Transcribed by David Price email ccx074coventryacukTWENTYFIVE VILLAGE SERMONSSERMON I  GODS WORLDPSALM civ 24O Lord how manifold are Thy works in wisdom hast Thou made themall  the earth is full of Thy richesWhen we read such psalms as the one from which this verse is takenwe cannot help if we consider feeling at once a great differencebetween them and any hymns or religious poetry which is commonlywritten or read in these days  The hymns which are most liked nowand the psalms which people most willingly choose out of the Bibleare those which speak or seem to speak about Gods dealings withpeoples own souls while such psalms as this are overlookedPeople do not care really about psalms of this kind when they findthem in the Bible and they do not expect or wish nowadays any oneto write poetry like them  For these psalms of which I speak praiseand honour God not for what He has done to our souls but for whatHe has done and is doing in the world around us  This very 104thpsalm for instance speaks entirely about things which we hardlycare or even think proper to mention in church now  It speaks ofthis earth entirely and the things on it  Of the light theclouds and windof hills and valleys and the springs on the hillsidesof wild beasts and birdsof grass and corn and wine andoilof the sun and moon night and daythe great sea the shipsand the fishes and all the wonderful and nameless creatures whichpeople the watersthe very birds nests in the high trees and therabbits burrowing among the rocksnothing on the earth but thispsalm thinks it worth mentioning  And all this which one wouldexpect to find only in a book of natural history is in the Biblein one of the psalms written to be sung in the temple at Jerusalembefore the throne of the living God and His glory which used to beseen in that templeinspired as we all believe by Gods SpiritGods own word in short  that is worth thinking of  Surely theman who wrote this must have thought very differently about thisworld with its fields and woods and beasts and birds from what wethink  Suppose now that we had been old Jews in the templestanding before the holy house and that we believed as the Jewsbelieved that there was only one thin wall and one curtain of linenbetween us and the glory of the living God that unspeakablebrightness and majesty which no one could look at for fear ofinstant death except the highpriest in fear and trembling once ayearthat inside that small holy house He God Almighty appearedvisiblyGod who made heaven and earth  Suppose we had been therein the temple and known all this should we have liked to besinging about beasts and birds with God Himself close to us  Weshould not have liked itwe should have been terrified thinkingperhaps about our own sinfulness perhaps about that wonderfulmajesty which dwelt inside  We should have wished to say or singsomething spiritual as we call it at all events something verydifferent from the 104th psalm about woods and rivers and dumbbeasts  We do not like the thought of such a thing  it seemsalmost irreverent almost impertinent to God to be talking of suchthings in His presence  Now does this shew us that we think aboutthis earth and the things in it in a very different way from thoseold Jews  They thought it a fit and proper thing to talk about cornand wine and oil and cattle and fishes in the presence of AlmightyGod and we do not think it fit and proper  We read this psalm whenit comes in the Churchservice as a matter of course mainly becausewe do not believe that God is here among us  We should not be soready to read it if we thought that Almighty God was so near usThat is a great difference between us and the old Jews  Whether itshews that we are better or not than they were in the main I cannottell perhaps some of them had such thoughts too and said It isnot respectful to God to talk about such commonplace earthly thingsin His presence perhaps some of them thought themselves spiritualand pureminded for looking down on this psalm and on David forwriting it  Very likely for men have had such thoughts in allages and will have them  But the man who wrote this psalm had nosuch thoughts  He said himself in this same psalm that his wordswould please God  Nay he is not speaking and preaching ABOUT Godin this psalm as I am now in my sermon but he is doing more he isspeaking TO Goda much more solemn thing if you will think of itHe says O Lord my God THOU art become exceeding glorious  Thoudeckest Thyself with light as with a garment  All the beasts waiton Thee when Thou givest them meat they gather it  Thou renewestthe face of the earth  When he turns and speaks of God as Hesaying He appointed the moon and so on he cannot help goingback to God and pouring out his wonder and delight and awe toGod Himself as we would sooner speak TO any one we love and honourthan merely speak ABOUT them  He cannot take his mind off God  Andjust at the last when he does turn and speak to himself it is tosay Praise thou the Lord O my soul praise the Lord as ifrebuking and stirring up himself for being too coldhearted andslow for not admiring and honouring enough the infinite wisdom andpower and love and glorious majesty of God which to him shinesout in every hedgeside bird and every blade of grass  Truly I saidthat man had a very different way of looking at Gods earth fromwhat we haveNow in what did that difference lie  What was it  We