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1. The first is that we sense immediately that this is a painting. It is not alive. It is not a real flower or a real person
or a real landscape. It's a portrait. It's a painting. It is the work of a human hand. We don't have to think about it, or
reason it out. There is a kind of speech, as the psalm says, but there are no words. We just see it and know it:
someone made this.

2. The second thing we sense immediately is some assessment of the painting: it is beautiful or ugly or lewd or
frightening or just blah. We might think about this later and change our mind. But there is an immediate
communication to our hearts without words or extended reasonings: this is glorious or not.

This Was Made; This Was Created
Now that seems to be what David means when he describes the skies as speaking without speech about the work
of God's hand and about the glory of God's person. God means for these two things to hit home to our hearts
without any words or any extended reasonings: First, he shows us the sky, the sun and moon and stars and clouds
and sunrises and sunsets and immediately—with no words—we know this was made; this was created; this was
designed. And all the evolutionary speculation about the origin of the universe cannot shake loose that profound,
immediate, plain perception of the mind and the heart: this is the work of a designer, a painter, a creator. As Joseph
Addison wrote in his hymn,

The Glory of God
And the second thing that we sense immediately when we look at the heavens is glory. There were mornings
during our study leave when I would stop in the woods on my way from the cottage to the little trailer where I
worked, and the air would be lucid and cool, and the morning sun would be spangled in the ripples of the lake
down the hill through the pine trees, and the leaves of the sweet-gum and the oak and the maple and the hickory
trees would be all ablaze with gold and green, and up through the branches I would see the sky bright and clear
and blue. And all I could do was look up and feel, "Glory, glory, glory!" And I knew, immediately, without words
and without any extended reasonings: this is the way God is. These are but the outskirts of his ways and the
beams of his beauty.
The glory of God is not a reality that can be transferred merely by words. There is an immediacy in this
discovery—a spiritual perception happens, a holy taste is born, a God-given revelation hits home. And no flood of
words, no amount of reasonings, no mere arguments could ever impart what the heart sees when it sees the
glory of God. It can come through the skies or it can come through the Scriptures (see also 2 Corinthians 4:4–6) or
it can come through the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit (John 2:11; Matthew 5:16). But it is always more than
the fruit of the Spirit, more than the Scriptures, more than the skies. These are the portrait not the Reality. These
are the handiwork, not the Artist.

One more observation—We have seen first that the focus here is on the skies. Second we have seen that the skies
pour forth speech every day, every night, everywhere in the world. Third, we have seen that this communication is
without words. It is more immediate; it comes home to the mind and heart with direct force and certainty. And
fourth we have seen that the message of the skies is the glory of God. God is beautiful in his perfections, God is
awesome in his power, God is beyond comprehension in his wisdom and knowledge.

The Glory of God Is a Happy Thing
But the fifth point is that the glory of God is a happy thing. Is this not the point of verses 5 and 6? David looks up
into the sky on a beautiful clear-blue early morning from Mount Zion and hears speech pouring forth about the
glory of God. And then he fixes his heart's attention on one theme in that symphony of glory and watches the
sun rise out of the east over the Jordan valley.
And the Spirit of God comes upon David to help him communicate what the glory of God is really like and he says
in verse 5, "It comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy.

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