[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” da_disable_devices=”off|off|off” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” da_is_popup=”off” da_exit_intent=”off” da_has_close=”on” da_alt_close=”off” da_dark_close=”off” da_not_modal=”on” da_is_singular=”off” da_with_loader=”off” da_has_shadow=”on”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.24.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” min_height=”1891px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
\u201c1 Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!<\/em> Verse 1 is a call to all people, Israel was meant to reveal the one true God to the world. In Romans 1:20, Paul states that, \u201csince the creation of the world, God\u2019s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.\u201d But we are in the midst of spiritual warfare, and Satan\u2019s attacks upon us and our faith include causing a blindness to these attributes of God.<\/p>\n The beauty of creation shows our world is too wonderful to be a random accident, the reality of beauty reveals the glory of our creator. But the art establishment has become blind to beauty. This blindness extended into philosophy, and all aspects of thought. Absurdism became a major trend in the 20th century; it stated the universe is irrational and meaningless, and man\u2019s search for meaning leads it into conflict with the world. The Theatre of the Absurd included playwrights who dwelt on this conflict, and the play \u201cWaiting for Godot\u201d is a prime example. It\u2019s about the tension between a meaningless universe and our constant striving to find meaning.<\/p>\n The attack on truth is not new (Pilate – “What is truth?<\/em>“) But in the modern world this attack has found some success in official institutions we previously relied upon, and produced a blindness to truth. In 2016 the Oxford Dictionary named \u201cpost-truth\u201d as its word of the year, and a couple of years ago on ABC radio I heard an announcer repeated declare we live in a “post-truth world”. I heard last week the term \u201cmy-truth\u201d now appears in a US dictionary. I find the third ideal form is the most convincing in pointing us to God. The perfect beauty, truth, and goodness of God were part of mankind, being created in the image of God, but were lost when man chose to sin and separate himself from God, causing all sorts of strife and decay, and death. That left a deep gap in our being, with a hunger that nothing of this world, but only God, can satisfy.<\/p>\n Thanks be to God for sending Jesus to heal that gap.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201c1 Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!Laud Him, all you peoples!2 For His merciful kindness is great toward us,And the truth of the Lord endures forever.Praise the Lord!\u201d Summary Verse 1 is a call to all people, Israel was meant to reveal the one true God to the world.Verse 2 praises God for his great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-verses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29402"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29408,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29402\/revisions\/29408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Laud Him, all you peoples!<\/em>
2 For His merciful kindness is great toward us,<\/em>
And the truth of the Lord endures forever.<\/em>
Praise the Lord!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nSummary<\/h3>\n
Verse 2 praises God for his great mercy to us. To see His mercy implies an awareness of our sin, that we have turned away from the good we were meant to do.
And verse 2 states \u201cthe truth of the Lord endures forever.\u201d<\/p>\nTruth of the Lord<\/h3>\n
Ancient writings confirm this. The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle thought our world pointed to the reality of ideal types or forms, we refer to as transcendent realities, which explain and give understanding of our world. Plato\u2019s list included Truth, Beauty and Goodness. All peoples rely upon them for meaning and structure in life. These realities are not formed from local materials of this earth, they exist above and beyond human construction, they are invisible, universal, and apply over all things on earth.
And if our world points to these invisible underlying realities, these realities also point to an even higher and invisible reality, of God himself; we know from the Bible these transcendent realities are just attributes of God.<\/p>\nBeauty of creation<\/h3>\n
Hans Rookmaaker, who was a Professor of History of Art, explained Picasso\u2019s message was that \u201cThere are no absolutes, no universal principles, and so this world is absurd, nonsensical, without meaning.\u201d This message spread, and many art schools came to teach that art is whatever you want it to be, that there is no universal reality of beauty.<\/p>\n
To people who believe our world is a random chaotic mess, the existence of truth as an absolute reality is an unbelievable claim. The existence of universal and verifiable truth shows our world to be built with meaning, reflecting God\u2019s infinite wisdom, and it provides the basis for scientific inquiry.<\/p>\nGoodness<\/h3>\n
The absolute existence of goodness means there is a real difference between good and evil. It means the terms \u201cought\u201d and \u201cought not\u201d, and the choices we make in life, have real meaning, and the source of that meaning is God\u2019s perfect righteousness and holiness. Without it, concepts like right and wrong, and justice and mercy, have no meaning.<\/p>\n