Mike Bickle emphasizes the beauty of God's creation, urging believers to marvel at the macro marvels of the universe as a reflection of God's glory. He shares testimonies from a solemn assembly, highlighting the communal worship experience and the profound impact of God's beauty on individuals. Bickle encourages the congregation to engage with the beauty of creation, using it as a means to deepen their relationship with God and to understand His greatness. He reminds them that the vastness of the universe is a testament to God's power and care for each person, inviting them to seek beauty in their lives and in their relationship with Him.

Well, last week we had a solemn assembly, so we didn't have a class. I would like three of you to come up and give me a rapid-fire testimony of what happened to you or what you observed in those three days last week when we stood before the Lord. Just three of you. The first three, come up here. Okay, good. Okay, these three right here. Good. I like this eagerness to give a testimony. Okay. You got to say your name first. My name is Anastasia. I go by Annie because a lot of people call me Anastasia, and I don't like it. I'm from Ukraine, and it's my first time in state, so sometimes I'm stuck in words, and I'm sorry for my mistakes. But this time, solemn assembly, it was awesome, just because a lot of people together worshiping different nations together, and just like crying out, yes, come, Lord, yes, come, Jesus, yes, come, our bridegroom, our beloved. It was kind of, yes, Lord. And you just talk in that, like, FSF building, and it's just like, yes, even if you don't feel it. Wait. Say that slower. You said you're talking. I'm sorry. Okay. No, no, no. It's not that you talk funny. I hear funny. Ah, okay. Okay, so when you're just coming to the building of FSF, and you just talk in the atmosphere that even if you don't feel it, you in the community with everybody, because it's atmosphere of calling, yes, bridegroom, come, yes, bridegroom, come. So I love it, seriously. Good. Now, what was the other name that you go by because you don't like Anastasia? I like Anastasia. No, Anastasia. You don't like that? Anastasia. It's kind of operation thing, so. Ah, Anastasia. Anastasia. So, what's the other name you go by? Annie. Annie. Oh, I like Annie. Okay, come on up here. Let's come over here so we're closer to this thing. Okay. Yes, sir. Wow. I'm just going to speak right from the heart. It's just, what else do we live for than to worship just Jesus, just the King, where we all just came together, you know, as a community, and it was all for the focus of just like lifting Jesus up, and for declaring just praise over our nation, and just coming back to Him. It was just, Solemn Assembly was great. You looking forward to another one? Yeah. Soon. Okay. Hi, I'm Teresa, and I'm just back from the mission field from Croatia, and I was so ready because I love the Solemn Assembly, and I ended up in the hospital on Sunday night, and- Jesus, I don't like puns, Mike. I'm sorry. That was not good. And, yes, they do. My granddaughters say, Grandpa, be quiet. That's what they tell me. I'm not going to tell the man of God that, okay? I fear the Lord. But anyway, I do. I fear God more than that. But I was thinking about fasting, then they didn't give me water or food for 18 hours, so I got to fast with you for two or three days each day. But what was so precious about the whole thing is I web-streamed day and night. I had a private room. I kept the door shut and made it a Solemn Assembly sanctuary, and every shift came in, and the doctor told me at the end, she said, I don't want to leave this room. And they had written even on- they even wrote on my notes. They were watching, I think, for everything because you're a missionary, you know, what's causing what. And they just said, you've been everywhere, but they started asking me. Even the last nurse that discharged me said, they pray a lot at that church. Another doctor said to me, that's the longest church service I've ever seen, you know, six hours later, okay? Because they do 12-hour shifts. And so I said, well, how does one team play that long? That was their question. And I said, well, we happen to have 50 of them, so we're pretty good. But they engaged me. I was too weak to pray, but I blessed them, and I released it. And there was such an atmosphere. And I just want you to know the web stream and what we do, and that is touching lives. And so 12-hour shifts for four days, they saw what is going on right here. And they discharged me saying I was the healthiest sick person they'd ever taken care of. I love it, love it, love it. I mean, I wonder what they would have told you if you said, they didn't go six hours. They've never stopped in 18 years. Now, that is a long church service. Can you imagine the music has never stopped one minute in 18 years? It's the same service. Well, in heaven, they say, we got you beat completely. Man, they've been going 24-7 for a long time up there. Oh, no, that's fantastic. You know, I so appreciate the web stream. But when I think of the web stream, you know what I think about? I think about sound techs and media team. Tony, I think about you. The reason they get to hear the sound, I mean, the web stream around the nation is because some guys and gals are laboring hours doing this. Because if they don't do it, I mean, if we're in the chair, we help. If they're not there, it's shut down. It's sound techs and camera crews. And so I just so appreciate them. Because they're kind of the unsung heroes. You never know a sound tech is there until something goes, eek, then everybody looks back. And that's the only time anybody looks at them. But when it sounds good, you just think, oh, good service, you know, and it's because of a sound tech. So I want to pray for anyone in this room that has it on your heart to be a sound tech. You are one or you want to be one. I want you to stand up real quick. Anyone in the room, you are a sound tech or you want to be one. It is the number one instrument on the worship team. It really is. And this is why you got to see it in the hospital, because of sound techs. Lord, I just, let's just reach your hand out or lay hands on or whatever you want to do. Father, I just ask you to bless these musicians. I declare you are a musician on the Lord's worship team. You are prophetic musicians. And, Lord, I ask for the spirit of prophecy on them, that as the fingers move on the keyboard, so the hands and fingers would move on the sound board and on the cameras. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Good, I love the sound techs. Okay, let's look at session 12. We're going to do this one, take a break, and then we come back and we do a second session, a little bit shorter on the second one. Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus. And, Lord, we ask you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Lord, a prayer we never weary of asking for, a spirit of wisdom and revelation. