When I Consider Thy Heavens

I have been thinking about those ancient stargazers who saw the sign in the heavens announcing the birth of the Great King.  It’s intriguing to me that they were able to look upward and understand so much.  What is written in the heavens was like a second language to them.  This should not surprise us.  God said right from the beginning that the lights He created in the firmament of the heavens were “for signs, and for seasons…” (Gen. 1.14).  These men knew how to read those signs.

We have largely lost the ability to do that now, and I am not suggesting we turn to modern astrology, and horoscopes, and the like, to try to get that ability back.  It is a heavenly language that the stars speak, and only God Himself can give the interpretation.

God Himself has testified as much, as our Bible records.  He challenged Job, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades (the seven stars), or loose the bands of Orion?  Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (the twelve signs, each) in its season?  Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?  Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?  Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? (Job 38.31,32).

This challenge left Job feeling pretty ignorant, as it leaves me also.  But one thing is clear. Completely apart from the deception of modern astrology, the heavens display wondrous messages from God for us.

The shepherd David realized this back in the days when our Bible was still being built.  While watching his sheep at night he would look up into the starry sky and write down his thoughts.

“The heavens declare the glory of the LORD,” he wrote, “and the firmament sheweth His handiwork.  Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowlege” (Ps. 19.1).

That’s very interesting.  Not, “day after day,” not “night after night,” but “day unto day,” “night unto night.”  The night sky corresponds to the time of night we now live in, the moon being the church, the bride of Christ; and the stars her children—the “children of the Day,” shining forth in the night the glory of the Lord in differing degrees of glory.  And the sun in the daytime?  I marvel at what David said about the sun.  This had to be purely by revelation from God.  For he said that the sky was “a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” (Ps. 19.5).

The Bridegroom comes out of His chamber of night rejoicing for the contest before Him.  It’s the day of Christ, the great Day of the Lord over which He rules, and He shines forth in powerful Light– and heat. “And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”  It is going to be a very hot day.  We are well advised to be prepared for it– and seek a Shady Place.

Back to that other skywatcher David, out watching his sheep at night again, always totally awed by what he is seeing.

“When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him?”

David was so humbled by what he was seeing—and so am I when I look upward.  I can barely read that heavenly language, but when I look up into the heavens on a starry night, I am held in awe, and humbled.  It’s so humbling to look up.

Let us do that often, then!

“What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him?”

How wondrous.  This majestic God who created the sun and the stars and set them in the vast expanse of a universe past finding out is not only mindful of us.  He has visited us.

And He is going to do so again.