ESSAY-LIKE SUNDAY MORNING: GLOBAL APPLAUSE

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ESSAY-LIKE SUNDAY MORNING: Many churches do not have Sunday School on fifth Sunday. My church is one of those churches. I once researched the rationale behind this tradition and found no comprehensive explanation. It seems to have something to do with the tradition of the “Circuit Preachers” of the early Methodist Church.

 
However, there is a lesson in our Sunday School text for today. The lesson is entitled, GLOBAL APPLAUSE. The Scripture is from Psalm 148:1-14. The KEY VERSE was verse 5, which reads; “Let them praise the name of the Lord, for at his command they were created” (NIV).

 
The Scripture tells us that EVERYTHING in the Universe praises God the Creator, in one way or another. The only one of God’s creations which habitually has to be reminded, chided, even goaded into giving our Creator His due praise is, MAN/WOMAN. How about that? Arguably, the greatest of God’s creations, is the most RELUCTANT to give Him praise.

 
God is great, and greatly to be praised! Let me posit another of my “famous” examples of His greatness.

 
Isn’t it amazing how, your favorite set of drinking glasses seems to slowly dwindle in number over time until, alas, only one, two, or maybe even none of them remain?

The “usual suspects” are the children, but even adults have their share of accidents with the glasses.

Have you ever noticed that when one is accidentally knocked from the counter top and crashes to the floor, it shatters into many pieces of various sizes and shapes? These pieces then scatter all across the kitchen floor. Some end up under appliances, some in corners, some even skitter into other rooms. I’ve often found pieces from a broken glass, months after the accident.

 
Yes, it is indeed a tedious process to get all of the pieces up off of the floor. If only there was some “scientific” way that we could predict exactly how the glass would fracture and where each piece would end up—after smashing to the floor—clean-up would be A SMASH, wouldn’t it? But alas, no such science exists, or does it?

 
“Well actually” (my favorite phrase), there is a science that studies how glass breaks, it is called, “FRACTOLOGY” and is a branch of “FORENSIC SCIENCE”. Researchers from the; “University of California – Davis, Forensic Science Graduate Program” did a study that entailed the breaking of over 180 glass objects to observe the fracture patterns, but all this study could determine was that, there IS no predictability to how the glass will break, what patterns it will break into, or how the pieces will be positioned when they all come to rest on the floor.

 

This is the case in most ACCIDENTAL situations. The outcome is random and often, unpredictable.

 
As an EMS responder, I’ve been one of the first people to arrive on the scenes of several motor vehicle collisions. Many times, the mechanisms and circumstances of the accidents have been very similar, but the position of the vehicles, the locations of the various vehicles parts, and the condition of the patients has been completely dissimilar. The outcome, of the ACCIDENTS, has been predictably, RANDOM.

 
YET! With our Creator, NOTHING is RANDOM; there are NO ACCIDENTS; EVERYTHING is by DESIGN. In the verses studied in this lesson, the Psalmist calls on ALL of God’s creations to praise Him. He calls on: the angels, the sun and moon, the waters, the stars, the great sea creatures and all the ocean depths, lightning and hail, the snow and clouds, the wind, the mountains and the hills, trees, wild animals as well as domesticated ones, birds and US. ALL of HIS PERFECT CREATIONS.

 
One author states that there are three questions that we can ask ourselves when we look at the wonders of the earth and sky:

 
“Does a law explain it?

 

Does chance explain it?

 

Does design explain it?

 
A bullet firing when a gun’s trigger is pulled or getting at least one head when a coin is tossed a hundred times, are both high probability events due to natural law. Natural law explains it.

 
Rolling snake eyes with a pair of fair dice, or even winning a million-dollar lottery when considering how many tickets are sold, constitute events of intermediate probability that are justly relegated to chance. Chance explains it.

 
But let’s say the same person wins that lottery three times in a row. Suddenly we suspect that something more than chance is involved. There’s a design, a pattern to what it happening. Somebody knows the numbers and is tipping the person off (Ray Bohlin)”.

But God’s creations are consistent and repeatable. A horse is a horse, every time He creates one. He is that SOMEBODY who “knows the numbers”.

 
He spoke our creation into existence. He was that First Cause that set our world into motion. The creation now speaks to us of the Creator. In fact, the Creation is one of God’s great missionaries; it sings His praises and so should we.

Published by ronbrownx

I'm just a country boy who was fortunate enough to have seen a little bit of the world, courtesy of Uncle Sam. My blog site began as a college assignment, but is slowly evolving into something more. What, I'm not exactly sure of yet. So, forgive the links that go nowhere; the dead ends etc. I'll get it together some day. You can also find samples of my writing under the title, "Ron's Time Tunnel" and "The Flowering Vine", on my most generous cousin's blog site, seekthebestblog.com. As you can see by the title of my blog, I have a fascination with TIME. I hope you'll enjoy tripping through it with me.

37 Comments

  1. Brilliant. I honestly think and feel that we as gumans, are not supposed to know certain things. I feel like it’s “out of our league.” When I was younger, I would question why planet earth is 80% water and our bodies are 8o% water, and why our planet is the perfect distance from the sun etc. Etc. But as I got older, I say “those questions are out of your tax bracket mortal man.” Hahahahahahha

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  2. Amen and well said Ron. The early Church Fathers believed there were two books of God. The Book of His Words, and the Book of His Works. You describe the latter one perfectly. Thanks.

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  3. I learnt a thing or two here today, thank you for the words, the image and significance of broken glass will stay with me today. Loved the last line that ties it all together – God just had to speak and it came to be -lovely lesson!

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  4. Excellent post cousin!

    God is there underlying everything in creation.
    As man, we are exclusively wired to become aware of this fact; yet, as you said, we are the only ones who really need to be coaxed into acknowledging this Divine Presence. Isn’t that a bit of a paradox? LOL!!

    The fauna and the flora don’t have or require that awareness–they don’t need it. They simply live and bask in it!

    Loved it!

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      1. Thank you Ron, hope you are doing great! Hope you are catching up with all the love we’ve been spreading and you’re still welcome to join the party. I’m one who believes that Valentine’s day can be on any day,everyday.

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  7. I remember a comedian who said it’s amazing how when people are in a dire situation the first thing they do is pray. I thought about that and wondered why people don’t just speak to God on a daily basis. Even God would appreciate a “shout out” now and then. I try and thank him for the little things in life and I don’t try to burden him with things that aren’t important to the world. He has enough on his plate then to listen to me whine about needing something. Good post, Ron!

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  8. Inspired way of tying everything together Ron. My wife reckons when birds sing it’s sometimes ‘Praise Him. Praise Him’ (and tells me not to be a misery because I claim it’s their way of saying ‘get off my patch’).
    There are so many mysteries in this Universe; I believe as we learn and uncover each one God is pleased the way any loving parent is when their children discover something for themselves.

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