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, these two sessions are, they're kind of fun, but they're challenging because it's mind-bending, mind-boggling information. And the challenge with this mind-boggling, mind-bending information is you can go, wow, cool, and never think about it more than that. Wow, that was really neat. And then you can become just numb to it. Like, okay, I got that. This material that I have in this handout here, you need to take it line by line. I don't mean my notes, but I'm talking about the data about the universe. Take various lines. I mean, there's a million pieces of amazing data. There's a million. And you can only digest a few of them, but find the ones that move your heart and do something with it. And what I mean by do something with it, talk to the Lord about it. Research it out. Go deeper in that, deeper in the knowledge, and deeper in the conversation with the Lord where you're telling Him, thank you for this and show me more. Like when I read a Bible passage, I've said this a number of times, when I read a Bible passage where God's declaring a truth that I'm supposed to believe, I say, thank you and show me more. Those are the two prayers I like to pray every time. Like He says, I love you. I forgive you. I'll provide for you. I'll direct you. I'll guide you. I'll help you. All those are promises. I say, thank you. I don't just go like, cool, you love me. I talk to a person. I say, thank you. Thank you for forgiving me. Show me more. Well, it's the same with this. We're going to look at creation, some data. Thank Him for it and ask Him to show you more and then search out, again, a few of the pieces of information of the millions that are available. Well, we're looking at God's beauty in creation, the macro marvels, and then the next session, the micro marvels. And I got those terms from Thomas Dubé, one of my favorite books on the beauty of God. I have two books on the beauty of God. I've read a number of times, and I promote them every time I get a chance to talk about it. Sam Storms on this one thing, Discovering God's Beauty, and Thomas Dubé's The Evidential Power of Beauty. I have both those books in the notes here. I've got a lot of research on the beauty of God. Those two books are way above most all the other material. And they take the data that I have here, and they break it down, because it's a 200-page book, and this is a four-page handout. And what I'm doing really is advertising that info, because I want you to feel what I feel when I read that book. So I'm using this session as an advertisement to awaken your heart to where you say, wow, that's a whole arena of information I haven't really thought much about. And if I get you to think that, I've never thought about it, I think I really want to, tonight was successful, because you're not going to get a lot of data that you're going to memorize tonight because it's too much data. But I want to spark you to where you go do what I do, and that is I take this information and I study it out. But I don't just study it out, I talk to God about it. I say, Jesus, thank you. Jesus, this is, I don't even get it, but you do. Tell me more. And he says, keep asking me more, and I'll keep telling you more. Well, David exhorted us to look up, to see the beauty of God, in what I call the heavenly art gallery. God's heavenly art gallery is the skies. I mean, it's this tremendous art gallery up there with splendors beyond anything we can imagine. And we can only see just a millionth of a millionth of what is there. I mean, we don't even see the surface. We see, again, a millionth of a millionth of what's up there. But that is to lure us into a journey and a longer study and conversation about what's up there. So all we're getting when we look up is the commercial. David said the heavens declare the beauty. Remember, when we're talking about God, you can use the word beauty, glory, and majesty often interchangeably. And I love to do that. The heavens display the beauty. Now, when you look up at the sky, you can see they say 4,000 to 5,000 stars with the naked eye on a good day. So just say 5,000. Well, there's trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of stars in the known galaxy. So you're only getting a briefest commercial. And we look up, and again, the Lord's saying, take this commercial and come after me. I want you to be intrigued by what you see here. Paragraph B, we consider something beautiful when it causes us to feel attraction, when we feel admiration. Something is beautiful to us when it causes us to have delight, when we have a sense of marvel when we look at it. And so think of the things that cause you to marvel. And it's not just a beautiful sight because it's aesthetically beautiful. Sometimes it's the information causes you to marvel, so that is what I would call beautiful as well. So it's not just the visual. Sometimes it's the sound. Sometimes it's the fragrance. Sometimes it's the proportion of all the parts combined together. Sometimes it's the vastness, and with the sky and the heavens, that's part of it is the vastness and the colors and the power. All of them combined together attract us and make us go, wow, wow. So that's why I call it beautiful because it makes me go, wow. That's my definition of beauty. So I give you that definition just for fun. I want two or three of you to jump up and tell me a definition of beauty that's got something more to it than this. Anybody, what is your thinking? Because if I'm saying that, you're thinking, wait, I think beauty is. . . Two or three of you, just jump up and tell me. Add to this definition. Jump right up. Annie. You can do it there, but you can do it up here too. You can call me Anastasia. There's nothing wrong with that. It means resurrection. Yeah, that's right. Beauty for me is the level of love because how expression of love it shows the beauty. I don't know. It's pretty hard to understand. So it's something when you feel love. When you feel that, it's love towards you, and you're just like, oh, beautiful. So when you feel loved, you feel beautiful. That's a good definition. I'm going to put that on my handout for next year. When you feel loved, you feel beautiful. That's good. One or two more. Just jump right up to your chair and shout it out if you've got a big voice, if you want to. Okay, that's good. I just wanted to give you a chance. Yes, sir. When you see completeness, that's a good one. Yes. One more. Anybody else? The section's kind of not contributing a lot tonight. What's that? When you see the face of a baby, that's called beautiful. There you go. This team scored. Okay. You know, the stars, when I was 14 years old, I told the story once for just about a minute a couple classes ago. When I was 14 years old, it was the stars that made me go to my father, my unbelieving father. He was this champion boxer. I told you I was raised in the bars. I went to