“The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good” (Psalm 14:1).
Stephen Charnock: “Nor is it unuseful to those who effectually believe and love him; for those who have had a converse with God, and felt His powerful influences in the secrets of their hearts, to take a prospect of those satisfactory accounts which reason gives of that God they adore and love; to see every creature justify them in their owning of Him, and affections to Him: indeed the evidences of a God striking upon the conscience of those who resolve to cleave to sin as their chiefest darling, will dash their pleasures with unwelcome mixtures.
I will further premise this, that the folly of atheism is evidenced by the light of reason. Men that will not listen to Scripture, as having no counterpart of it in their souls, cannot easily deny natural reason, which riseth up on all sides for the justification of this truth. There is a natural as well as a revealed knowledge and the book of the creatures is legible in declaring the being of God, as well as the Scriptures are in declaring the nature of a God; there are outward objects in the world, and common principles in the conscience, whence it may be inferred.”
Clay Miller: It is good for me to note the evidences of God’s existence daily. It is sweet to see creation justify His Being. It causes me to wonder…to ponder on things about Him. It keeps me from sin. That last phrase of the first paragraph, “will dash their pleasure with unwelcome mixtures” made me wish I had a commentary on this book. What was he saying? I came up with two things…One, he is transitioning from the sweetness of the evidences of God to a believer to the bothersome nature of the evidences of God to unbelievers. It is a big damper when a sinner is reveling in sin, and he is reminded of a God that exists that will hold him accountable for his sin. Two, he is speaking of a believer who is sinning and reminded of God’s presence. This brings a violent battle to the Christian mind. So, either way, these evidences of God in our reasoning is useful.
God gave us two books so to speak…Natural revelation and Special revelation. Natural revelation is the world we inhabit with all its creatures. These speaks loudly to the existence of God. Special revelation is the Bible…Scriptures. This declares who the evident God is and what He is like. The Bible is the only book that makes sense of not only the physical origins and nature of our existence, but also the spiritual purposes for those creatures by the designer we know has to be there. More later.
