Psalm 139 - Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

And as it has been mentioned, we're surrounded by the beauty of nature. Just look around. You think how much has been designed. Nothing is left to chance. All has been made with such care and design. I've never seen a tree planted where the leaves stay in the ground and the roots come up. It's always the opposite. The roots are always designed to go underground and the trunk and the branches to go up toward the sun.

David, besides being many other things, was an artist. He was a great musician. In those days, the guitar was the liar that they would play very similar to the guitar. He composed the great majority of the hymns in the book of Psalms. Not only the hymns, but the words to it. And he was very perceptive. He related things to God. The good and the bad that happened to him, he never broke that relationship with God. He had mistakes to repent of, very serious sins. But you see, throughout his life, that he always went back to God.

He always ended up. One of the great reasons was his great ability to praise God for so many things. As a shepherd, he was out in the field. He was able to reflect, to observe, and marvel over the things that surrounded him. And especially how much God considered and loved him, despite his weaknesses. He meditated on God's qualities, not so much his, and wanted to follow them. It reminds me of what will be in the kingdom of God one day, where it says, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God. Isaiah 11, verse 9.

One day, this type of knowledge that we are receiving from Sabbath to Sabbath will be spread to the entire earth. People are going to relate nature with God. We're not going to have a godless education and academic leadership, like today, that deny God. And many are actively against God. What a world! What have we turned into with intelligence that God has given us, instead of giving them praise? We despise them. In Psalms 139, which is going to be the main scripture for today, Psalms 139, in verse 13, we see David examining his own body and praising God for it.

He says in Psalms 139, verse 13 through 18, it says, My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lower parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, and in your book they all were written the day's fashion for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand.

When I awake, I am still with you. And so you see how he prays God? In verse 14, the contemporary English version says, Everything you do is marvelous. Of this I have no doubt. So the purpose here, as the Passover arrives, let's appreciate God's careful design. He designed the Passover just like he created everything around us. And he put more thought into something spiritual like this than what we see the physical things around us. And so in Psalms 139 verse 13, we're going to look at all the different designs he mentions here.

He says, For you formed my inward parts. Psalms 139 verse 13, You formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb. In God's word version, it says, You alone created my inner being. You knitted me together inside my mother. The word knitted is sakak, and the word study dictionary says of this Hebrew word, a verb meaning to weave together.

It describes the Lord's activity in creating a child's fetus within the womb. Now this verse impressed Dr. Fuzz Arena, a biochemist. He lives in Pasadena. He's one of the doctors of science that is part of the Reasons to Believe website and institute. I've taken classes from them. I got a degree and a certificate of Christian apologetics from Reasons to Believe. He says here in an article just recently written the remarkable scientific accuracy of Psalm 139.

He said, It is intriguing that David, the author of Psalm 139, would describe embryological development as a knitting process. In light of what we have learned about embryological development, I find the scientific prescience, which is the term means being ahead of time. The scientific prescience of Psalm 139 remarkable that here they didn't study medicine at that time, but yet talks about the knitting together of a human being.

Dr. Arena also says, I also find knitting an apt metaphor for embryological development. He says, My mother is an avid knitter, and whenever I watch her knit, I can't help but recognize the similarities to a cheerleading routine. Knitting consists of a choreography of sorts. And I have an example of knitting.

My wife lent me her doll that her father got with a lot of sacrifice when she was 12 years old. This was the doll for her. She didn't have dozens, and they would play with it. And this is a knitted dress made by Carmen Sita, the twin's nanny. And this is carefully knitted, as you can see. And this is not the one that let go of her doll. How many ladies still have their dolls when they were young? A couple! Okay. See, they are still emotionally attached to that. Now, see, knitting, just like you would a dress, it also describes the knitting process of how a human being is developed inside the mother's womb. He says, someone who knits a sweater has a final product in mind before she even picks up needles and chooses a yarn. And there's a purpose first. You pick out the pattern, making use of a set of instructions. Algorhythmic information. That's a big word. Algorhythmic. And all it means is a set of instructions that have been programmed. So you set up these rules in order to... It can be a machine, it can be a human being in a factory. But you need this algorithm, which is the set of rules to get to an achieved goal.

And so, with this, she tells... That tells her which yarn to use and which knitting strokes to employ. She performs a series of actions that will eventually lead to the final product. Though what that product is may not be evident, at the instant those actions are performed, at least to the uninitiated. So you start knitting. But somebody says, what are you doing here? What are you knitting? If the person doesn't tell you, it's hard to tell. Why? Because everything has a set of rules, instructions to carry it out.

Dr. Reyna concludes his article on this. The remarkable scientific accuracy of Psalm 139. It's on the website. You can just download it. He says, toward that end, origin of life researcher Paul Davies, one of the great scientists of our time. I have a book that was part of my certificate study, which was called the Cosmic Jackpot, where he's a physicist. He says, these researchers, Paul Davies and Sarah Walker, recently acknowledged that currently there is no evolutionary explanation for algorithmic information found in living matter. In other words, who set up these instructions that molecules, they all obey in order to form something?

