Fullness 24:1

Fullness 24:1(1,214)

July 21st, 2011

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

This is the closing verse of the famous twenty-third Psalm. Perhaps you realize that the Bible, when it was written, was not constructed in chapters and verses. That came along later, with adept scribes and translators. So the next verse—or the 24th Psalm, as we know it, is really somewhat of a continuation of the previous thought and it reads simply: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, all the world and those who dwell therein.”

So this house of the Lord that the twenty-third Psalm was talking about is not so much a temple in Jerusalem or a church building, but rather, the whole creation of God that surrounds us, and the Bible says, all of its fullness. So I find it a bit confusing why we think that sciences, history, chemistry, philosophy, geology and any of the other studies, are contrary to spirituality. And the people who thought the world was flat must have failed to read the Bible, where it refers to “the circle of the earth.” And those who insist that evolution is an evil or erroneous theory hatched by some atheistic Darwin obviously never read the Genesis account of creation, which offers its own rudimentary form of evolution, with the first life forms coming from the water.

I don’t know why religious people are so frightened of knowledge and people who pursue greater understanding think that their best profile is to be non-believers. As I drive through the countryside of New York today on my way to Pennsylvania, where I will perform in Warren tonight, I am astounded at the beauty, expansiveness and intricacy of the glorious panorama of creative excellence spread before me.

Why do we have to make God so small to make knowledge appear to be big? And why does knowledge have to shrink in order for us to establish our faith in God?

Forgive me for saying so, but I just happen to believe in fullness—and that Psalm 24:1 certainly leads me to contend that nature and God, knowledge and spirituality, have absolutely no conflict with one another unless someone has an ax to grind or is bound and determined to create an unnecessary warring among God’s many children and gifts.

There really is a very simple formula about determining whether something is a discovery which progresses mankind—therefore giving a salute to the heavenly Father—or whether we’re trying to stunt the growth of human beings by keeping them ignorant or if we’re bound and determined to disprove the existence of a Creator by making everything haphazard.

The formula: Does the new information (a) confirm what we already know, or (b) open a door to make human beings more aware and creative, or (c) push us towards a greater comprehension on how to honor both God and nature through either conservation or concentration?

If those three things are achieved, there is no difference between saying the word “knowledge” and saying the word “God.” Because as it says in the book of James, the one prayer that is always answered immediately is the request for wisdom. God is overjoyed at our enlightenment. So I would characterize God as a Being who is open to full disclosure, and has produced an atmosphere that requires asking, seeking and knocking to achieve understanding.

It is ignorant of both science and the Bible to dispel a respect for evolution—natural selection. (I personally do not believe in the entire thesis of The Origin of the Species. I think a creative force which was able to generate evolution through the appearance of the chimpanzee is certainly capable of producing a second evolution through the human race. Those who are purists in Darwinism would find this distasteful, I’m sure. And those who are very religious would object because I accept any form of evolution whatsoever. And no evidence has been given to me that man was able to evolve from the ape. But time marches on.)

It is irresponsible to fail to study the earth’s habits and changes in climate to better enhance our style of occupancy. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” So everything we discover about this earth is not going to be contrary to a belief in God unless we dig our heels in and insist that our present limited knowledge is the end-all of human understanding.

The reason I hope that I someday get a chance to meet God is because I know that in my brief lifetime, all the wonder of this planet will not be understood by me, and He will be able to make sense of His own chemical and spiritual mixture that causes the great fullness that we call earth.

All the world is His and all those who dwell within it. That’s really good news. Because if we’re going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, the goodness and mercy that will come our way is in accepting the revelations that are achieved by those inquisitive minds that want to find God through a test tube instead of a prayer.