the bars with him, no God at all in our house at all. And me and my dad are like best buddies. When I'm 5 and 10 and 12 and 14, he took me to the bars with him weekend after weekend. And all of his buddies were guys there, and they didn't really talk about Jesus much. And so I decided I went to him one day and I said, Dad, I want to join a religion. He said, Why? I go, The stars. I go, Look. Because I would sleep out in my backyard. I did that lots of times in the summer by myself. I'd lay outside and just look at the stars. I'd go, There's got to be a God. There has to be. And he said, Well, yeah, there's a God. That's good. And then he told me to either be Jewish or Catholic, and I told the story at another time. I won't go into it right now. But the point is when I read Psalm 19, this is really personal to me. I go, That's exactly what happened. And I'm sure a lot of you have been stirred in a similar way. Job chapter 26, look what Job said. He said, By his spirit he adorned the heavens. So the Holy Spirit is the one that is attributed, in this verse at least, because you could say the same thing about the Father and the Son. He's the one that made beautiful the heavens. So he's the divine artist. But again, that isn't to say the Father and the Son don't have the same ability and contribution because they're all in it together. But then Job says in verse 26, When you look up at the sky, the beauty, and it takes the Lord's help to see the beauty. I mean we get the commercial by just glancing and staring. But it's only a commercial. Because remember there's trillions and trillions of stars and there's billions of galaxies. And so we just get a glimpse, a quick commercial. But we look up there and Job said in verse 14, These are the mere edges. This is a commercial at the best. How small a whisper that is of who he really is. And then he gave this kind of poetic, dynamic question. But the thunder of his heart. He says his power but his being. The thunder when God makes known what he's really like and what his power. He goes, Oh my goodness. It will blow the mind of everyone. And that's why the seraphim, the living creatures, they bow down constantly in his presence. They're always taking their wings and they're covering their eyes and they're bowing down. Because the thunder of his power, the thunder of who he is, is being made manifest. And it overwhelms them. Neither people nor angels can bear it for long periods of time directly face to face. I mean they do see it but it overwhelms them. They cover their eyes. They come up for breath later. And another wave of it hits them. Paragraph D. Now this is obviously obvious. But I love to say it. All the beauty we see in the world is but a token of the source of ultimate beauty. And the reason I want to say this is all the beauty we see, not just the stars now. I'm talking about the mountains, the oceans, the flowers, the heroic virtue in people. Because there's God's beauty seen in that. We'll look at that in one of the other sessions. There's so much more is my point. As beautiful as that is. As beautiful as the most beautiful sunset at the ocean. And it's beautiful. The mountains. Like it couldn't be better. It is only the mere whisper. It is only a token of the beauty that is in reality in his heart. But not just in his heart. In the new Jerusalem and the new heavens and the new earth. Our new home forever and ever. We will be in the context of perfect beauty forever. And this is our destiny. And this is what we're about. This is what makes obeying God. When we do it by faith and we don't have the feelings, it's what makes it worth it. The vision that there's what Psalm 119 called it. The consummation of all beauty. The perfection and consummation of beauty. And that is the throne of God himself. And so the, when I think of the new Jerusalem. I'll add the verse here. Revelation 21 verse 2. John said, The father adorned or made beautiful the new Jerusalem as a bride for her husband. The father decorated the new Jerusalem for the son. Oh, my goodness. And he wanted the son and the son's bride to go, yes, this is the best it could ever be. Because it was adorned by God. That's where we're going. Beloved, we're going to be there in a minute. I mean, whether it's 50 years or 100 years. For some of you, it's a minute. Either way it goes. You're going to be there forever. And the devil's always coming to assault us and try to get us onto a different conversation in our life. He wants the narrative of our life to be about how hard it is. How little we have. What we don't get. Who doesn't honor us. And the narrative of our life is the beautiful God has connected us to him with a storyline of beauty. And we're making choices in this age of humility that will beautify us forever. I mean, that's the narrative of life. You know, I look around and it gets hard. I go, No, I'm not going there. I'm not letting that narrative dominate my heart. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I know where I'm going. And it's information like we're covering in this session that really I've been on it all day long. So I'm just buzzing and, you know, well, I've been more than a day on it. But whatever. Paragraph E. Simply put, the Lord makes things beautiful because he is beautiful. And because the destiny of where his people are going with him forever is the perfection of beauty. Psalm 119 says it. Now, I want you to give a few little tips. Look for these in your treasure hunt for beauty because we're on a treasure hunt for beauty. Because David said this is one thing I do all the days of my life. I behold your beauty. What he meant, he didn't mean I turn around and go, Wow, I'm surprised. I didn't know it was there. That's not what he meant. He meant I am looking for beauty where others don't see it. I'm searching for it, for the glimpses of it, because I'm fanatically hungry. I'm desperately hungry for beauty. And it's everywhere, but it's not obvious at a glance. But the Spirit will show us more. And that's what David was saying when he said all my days. He goes, I'm searching out beauty where others never even look for it. So we're students of the beauty of God. That's what this is about. But I want you to look through sounds. There's all kinds of sounds. And we have, of course, the earth is more filled with music today and sounds than any time in history. There's more music on the earth, I'm guessing, right now, than all of human history added up together. I can't prove it, but I would feel pretty certain it's true. Just because the Internet and the amount of musicians and singers that are coming forth in the earth. So I'm thinking of the music on this side, the music in heaven. And there's so many dimensions to sound. There's so many dimensions to sight. Color, brilliance, and hues, and fragrances. Fragrance, you know, I've studied a little bit. Not enough to talk that deep about it. But I've studied fragrances a little bit related to the beauty of