And they say, biologists, they do not have a theory how that information got into the cells, the software, the programming of things. And so, just when we read that, and God said in Psalm 139, that you knitted me inside my mother's womb, that is an accurate statement of all of these systems involved to prepare. It didn't just come out of nothing. It didn't come with a snap of the fingers.

It's very carefully orchestrated. He mentions it's similar to a cheerleading, which his daughter was a cheerleader, and they said each one has a program to do. And they all work together as a team to bring about a desired end. If something breaks down on one part, the whole thing falls apart. The same way here. It was very carefully choreographed, what we have as a human body. The term knitted is also mentioned in another scripture in the Bible.

Let's turn to Job, the previous book. Job 10, 11-12. It says, In the message Bible, these verses say, What a miracle of skin and bone, muscle and brain. You gave me life itself, an incredible love. You watched and guarded every breath I took. Just like we used a doll with a dress that has been knitted to mention about how an embryo develops in the mother's womb.

So the skin is a true marvel that many times we just take for granted. Here's a nice sheepskin. See in the back, it's just very, very soft. As a matter of fact, my daughter, Rebecca, she's a professional photographer, baby photographer. She uses this because it's the softest for the little baby when she takes photographs with the baby. Something made by man is just not the same texture as sheepskin. The following information I took from a book, which I have, which is by Fred Meldow, called Why We Believe in Creation, Not Evolution.

The skin, which we have, is the largest organ of the body. It is from 16 to 20 square feet. If you laid it all out. Every square inch of our skin has 500 sweat glands. That is, except two parts of our body. Anybody want to tell me where we have more sweat glands in our body? Yes? Your feet? The soles of your feet? And where else? The palms of your hand. Here, you don't have 500 sweat glands. You have 2,000 sweat glands per square inch.

The skin has 2 million glands that produce an oil that lubricates and waterproofs our skin. 2 million glands. And it has countless elastic fibers to keep the skin smooth and firm. It is close-fitting, but flexible and pliable. The skin is made of three layers. The epidermis, that's the one on the outside.

The dermis, the middle layer, and the subdermal layer, which is the one underneath. The subdermal layer is where cells are created. They move upward to the dermis and then to the epidermis. It takes weeks for it to gradually gravitate up. And on the way, when they fulfill their function, they die, and then they become part of the 14 layers of dead skin that gives us a certain roughness and toughness to the skin.

So we're always shedding these skin cells without us realizing what is going on. There are eight main functions to the skin. First, it regulates the body temperature. Whether you're in the Arctic, subfreezing weather, or whether you're in a tropical rainforest, it keeps our temperature 98.6.

And of course, if we've got a lot of heat, then the sweat starts coming out and it actually refreshes. But in intense cold, the skin contracts and works as an insulation of the body, which takes us to the second purpose. It insulates the body, just like the foam insulation around a hot water pipe, so the skin also insulates us from the different temperatures outside. Number three, it is the principal organ of touch.

There are six different sensations we have involved. We have what is called the light touch. I don't know about you, but do you have some of these little gnats in your house? Do you have these little gnats when I'm reading? They just drive me nuts and it seems like they just never finish. And of course, the big mistake is when they land, right? Because when they land, it's this tiny little gnat. But boy, you just get it, right? The poor little thing didn't know how sensitive my skin is to light touch.

Even a gnat landing on my arm will touch off an alarm bell. The next one is pressure. You can feel pressure when it's pushed. The third is heat. It can tell you, boy, it's hot. Boy, my skin is really hot. When you work cold, you start shivering. Have goosebumps. It feels pain. And the last one, what we love to do to our grandkids, tickle them. You tickle them and the skin reacts very quickly. Also, the fourth purpose eliminates the poisons in our body and waste through the sweat.

So it's not only the water that comes out, but a lot of the waste. That's why sweat is sort of salty. It doesn't taste very good, right? Because a lot of the waste products are being expelled.

And it not only eliminates poisons, but it's a barrier to germs. That's why, as long as we don't have a wound, we're not going to get an infection. Because it just protects us from all kinds of deadly bacteria. And it heals itself. Now, this is all in point number four. So it has the capacity to heal itself. Number five, it's a manufacturing plant. It produces hair, nails, the pigment called melanin, which we use when we're out in the sun too much. Then it produces this pigment to protect us. That's why our skin gets darker. Melanin is produced. Then also keratin, which is very viable to reconstitute the skin. And it's always producing new cells. This is why the skin is an organ. It's not just a covering. It has all of these functions that work independently. The second organ, the liver, does certain functions. The heart does a certain function. The skin has its own manufacturing plant. It also is a protection. It's just like a leather jacket. Leather jacket, well, our skin is like a leather jacket and also like a raincoat. Because we can be under the rain, and yet we don't get waterlogged inside. Why? Because it protects us. We have rain proofing, water proofing.

