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Scripture as it is described in verses 7 and 8. And we will see how the two ministries are connected—through the
skies and through the Scriptures.

What We See When We Look Up
Psalm 19:1 "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament declares his handiwork." The focus of
these six verses is on what we see when we look up—the heavens, the skies, the firmament (an old word for the
arched dome of blue sky that seems to sit on the circle of the earth). Of course God made more than what we see
when we look up. And David doesn't mean to say that the skies speak of God but the earth doesn't or that the
ocean or the lakes and trees and birds and animals and flowers and mountains don't. Everything that God has made
speaks. And therefore everything that God has made ministers—for those who will listen. But here the focus is on
the heavens, the skies, what we see when we look up. That's the first observation.

Speaking Skies
The second thing to see is that these skies "tell"—they "proclaim." Verse 2: they "pour forth speech" (it's a word
for a gushing or spewing out); they make known knowledge. Fix this truth in your minds: God speaks through
what he has made, and means for you to hear what he has to say. And since he never speaks in vain, he means
for what he has to say to minister to you—to meet some need that you have.

Without Words
First, then, the focus is on what we see when we look up, the skies. Second, the sky gushes forth with speech.
God is talking to the world all day and all night, every day and every night, everywhere in the world. Now, third,
the message of God through the skies reaches the mind and the heart without the medium of ordinary words or
speech. This is hard to explain. David struggles to say it. Notice the paradox between verses 2 and 3. Verse 2:
"Day to day pours forth speech . . . " Verse 3: "There is no speech . . . " (It's the same Hebrew word for "speech"
in both places.)
In other words, God means for there to be communication from his mind and heart to our mind and heart, but the
medium of communication—the thing that carries the reality from his heart to my heart—is not written words; it's
not spoken words. Instead it's light and color and contrast and shape and proportion and design and motion and
magnitude, etc. So verse 3 says, "There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard." Yet, verse 4
goes back and says the same thing as verse 2 again, "Yet their line [or sound or voice] goes out through all the
earth, and their words to the end of the world." Wordless words, speechless speech, voiceless voice. The point is
clear: God is pouring forth communication to us through the sky; he is telling and proclaiming and speaking and
writing lines and declaring knowledge to everyone who will stop and listen.

A Message About God
And the fourth thing to see is that the message of the sky is about God. The ministry of the sky is a ministry of
communication about God. Day and night everywhere in the world God is speaking to all people about himself. Not
about nature—we are not New Age pantheists. God is not nature. Nature is not God. "In the beginning God
CREATED the heavens and the earth." They were not until he said they should be. What God is speaking about in
the sky is beyond the sky, namely, himself. Verse 1: "The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament
proclaims the works of his hand."

Sensing Two Things Immediately

It might be helpful to compare this wordless communication to what happens when we see a painting. Two things
come home to our minds immediately when someone shows us a painting. What I mean by immediately is that
these two things come home to our minds without the medium of words. In fact there doesn't even seem to be any
extended sequence of thought or logic. Instead these two things are intuitive and immediate. They happen almost
simultaneously.

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