God. Because it talks about the fragrance of Christ. And there's fragrance in the city. And, you know, one thing powerful about fragrance is that it not just shifts your mood. But fragrance, something about fragrance is it grabs your memory. Meaning you can have a certain fragrance with a person in a situation. And ten years later, never smell it. And smell it, and instantly you're right where you were ten years ago. There's something about memory and deep feelings and fragrance that go together. I'm not a psychologist on that, but I know there's something there. And systems. And what I mean by systems, there are so many orderly, harmonious, proportionate, symmetry systems in the universe above and the universe beneath. And what I mean by the universe beneath, we're going to look at, you know, I'm going to get to it in a second here. But, again, I'm pointing you to the book where you can really read it. There's a universe above us. But there's not only a universe above us. There's a universe in every human living cell. There's a universe. There's almost as many components in a cell as there is stars in our galaxy. I mean, I don't know the exact numbers, but it's unbelievable how many components in a human cell. It's hundreds of millions. There's a universe inside and a universe above. And both of those universes have order and system. And symmetry is when the colors and the forms and everything is in order and it's beautiful. I love this quote by Sam Storms. He's, again, the book on one thing, the beauty of God that I am recommending here. He says, in God's personality and in His activity, there's no clash of color or sound. He is morally exquisite and aesthetically elegant, that everything has proportion to it. I mean, you could see the most beautiful eyes that you could imagine, but if they were 20 feet, you'd go, oh. I mean, they're beautiful, sort of. And why aren't they beautiful? Well, they're out of proportion. Well, His ears are 20 feet too. His nose and mouth is normal, but everything else is the same. And that wouldn't be beautiful because it's out of proportion is the idea. And God's whole universe, internal and external, I'm talking about the micro Marvos, are as beautifully set in order. The math is just incredible and the way that it's laid out. Okay, look at paragraph F. One of my favorite quotes on the beauty of God, I've already used it several times in this course, by John Piper. In seeing the natural world, we are to let our eyes run up the beam of beauty to the original. I mean, it's saying the same thing we know, but I just go, ooh, that's beautiful, John. I love that sentence, that our eyes run up the beam of beauty and then we discover the source. And we think the idea and the power and the sustaining energy of it comes from a man. He's fully God and fully man. And I go, if this is beautiful and it came from you and it was your idea and you keep it going, and this is one of billions and billions of things you keep going that are beautiful, who are you? And that's the idea, our eyes run up the beam of beauty to the original. Paragraph G, again, here's a few more things to look for. Because we're on a lifelong treasure hunt. And the treasure hunt doesn't end with the resurrection. A billion years from now, you'll be searching out beauty, I assure you. You will not exhaust the beauty of God in a billion years. This is about beauty, this whole life calling is about beauty. And that's why we have to be intentional about it. And that's why I want to teach a course on it because the Lord, as I shared in the very first session, interrupted me and said, I want you to search out beauty. And I went, what? What do you mean? I really like my wife, she's beautiful. No, I mean, yes, but way more than that. Way, way more, there's beauty, my fingerprints are everywhere. Search it out and live fascinated and help others live fascinated. Because if you live fascinated, you'll be able to stay steady in the battle. But if you're not fascinated, and things get hard, and you start backing up, and you don't have anything to draw from, it's going to be tough. Okay, paragraph G. So here's some more things to look for. Again, I'm talking about this roadmap of our treasure hunt. There's many colors, there's energy. There's the study of how much energy God expends, again, in the universe above, is remarkable. The enormous sizes, the unfathomable speeds and distances of the stars and the movements in the heavens. The numbers of stars are incalculable. These are many facets, many facets. And the list could go on and on. This is just kind of a menu here. And the idea is that it communicates things about the personality of the man we call our Savior and King. I mean, this is about a man. He's fully God, but he's fully man. But he has all of this in him as a man, and so does his father. Now, here's paragraph H. Here's the books I've been talking about. And just kind of advertise them again. It says in paragraph H in the middle, both books trace the signature of God through creation, ranging from the wonders of the Milky Way to the cosmic rotation of planets, to the makeup of the earth's atmospheres, to the marvels of the molecular subatomic particles, and the brilliance involved in those. It's beauties everywhere. It's just we can't escape it, but we cannot see it. I mean, we can't escape running into it, but that doesn't mean that we're going to be cognitive of it when we run into it. I mean, you're sitting on a chair that has so many miracles in that chair, the fact that it's staying like it is. We're just so used to it. It's not a miracle to us. But when you break down what's involved at the molecular level of that chair, it's like, what? It is a miracle. Okay, paragraph I. Thomas DuBay, that's the other book I'm recommending. He uses three terms, and I just borrow them and use them. The macro marvels, the enormous universe on a cosmic scale that's out of our ability to grasp. But I want to search it out, though. I mean, I'll never get to the end of it, but I want to learn more. You know, again, there's a million pieces of information. I want to get 10 or 20 or 30 or 100 of them that really get me. I want 100 of the million. And there's 100 of them that have your name on it, too, and they'll really get you. They'll touch you in a real personal way because they'll touch your personality. Just start searching it out. Then there's what he calls the mid marvels. Those are the marvels that are accessible to our five senses, like in the plant and animal life. So many incredibly beautiful miracles happening in the plant and animal and just the human body. And then the micro marvels, that's the tiny universe of the subatomic particles and DNA and protons and neutrons and electrons and all that's involved. There's a universe below. Paragraph at the top of page two. Now we're going to look at, again, I'm only going to give you a few facts here because you can't stay with them and 30 minutes you'll be