Consider God's Wonders
Job 37:14; 38:4, 6b-7, Psalm 33:6, 9
Stop and consider God's wonders. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made. He spoke, and it came to be...
Volcán de Fuego erupting 2018 under the Galaxia Vía Láctea; dawn over Guatemala City in the background.
Deuteronomy 10:14 (KJV)
Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.
1 Chronicles 29:11
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Psalm 8:3-4
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
C.H. Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalm 19 (highly recommended)
Psalms 19 - Treasury of David - Bible Commentaries - StudyLight.org
"God in Nature and In Revelation" on Psalm 19:7-9
https://www.spurgeongems.org/sermon/chs3314.pdf
Psalm 65:8
The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
where morning dawns, where evening fades,
you call forth songs of joy.
Psalm 104:1-3 (NASB)
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, You are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
Covering Yourself with light as with a cloak,
Stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.
He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters;
He makes the clouds His chariot;
He walks upon the wings of the wind.
Proverbs 8:27-31 (ESV)
When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man.
Jeremiah 51:15
He made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
Amos 4:13
Behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind
And declares to man what are His thoughts,
He who makes dawn into darkness
And treads on the high places of the earth,
The Lord God of hosts is His name.
Basil, Exegetical Works, "On the Hexameron"
… the world is a work of art, set before all for contemplation, so that through it the wisdom of Him who created it should be known …
“To All Who Love Jesus Christ and His Gospel”, John Calvin’s preface to Olivetan’s French translation of the Bible
(On all creation, God)…engraved the glory of his power, his goodness, wisdom and immortality… Every creature, from the firmament to the centre of the earth, could be for all men witnesses and messengers of his glory, that they might be drawn to seek him and, having found him, to welcome him and to do him homage, given the eminence of a Lord who is so good, so powerful, so wise and so eternal. All things in their own way served to help men in their search: the tiny songbirds sang of God, the beasts called to him, the elements trembled before him, the mountains echoed to his voice, the rivers and springs looked to him, the grass and flowers smiled merrily at him.
Nathaniel Vincent
The heavens preach to those on earth, and plainly declare their Creator's glory; they utter a voice which all of all languages may understand.
Ezekiel Hopkins "On Glorifying God In His Attributes"
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZPgCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA253&source
Romans 1:20 "His eternal power and godhead are clearly seen by the things that are made."
Cast but thine eyes to that vast expansion of the heavens, what a beautiful canopy dost thou there behold; all studded with gems: and almost every star in that general muster of the heavenly host, far greater than the whole earth! Consider the various kinds of creatures, that God hath breathed forth upon the face of the earth in divers shapes and sizes; some voluminous, some contracted; in both which his power is equally seen, but his art and skill rather glorious in the latter. Whence is all this frame and compounded machine of the world, made up of so many different parts, and yet all set together in such an admirable order and harmony?
If we run it up to its first original, we shall find all things to have been once a mere nothing (Genesis 1:2 “Now the earth was formless and empty…”). And was it not infinite power, that could constrain nothing to yield so many, and such beautiful beings? That the heavens should, out of nothing, spread abroad their liquid crystals? That the earth should, out of nothing, gather all its thick parts together; and, as the sediment of the world, compact and settle itself in the centre of the universe?
Certainly these, and infinite others, are most stupendous demonstrations of his infinite power. Nay, not only these great things, but the smallest and most despised works of God, declare that he is almighty: Magnus in magnis, nee minor in minimis: there is not the least spire of grass, that sprouts out of the earth; not the least fly, that is animated by the sun; but it may be a sufficient conviction of the folly of atheism, and cause us to fall down and adore that God, who created and formed it.
Glorify, therefore, the power of God, by a serious and pious contemplation of these his wonderful works.
Wheresoever you go, and whatsoever you see and converse with, you have this book open before you, wherein you may read enough to admonish and instruct you in this attribute. It is time well spent, and thought well employed, when, from the works of creation and providence, from the frame of the world and the government of it, the various kinds of creatures which ye behold and the various revolutions of affairs which ye hear of abroad, you return into your own hearts, and season them with awful thoughts and reflections on the almighty power of the Great God.
George Swinnock Works, Book IV "The Fading Of The Flesh - An Exhortation To Men To Choose God For Their Portion"
If you can see God in creation, the plants, birds, minerals, and beasts, what thoughts might you have, if God were your portion. Look at the ocean, the storms and tempests, the innumerable fish, both small and great, what would you think of having the author and commander of the earth and ocean for your portion? What would you give to enjoy him who gave them being, and who appoints and knows the number of the stars, and who calls them by name? (Psalm 147:4, Isaiah 40:26)
Abraham Lincoln
https://books.google.com/books?id=3zY6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA10&lpg
I never behold them (the heavens filled with stars) that I do not feel I am looking into the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.
F.B. Meyer
"God's Providential Care"
(Creation) teaches us that God loves beautiful things, and expends thought and skill in their production.
“The Thoughts of God”
It is told of Johannes Kepler that, one night, after hours spent in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed, "I have been thinking over again the earliest thoughts of God."
Thomas Blacklock “Come, O my soul, in sacred lays”
In all our Maker's grand designs,
Omnipotence, with wisdom, shines;
His works, through all this wondrous frame,
Declare the glory of His Name.
William Cowper, The Task, Book V on John 8:32 “…the truth will set you free.”
He is the free man whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers; his to enjoy,
Who, with a filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, “My Father made them all”.
Sir John Bowring
Matins and Vespers: With Hymns and Occasional Devotional Pieces
He who made that glowing Sun,
Still watches o'er His children—and He spreads
A roll of starry brightness o'er our heads,
Waking the stars and planets one by one.
Lighted 'neath heaven's temple arch,
Ten thousand stars are shining round,
And all on their imposing march
Thy everlasting praise resound.
William Wordsworth, “Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, July 13, 1798”
http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html
I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused (permeated),
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
Psalm 148:1-10
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord!
For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and mist,
stormy wind fulfilling his word!
Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
Beasts and all livestock,
creeping things and flying birds!
The Confessions of St. Augustine, VII.xiii on Psalm 148
All things born of earth show us that you, O God, deserve praise: sea monsters and the sea depths, fire and hail, snow and frost, the breath of the storm which does as you ask, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, reptiles and winged birds; kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, young men and women, old and young together: let them praise you. Let them also praise you from the heavens, let them exalt you, our God, your angels on high, all your powers, sun and moon, all the stars and light, the heaven of heavens and the waters above the heavens: let them praise your name.
Nehemiah 9:6
You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
Big Daddy Weave, "Overwhelmed"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6oxXwRWFTo
"Galaxies spinning a heavenly dance" from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
Isaac Watts “Now To The Lord A Noble Song!”
The spacious earth and spreading flood
Proclaim the wise, the powerful God;
And thy rich glories from afar
Sparkle in every rolling star.