The skin is a type of a body armor of overlapping scales. Just like the fish scales, those are much bigger. But we've got miniature scales overlapping. And so it is porous, so sweat comes out, but it doesn't leak. So nothing comes out that shouldn't. Say, oh, my skin is leaking. It doesn't. See, it keeps everything right. And you can be submerged in a tub of water or in a swimming pool for hours, and your skin doesn't absorb the water. You don't get waterlogged. So it's this porous system. It just brings out what needs to be removed and keeps everything inside. It's also, number seven, a storehouse. So it stores salts, sugars, fats, water. And when needed in our body, it dumps it into our circulatory system. So, just like we have a storage unit for the church, where you keep everything that is not needed there. And then when Passover comes, we can take things out, or the Feast of Tabernacles will go to the storage unit. Well, we have our own portable storage unit, which is our skin.

And lastly, it manifests emotional reactions. So it's very expressive. You're embarrassed? You turn pink. Or, if you're very angry, they say you're blue in the face. Or, when you're frightened, pale as a sheet. So your skin has the ability to turn different shades according to the emotions. When kids are in love, oh boy, their cheeks are all flushed, and they're happy, and it just brings out the best colors in that way.

So, let's appreciate the marvels of our skin that God created. And that takes us to the third wonder that we're looking at in our body. In Proverbs 20, verse 12, the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both. I'm not going to talk about the wonder of the ear. That is a whole study in itself. But something that many times we take for granted, many times it seems like a nuisance. Oh, probably some of these evolutionists would say, well, it's something that's just a vestigial part of our body, and that is ear wax. A lot of us have to clean our ears, especially because our wives tell us to. But you should do it anyways, whether you're married or not. But women can tell whether your ears are dirty or not three feet away. I'm convinced of it. And whether you have one nose hair that's sticking out. You can imagine the ears hairs. I mean, they can tell that about five yards away. So, gentlemen, we've got to keep these things trimmed. Yeah, or stay away from your wife. But you can't do that when you're living with them. Graham, you're going to have to learn. You're going to have to yield. No way you're going to get away with this. But ear wax is not a nuisance. It's a vital part of the functioning of our ear. If we didn't have ear wax, we would eventually become deaf. So, I have your candle made out of wax. And we have glands inside our ears that make ear wax. Dr. Reyna also mentioned this recently. The marvel of ear wax. He says, recent discoveries by engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology attest that their new insight about ear wax will help develop specialized filters for electronic devices that must perform in dusty environments. So, they're looking at how ear wax works, and they want to see how that can help them with computer systems that are adverse to dust. We know dust is a deadly. It damages so many computers. We have two types of ear wax in humans on Earth. One is called the wet ear wax. That is brownish in color, honey colored. And we have the dry ear wax. Now, we don't know too much about dry ear wax because usually that's all in Asian people. They have more of a grayish. We have more of a honey colored. They both work perfectly well. One's a little more wetter, the other one's a little more drier. And it serves several functions. One is protecting the inner ear from water, dust particles, and microorganisms. Even if it is a solid substance, it allows air to flow through it to the inner ear. So, it doesn't plug things up unless they really get compacted. But usually, ear wax is there for a protection to the inner ear, which is so delicate. You know, the anvil, the drum, and all of these parts are just so delicate, the ear drum.

It is an ideal water repellent, keeping water away from the inner ear. The hair fibers in the ear wax serve a useful function, forming a meshwork that traps dust particles. So, the little hairs, once they fall, they get stuck with the ear wax and it makes a combination, a substance that traps dust particles. And since the pH of the ear wax is acid, and from the cellular debris, it has an antibacterial and antifungal properties. Fungal. Fungal? Antifungal. Right. So, all of this is to protect that area. If we didn't have ear wax, we would be having ear infections that eventually would destroy. Anybody ever had any problems with ear because of that? Yes, Jackie. She's at ear infections. So, that's why you have to be careful when you go inside there. Make sure you don't go all the way inside or you push that ear wax into the inner ear too much. The fatty material in the ear wax helps lubricate the skin of the inner ear canal as the ear wax moves toward the outer ear. So, actually, the ear wax is always cleaning from the inside out. And actually, the movements in your jaws help push the ear wax out. It's like having a type of a broom that's just cleaning that whole area out. Interestingly, the particles picked up by their ear wax alter its consistency. From a waxy material to a flaky solid that readily crumbles, making it easier to clear the outer ear while making room for newer, cleaner ear wax. So, actually, what we pull out is not the original. That's when it gets crusty and hardened. But ear wax is very smooth and it's just a natural lubricant for the inner ear. Dr. Reyna concludes, Using designs in nature to inspire engineering only makes sense if these designs arose from an intelligent mind. So here are these engineers, and they're copying the functions of ear wax to be able to better clean computers from all kinds of dust. So truly, as Psalms 139, verse 14 says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The same God made the Passover, something that we can appreciate because our Creator put it in His Word, carefully designed it for all the purposes of developing our spiritual life. And remember, Jesus Christ said that He will take it with us when He comes back in His Kingdom. So this is just a dress rehearsal that we have before that coming Kingdom. We have a chance, brethren, now to be preparing for one day to take the Passover with that Passover sacrifice, which He, as the Lamb of God, did for every one of us. Have a wonderful Sabbath.