like, I don't remember the first one. And the reason I know because that's how I am. I've read these books a number of times. I write them down. I journal them. I write them again. I fact check them on Google. Then I write them again. Then I tell my friends. Then I debate them. Then I write them again. I pray about them. I thank God for them. I think on them. And little by little they're really getting me. But it's not like the first time. It's like, wow, that's cool. Like, no, no, don't end there. Bring it into a conversation with a person, with the Lord Jesus. Paragraph A, astronomers. Astronomers, thank you. I lost an R in there somewhere. They estimate there are 100 billion galaxies in the known universe. You just go fact check this on the Internet. And a lot of them say more than that because of the Hubble telescope with the new technology where they can, they've got several ways with the Hubble telescope where they can see through infrared light and all kinds of reflections. They can tell the density of light far away. It's quite an, I mean, the scientific world is sold on the credibility of this information. Now, we have, we know the Milky Way galaxy, that's ours, bigger than we can imagine. We are one of 100 billion galaxies. Already that's like tilt. Okay, you lost me. Fact one, I'm already lost. But I look at that, I go, okay, because in a minute we're going to look at Isaiah. He has every single star named and numbered and in place. And he uses that knowledge to tell individuals, so why do you think I'm tired or I'm not attentive to you? That's the logic of where he's going in Isaiah chapter 40. He goes, I've got them all numbered. And if I have them numbered, I surely have you numbered because I didn't die for them, I died for you. He says, if I've got them and complete in their place, by name and number, I surely have not got weary and lost track of you, who I died for, you who are my eternal companion. That's the logic of where this goes, by the way. So 100 billion galaxies, I look at that and I go, okay, you're like really smart. The diameter of the observable universe, or you can, half the people say observable universe, the other half say the known universe. Those are the two terms you'll run into a lot. 15 billion light years, the diameter of it. Like, that's worse than the first fact I gave you. Like, what? Just forget it. I go, wait a second, okay, I'm never going to get that, but I'm going to stare at this for a while and I'm going to say, Lord, who are you? I mean, I don't get any of this, but you're bigger than I was thinking. Well, it's a light year, most of you know. It's the distance light travels in one year. Now, light travels 186,000 miles a second. So in one year, this is like, you know, high school, whatever, science, you all heard this, but light travels 6 trillion miles in one year. That's how fast light goes, 6 trillion miles. Now, the light is fast enough it can go around the earth seven times in one second. That's how fast light moves, seven times in one second. You know, if it was going to go in a circular way, it has enough speed to do that. So when it goes for 6 trillion, imagine that, 6 trillion miles. That's how far light goes in one year. Well, a billion light years, a billion times 6 trillion, well, it's 15 billion times 6 trillion. Paragraph B, there you go. That's what I was looking for. Well, it starts, whoa, but about fact 50, it starts becoming, no, I got enough. That's why I'm not going to kill you with the facts, but I want to sell you on the book. I want you to get the, or you might find some other books. I mean there's a handful of them out there, but anchor in it. Don't go to this class and just go on to the next semester and not go somewhere with this information. And you don't have to like do it 10 hours a day, but make it part of your diet, your spiritual diet. The Milky Way galaxy, which is a small one of the, it's one of the small of the 100 billion. We're one of the smaller galaxies. We have 100 billion stars, 100 billion stars in the one galaxy, and there's 100 billion galaxies. So you can just remember 100 billion and 100 billion. But again, on the Internet, a number of scientific sources will tell you the numbers are big. I said 100 billion, that's enough for this life. I'll just stick there. Even if it's more, that's already enough. I'm just sticking with that number for now. That means to go from one end of the Milky Way to the other at the speed of light, at the speed of light, at 6 trillion miles, 6 trillion miles a year, it would take 100,000 years to go from one end of the Milky Way to the other. 100,000 years, 6 trillion a year, 186,000 miles a second. It would take you that many years, 100,000 years to go from one end of the Milky Way to the other, and that's one of the billion galaxies. Well, just to kind of give you a break here, paragraph B, if you want to go to the moon, it's less than two seconds for light to get to the moon. Okay, I got that. So you go to the moon and back in 3.2 seconds, something like that. Light can do that. So our solar system, our little nine little planet solar system, we're a part of the Milky Way. We're just a little drop in the Milky Way in our little sun, and our sun's one of the small stars of the trillions and trillions. Our solar system is kind of tucked away in the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is tucked away as one of a billion galaxies. If our solar system was the size of a football, we just put a ball right here, the nearest star to our solar system would be a half a mile away. If our solar system was the size of a football, the Milky Way would be the size of North America to the football. That's our solar system, put it right in the middle of America, Kansas City, and go as far up Canada and far down Mexico to the north and south, that's our Milky Way galaxy compared to our solar system. That's the size difference. If you had one little ball right in the middle and you got all of North America, that's the Milky Way to our solar system. Okay, just let you think of that for a second. Paragraph D, the largest known galaxy is the Abel 2029, that's what scientists call it. It consists of, it's a cluster of galaxies, but by scientific definitions it's a galaxy, 100 trillion stars. So isn't a trillion a thousand billion? Is that what a trillion is, right? Some math guys say yes or no. Okay, it's a thousand billion. This is a hundred thousand billion. One galaxy. It's diameter is not a hundred thousand light years, it's six million light years. One of the galaxies. It's the biggest galaxy. I know it's already tilt, like, tilt, like. Paragraph E. The nearest star to us, I mean, the nearest star to us is the sun, 93 million miles. That's the nearest star to the earth. The second nearest star, or the one not counting the sun, is four light years away. So that's four times six trillion miles. It's 25 trillion miles from the earth, the closest star to us besides the