The heavens declare His righteousness,

.... And all the peoples see His glory. All who serve carved images are put to shame, who boast of idols. All gods must worship him (Psalm 97:6, 7).  It is interesting to me that man made light,which is of course artificial, this light obscures the heavens, the night sky. It is only when we get away from the  artificial light of the city, that we can see the glory of the heavens. To me it's a parable of what we do when we allow the light of our achievements to obscure the glory and the righteousness of God.  It's the tower of Babel all over again!  The worship of idols in the ancient world was widespread, and to me that indicates there is something innate within us,  that needs to worship. If we don't worship God we will worship something else. Today's idols are more sophisticated, we worship and put our trust in Science, or the intellect, in some ideology, in “princes,” in sports heroes and celebrities,  pastors, political leaders etc. But in the end all such idols must fall in the light of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

It is interesting that the Hebrew word for idol also means  insufficiency, worthlessness.  Naturalism,  is the belief that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe, it is essentially the worship of science. And  it's insufficient because if we believe that all that is, is simply the result of random chance, then it leaves human lives without meaning, significance or value, it leaves us worthless.     It also leaves morality with no basis. I am not saying an atheist cannot be moral, merely that he or she has no real rational basis for it.

The silly thing though, is that in spite of all this, there is this strong tendency to boast in our idols. We have the best hockey team, the best morality (immorality), the best church, the best theology, science will solve all our problems, my dad is bigger than yours etc., etc. To boast is to speak with excessive pride and self-satisfaction about something. All such boasting is futile, because in the end “all gods must worship Him.”   


In particular there is coming a day when His light will expose all error, all idolatry. Though in many ways our artificial light obscures His light, nevertheless it remains true that the heavens declare the glory and the righteousness of God,  and that the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen by we His  creatures. The problem though, is that we suppress truth in our  unrighteousness. We love our darkness rather than His light. It's called rationalization. But in the end it will all be exposed by God's light,  for there is nothing hidden in His sight, and  we will be without excuse  (Romans  1:18 – 20).

Father, forgive us for the times when we have preferred our own insufficient and worthless light to the glorious light of the gospel. Forgive us Lord for our boasting in anything but You. “Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the cross of Christ my God. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood.” Thank You Lord that You have opened my eyes,  and continue to open my eyes.  Thank You that on that day I will see You clearly, because I will see You as You are. We praise You Lord in Jesus Name Amen