Everyone should visit Montana before they die. It is a great state and the land of the ‘big sky’ applies to a number of sister states on the plains. The trees aren’t much to see, and the towns are scattered all around a few large cities. The nighttime is a different story. On a clear, crisp evening, without any city lights, or streetlights or the sound or sight of highway 18-wheelers, you can see deep into the heavens. The views are free for the looking and when you look you surely must consider the God that made it all.
    Robert Strother gives us some interesting reading when he said, “On Christmas day in 1642 a premature and woefully weak baby boy was born in a stone farmhouse in Lincolnshire, England. The two midwives at the delivery sadly predicted that the tiny infant would not live through the day. And so the baby lived 84 years, and the ‘poor little weak head’ that had to be supported by a special leather collar early in life proved to contain one of the finest scientific brains the world has ever known. His name was Isaac Newton.
    Newton in school was often at or near the bottom of the class, but at age 18 was proving himself a superior student. An uncle obtained Isaac’s admission to Trinity College, Cambridge. When the great plague of 1665-66 broke out, Newton returned to his Mother’s farm to “Meditate”. He considered the heavens; wondered about the force that kept the moon in her orbit and worked out the laws of both motion and universal gravitation by the time he was 24. He also invented a new mathematical system to prove his theories; calculus. In his book, PRINCIPIA, Newton spelled out the mechanics of our universe. He saw that every particle in the universe has a gravitational attraction for every other particle in proportion to the product of the masses of the particles and in inverse proportion to the square of their distances. Newton reasoned this wonderful uniformity in the planetary system “must be allowed the effect of choice by a supreme creator. Above the heavens he saw God.”
    Centuries before Newton, David proclaimed, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Psalms 19:1-4).
    I wonder how Isaiah knew (750 years before Christ) that the earth was round. “It is he *God) that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in (Isaiah 40:22).
    Matthew Fountaine Maury was on his sick bed. He was not expected to survive. But in reading the Old Bible he came upon this passage, “The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea” (Psalms 8:9). He not only recovered, but believing the word was true became the ‘Father of Oceanography”, mapping out the sea with all of the rivers in it.
    Job, an ancient sage of Idumea wrote in the long ago, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7). It really makes you wonder how man had such knowledge if it wasn’t by the inspiration of God.
    The ‘EASY TO READ VERSION” RECORDS THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT, “Lord, I praise you! You made me in a wonderful way. I know very well that what you did is wonderful! You know all about me, and watched my bones grow while my body took shape, hidden in my mother’s body. You watched my body parts grow. You listed them all in your book. You watched me every day. Not one of them is missing” (Psalms 139:14-16).
    No machine has ever been made to equal the ‘hand’. No camera has ever been invented that equals the ‘eye’. No pump has ever been known to pump for 70, 80, 90 years without ever been oiled or repaired, like the ‘heart’. The ‘ear’ has bested every kind of artificial hearing devise. The body, with all of it’s integral parts, that function as a single unit has never been equaled.
    Paul writes, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:21-23).
    Next time, on a clear crisp evening, turn out all the lights, spread a blanket and lay with your face toward the heavens and praise God for the great works he has done. Ever looked at the heavens lately?