sun. 25 trillion miles. That's the closest one. That's the one, if you're looking on a map, it's, you know, if they're looking at us from way far away, like, look at the stars, like, it's like, that star and our sun look like the same one. You know, when you look way far away at that bright one, that's like 10 of them all together. You know, like they're millions of miles apart from each other, but we're looking at them, no, I think they're pretty close. They're not at all. So this 25 trillion miles away, if they were somewhere way over there, it would look like it was, like, next door to the sun. That's how close it is. Okay, the Virgo galaxy, again, these numbers, paragraph F, five trillion stars. The paragraph G, the brightest star in the Milky Way, the Eta Carinae, it's the brightest star of the hundred billion stars, the one that scientists have identified. It's five million times brighter than our sun. It's four million miles in diameter. Four million miles in diameter. The sun is 100,000 miles. This is four million miles, one star, one sun. It's 1,000 times whiter than our sun. Paragraph I, and I'm going to not give you more on this, but these books have got more, and they break it down, and, again, it's maybe 10 or 12 pages, but it's a lot more information. It's not that much information, but it gets you on the right track, going, you know, I've got to know this stuff a little bit. Again, I want to know like 100 pieces of data out of the millions. I don't want to know them all. I don't want to be a scientist. Paragraph I, the Hubble telescope, which is the famous telescope. They launched it in 1990, but it's the one that, and they're about to launch a new one, like the Hubble telescope part two, although that's not the name of it. It's going to be twice as powerful as this one. They're planning to launch it in two or three years. They're working on it. But it has tremendously accurate data, and, again, a lot of the scientific community, they buy it. I don't mean it's infallible, but a lot of it is provable. They identified the pistol star. It's 10 times, 10 million times more powerful than our sun, the pistol star, 10 million times brighter, more powerful than our sun. It unleashes as much light in 20 seconds as the sun does in a year. The pistol star unleashes as much energy in 20 seconds as our star does in a year. And I'll tell you something, that our star, the sun, releases more energy in one second than the totality of the human race has created, energy that they've created. If you take from Adam to today all the energy created by human beings, the sun releases more in one second than the entire totality of the human race together. So when the Antichrist and the people who think he's all powerful, they have no idea who Jesus is. I don't care how much powerful, Jesus has produced more power in one second, in one sun, than all the human race added up together. And when he stands and says, I am, just like, oh, this is bad. It's not even, that's why it says in Psalm 2, when the kings of the earth, they raise their fist at God and they say, we want to cast your word out of the culture. They said, we want to cast your cords off of us, which means the word of God. They saw the word of God as bondage. We want to break your bonds. We want to be free of the word of God. All the kings of the earth are in unity together, and that's yet going to happen in the future. In Psalm 2, the father laughs. He goes, are you kidding? You think the totality of your power? He goes, I won't even stand. I will just laugh at you. Look at the heavens. Then he says, I've already set my king in place, and I didn't ask your opinion about it. Paragraph J. Now let's get down to our little son. We'll just go on this for a few minutes and go look at Isaiah, then pray over you and take a little break and go, whew. Our son. This is the giant nuclear engine of our solar system, our little baby solar system. Remember, if the solar system was the size of a football, dropped in the middle of America, the Milky Way is all of North America. That's how little our solar system is. So remember, our son is a little guy in the world of the big suns out there. So he's 90, not he, it is 93 miles from the earth, 93 million as you know, and it's about almost a million miles in diameter, a million miles. It's 800,000, but just if you wanted a round number, it's nearly a million miles in diameter. And it would take a million earths to fill the space of the sun, and it's one of the little stars in the whole picture. Paragraph 1, the surface of the sun, 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The core, 30 million. Some say 28 million. Some say 32 million. I go, you know, I'll just get right in the middle, you know, because the Internet, they debate. You know, no, it's 28 million degrees. It releases the energy to supply heat and light for the earth. In our sun, there are billions of trillions of nuclear fission reactions. Now, nuclear fission reaction sounds like a real big word. It's what happened is hydrogen, when hydrogen molecules, when they bond together, which they don't naturally bond unless there's great heat and great pressure, they bond together, then it creates energy. And the sun has the heat and the pressure to create that bonding together because it gets converted to helium. When it bonds together, two hydrogen molecules, because hydrogen molecules both got a positive charge, and they repel each other. So it takes incredible pressure to get these repelling molecules to come together. They go, I don't want to be by you. They keep repelling, but if the pressure and the heat is great, they bond, and if they bond, there's a fusion, and then it produces helium, and tremendous power explodes because of that. But it takes the pressure and the heat of the sun is the perfect environment for that hydrogen to come together. And that's what a nuclear fission reaction is. Six hundred million tons of hydrogen are converted to helium every second of every day. Six hundred million tons of hydrogen are converted to helium. It results in a production of remarkable light and heat, of which there's a few numbers I can't remember, but they're real small. A fraction, like only a percent of that light comes to the earth. I don't know the exact number, but it's a real small number. Most of that light and energy just dissipates into space. Only a small fraction comes to the earth, but it's the perfect amount for life on the earth. Paragraph E, the energy produced by this nuclear fission, this energy that's produced can be compared to a hundred billion hydrogen bombs every second. I mean man-made ones on the earth here. A hundred billion every second, that's how much energy the sun produces. Paragraph 4, the sun loses, in this whole dynamic, it loses four million tons of its own material, its substance, every second. Four million tons. Someone says, oh my goodness, if you're losing four million tons a second, that's a big weight