of this master craftsman who sees the final product that he intends in this craftsmanship.

And then praise the insight of a master planner. The end of verse 16, the insight of a master planner.

In your book, they all were written. What was written? The days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them.

The insight of a master planner who planned my days. They're fashioned for me.

He not only planned them, but he wrote them down. In your book, he says, they were written.

And he did so before my first day. Isn't that astounding?

Does that not lead you to praise? By the way, others have waxed eloquent on that insight of the master planner in the book where he has written everything down and talked about the details of the genetic code, your

DNA. That code has written in it in one cell, has written in it everything about your body.

Everything is written there. Fascinating. Well, praise the hands of the master craftsman.

Praise the eyes of the master artist. Praise the insight of the master planner. And in verses 17 to 18, what is the conclusion of this praise?

That I, as an individual human being, that I was created by the master craftsman, the master artist, the master planner, it indicates in the first place, the preciousness of God's thoughts.

Verse 17, how precious also are your thoughts to me, oh

God. The word thoughts doesn't, it doesn't suggest passivity.

Like, oh yeah, I just happened to think about this. You know,

I mean, even as I stand here, there are hundreds of thoughts that just, you know what

I'm talking about. Even in the last 35 minutes, there's been a thousand thoughts that have entered into your mind, and they've had absolutely nothing to do with Psalm 139.

I get that. I understand that. Passive thoughts. That's not what this word means.

This word is talking about purposes, intentional thoughts.

He says, how precious are your purposes to me, oh

God. Your intentional thoughts for me, oh God. How precious are those thoughts?

Now, remember, get the context here. He's talking about the craftsmanship, the creation of your human body.

All of this purposefully wrought. How precious are

God's thoughts, and how profuse they are. How profuse they are.

The profusion of God's thoughts is brought out in the last part of verse 17 and into verse 18.

He says, how great is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand.

Think of the number of details. Dr. Foreman brought in his piston. Think of the number of details that are involved in building a mass -produced car.

We've got dozens of auto manufacturers around the world, right? Imagine for a minute, just imagine that there was only one automobile manufacturer in the world, and that one manufacturer made all of the cars ever built, and no two of them were the same, and it was noticeable that no two of them were the same.

Just one car manufacturer. Now, that would be quite a feat. That would be quite a feat.

But what the psalmist is saying here is that God's thoughts are so many, so great is the sum of how many thoughts, purposeful, intentional thoughts does

God have in the crafting of one human body that is absolutely distinct from every other human body?

Oh, sure, there's a lot of things that are comparable, similar, but there are no two human beings the same.

That's the whole principle behind facial recognition software, right? Even in the face, there are no two faces that are exactly the same.

And so if you think about that with a car manufacturer, think about the level of intricate detail, the countless details involved in a single cell of your body.

More in number than grains of sand, the psalmist says. It's a good description.

And then this all leads to the conclusion to think about the permanence of God's thoughts.

The last part of verse 18. When I awake, I am still with you.

I'm still with you. At birth, throughout your childhood, through adolescence, the various stages of adulthood,

I am still in God's thoughts. I'm still in God's thoughts.

I'm still with you. So as we continue in this fascinating series,

Dr. Forman is leading, and they should be back, and they will be back, Lord willing, next Sunday. We continue in this series.

Let's be sure that each week's lesson, each week takes us back to this fundamental commitment of a purposefully created people.

I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Our Father and our

God, we do thank you today for this great insight that the psalmist.