loss program. I mean four million tons a second, that's how many tons an hour, how many tons a year. Well, at the rate the sun's going, if it keeps losing four million tons a second, it will be out of energy in six billion years. That's how much energy it has. It'll be out in six billion years, but by then things will be in another gear. Okay, the Quasars, that's a, top of page three, a new, highly powerful celestial object. Scientists are excited by this. I got a little bit of information here. There's one Quasar, it's three billion light years from the earth, and a thousand times, catch this, this is ridiculous again to our little minds. It's a thousand times brighter than all the stars in the Milky Way added up. It's a thousand times brighter than the hundred billion stars in the Milky Way. Paragraph M. So let's bring this to, let's look at the Bible now for a second, the application. Again, this is, I gave you about 10 or 15 facts, and the facts are overwhelming, because I know, I work with them, I go like, what? And I try to tell my wife, and then I ask her to tell me what I told her, and she says, okay, I'm going to give you one of my real estate deals. I'm going to give you three minutes worth of everything about that real estate deal, and I want you to say it all back to me. I said, okay, okay, we're even. So we, she, you know, some of you know she runs a real estate company, so anytime I throw my little end time Bible facts at her, she throws one of her deals at me, she says, now explain it to me and tell me what I just told you. I go, okay, we'll go slower. She goes, okay, that's, I thought you would. There's a little personal touch there. Anyway, because I just tried this on her the other day. It didn't work. Because, you know, I was all full of this information and fresh, so I'm whipping it all out, and I said, now say it back. She goes, well, aren't you something, Mike? Okay. Isaiah 40, verse 25. Now here's the, someone says, why do I need to know this? You really do need to know this. Again, hypothetically, you need to know a hundred pieces of information out of millions of pieces of information. You don't need to be a scientist, but you need to know a little bit. I mean, you've got to admit, in the last 15 minutes, your mind went from here to here. You went like, this is a God. I don't really know much about this part of the God I love. I mean, this is his art gallery. He goes, I'm an artist. I want my beloved to know my art. I'm an artist. I want you to look at my art gallery, and I want you to take a little bit of time with it because this means a lot to me. Lord, if it means something to you, it means something to me. You're just so good at it. I just am not very quick. He says to discouraged Israel, to whom were you liking me? Who will you compare me to? Isaiah 40, verse 25. Who are you going to compare me to? Because they were worried about their enemy nations coming against them, and they were wanting to compromise because they thought the Assyrians, or the Egyptians, or Syria, one of these ancient empires at different times were coming against them. He goes, who has more power than me? Come on. And then they were, some of them were giving themselves to idolatry, so they would get, they'd worship an idol, so that the demon behind that idol would give them more power in battle. And that's what the Lord was confronting. He goes, what nation or what demon has more power than me? Why are you doing that? I'm in covenant with you. Why are you going to them? He goes, verse 26. Here's the exhortation. I'm going to give this exhortation to every one of you. Whether you're struggling with your finances, struggling with depressions, struggling with pornography, struggling with despair because nobody likes you, I want to say lift your eyes. Go outside and look up at the commercial. That's what He told them there. You think there's a sin bigger than this God? Do you think there's a problem bigger than this God? Do you think you have failure bigger than Him? He says, verse 26, go lift your eyes and look at the stars for a while, and talk to me. That's what He says, verse 26. See who created the stars. See who leads them forth. Who leads them forth by number. When He leads them forth, it means that He can, this idea of leading them forth, they obey Him. The stars do everything He wants them to do. That's like He's the leader of the army. They're obedient to Him is the idea. He calls them all by name. Trillions and trillions of stars. Now calling them by name not only indicates His ownership of them, calling them by name also indicates He understands their unique characteristics and their unique role in His plan. You know, like God told Adam to go name the animals, and naming the animals meant He would have dominion over them, but it also meant He would have insight into the unique capacities, characteristics, and the role that each one of them had. It's like children. They're all unique. They have a name, and parents know them very well. God says, I know the stars. I know them this detail. But the idea is if I know them with this kind of detail, and there's trillions and trillions and trillions, not one of them is out of place, why is it that I wouldn't know you? You're my bride, and I died for you. You're what this is about. Jesus didn't become an angel and die for angels. He didn't do something for stars, whatever that would be. He became human and died for you. He wants you. You are His bride, not the angels and not the stars and not the demons. He says, no, humans, I want you forever to be my bride. He calls them by name because of the greatness of His might. So here's the question, verse 27. He asked them personally, why are you saying your way is not noticed by God? Because it says, why are you saying my way is hidden? They're saying, God, you forgot me. He goes, are you kidding? How could I possibly forget you? The justice or the honor due to me has escaped your notice. People are not treating me right. I'm not getting the money right. I'm not getting the deal in my life right. Circumstances aren't right. I deserve more, and you're God, and you're not doing anything about it. That's a complaint Israel had that God forgot them and God was allowing them to be mistreated too long. And the Lord says, no, no, my plan is so much grander than you think. I'm going to use everything for your good in a way that's going to blow your mind. And I have a big-picture story, and it will make sense when all the information comes out. Paragraph O. He asks them, do you not know? So you think I've overlooked you, and you think I'm letting you have a bad deal that you're not getting the justice due. In verse 27, he goes, verse 28, paragraph O. Do you not know? The creator of the ends of the earth, I'm not tired. I never get tired. My understanding is inscrutable. I have tremendous understanding. He gives strength to the weary. And to him who lacks might, He gives power. So you're weary tonight. I mean, as humans, we get weary. He says, I can do that. The inscrutable wisdom of God, His wisdom is beyond anything. Nobody can grasp all that He grasps. Verse 30, though youths grow weary and tired, though vigorous young men stumble badly. So let's pause there for a second. No hands raised up, please. Are there any youth or any non-youth, hello, who have grown weary? This is for you. This is a direct message from God. Are any of you vigorous, strong young men stumbled badly to where nobody else would give you a second chance? You don't deserve a second chance. The Lord says, I will. I'll give you a second chance. And I have strength for you. If you'll wait on me, verse 31, I'll give you strength. He's talking to those youth that are weary, that have stumbled really bad. They've done something they really know better than they should have. They did it anyway, and it was really serious. That's what it means to stumble badly. He says, I'll give you strength. I promise you. I will renew you. I will recover you. I got every star named and numbered. I have you numbered. I have a plan for you, just like I do for the stars. Go look out there and see my beauty, and see if you don't think I have a plan of beauty for you. He says, you'll mount up with wings like eagles. You'll run the next round, and you won't get tired. He's not talking about physically not tired, but your spirit will be invigorated if you'll wait on me. You won't get weary. Talk about spiritually and emotionally. I mean, he's not saying that they'll be supermen in their physical bodies. That's not what he's saying. He goes, you'll be energized all the way in your heart. But he goes, verse 31, it's wait upon me. And number two, waiting on God. This isn't passively biding time like, I'm waiting. It's not that kind of waiting. I've been waiting. Where are you at? It's not the waiting for God to show up. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about like the waiter at the restaurant goes to the table and is totally attentive to the customers. The waiter is waiting on them. Kent, do you want this? Do you want that? Whatever you desire. I'm looking at your body language. I'm trying to understand what you're saying. The Lord says, engage with me that way. And if you do that, you won't get weary. You still may have a bad day, but it won't stick. The bad day won't be a month. I'm talking about an emotional bad. I mean, you might still have difficult challenging circumstances, but at the heart level, you won't want to quit for months on end, which many believers, they live in a state of one step away from quitting. I've been a pastor 40 plus years. A lot of really good people, they live in a state perpetually for months and years of one step away from quitting. And then they get blindsided by a sin or another thing that offends them, and then they cave in. And the Lord says, wait on me. Engage with me. Don't just patiently bide time. That's not what I'm asking for. I'm asking you to engage. We call it prayer. Better maybe than even prayer. Talk to me. Engage with me in dialogue. It's really abiding in Christ. If you do that, He goes, you won't quit. You won't quit. You know, I'm going to end. I hope this isn't a bad testimony, because it sounds like I'm bragging. But when I was in my early 20s, I was a pastor, and I determined when I was about 22 years old, I was going to live a life of prayer. I didn't like prayer. And prayer means waiting on God. And I read all these verses. And I went, ugh. I go, God, I love you. I just don't like prayer. And I don't like the Bible. I like Bible studies. I love going to Bible studies. I love to go to Bible studies and hear teaching or take notes. I love that. But I didn't like me and raw God, you know, just empty room. Me and God. Like, ah, that was horrible. And like I've said many times, if an angel would appear to yay, oh, boy of God, you will lead 24-7 prayer. I would have just collapsed with despair if you had told me that. I would have went, yes! I would have went, no! But I set my heart back then. I said, I'm going to do this thing, this waiting thing. I'm going to figure out how to talk to God. I'm going to set time daily to do it. I'm going to go to prayer meetings. So as a pastor at a church, I called prayer meetings daily, and I had to lead them. Three people would show up at them. But because I called them, I had a big enough ego that if I called them, I had to show up at them. That's why I did it. I trapped myself in so I couldn't get out of it. And almost nobody came, but enough people came, three and four every time, were, oh, Mike, you called the meeting. Where are you at? And I called them every day. I was all excited calling them. But day 12, I was like, this is like really a drag, man. But I did it. And something in my soul started getting encouraged because I started talking to God more. And I had my Bible open. I was talking to him in the Bible. And here's the part that I didn't want you to think was bragging. So now I'm 25 and 30, and all the old guy pastors would come to me, and they would say, Mike, you've got to really slow down. You're going to burn out. They started telling me that when I was 25 and 30 and 35 and 40. And I said, no, no, I'm not going to burn out. They go, oh, you're going to burn out. I mean, you can't do prayer meetings like that, and you can't do the blah, blah, blah. Well, it's 40 years later, and I haven't quit. And my point isn't that I haven't quit. That's not my point. My point is this works. This works. Have I had some bad days? Yes. Have a few days I said, I think I want to quit? Yes. I fantasized about just coasting. And I fantasized, you know, I'm going to be one of those couch potato Christians for a day and just be selfish and do nothing. Just splurge for a couple days. Just forget it. For a month. Anyway, I fantasized about it, but I've never had the guts to do it. And you know why? Because when I get quiet, I've got a long years of conversation. And I didn't know about that back then. I didn't know that if you do it, the way this works a little bit, you get quiet and you fantasize about the going slower and, hey, I'm tired of pressing in. There's another conversation that's in you that starts. I go, oh, it got in me. It got in me. And that's the part I wanted to say. It isn't. I'm not talking about my diligence. I'm saying the power of that. You get a little bit of history in God and the conversation shoots back up in you. And every time I think I want to go a little slower, I go, no, no, I'm with him. He's with me. It's forever. I'm going to be there. No, no. And I look at this passage and I go, Lord, it's 40 years later. It worked. I got tired physically. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about that intense desire to want to quit and it's sticking with you for a month and then another month and then another month. He says you'll get free of that cycle. That's what it's talking about. Amen. Let's stand.