GLORY OF THE HEAVENS - AND The Story of the Dew Drop
GLORY OF THE HEAVENS
(Psalm 19)
And The Story of the Dew Drop
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
October 31, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
My first memory of the presence of the Lord was when I was five years old sitting in front of our family home. I looked up to the heaven of clouds and the sun. I knew there was a God. I talked to him that day and worshipped Him as God. The five year old child felt she saw the face of God in the clouds. Yes, the heavens declare the glory of God.
This October, I have continued to minister only a few of the facets of the Glory of Jesus Christ. There are so many facets of His glory that I could preach the message through eternity. And yes, His glory will be our story in eternity. We will continually declare with the angels and elders.
Rev. 5: 11-14: I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and blessing. Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, honor, glory and power be unto him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. The four beasts said, Amen, and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that lives for ever and ever.
As I considered the glory of the Heavens and their declaration of the Glory of God, I return to Psalm 19. The heaven of the sky is so beautiful, we can understand how David burst forth into this beautiful Psalm of Worship.
Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day to day utters speech, and night to night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them has He set a tabernacle for the sun. This is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”
The Psalm declares a two-fold revelation of the Lord. He reveals himself in the eloquence of nature and the clarity of scripture.
In the first six verses, the name of God (or El) appears once and Jehovah not at all. In the last eight verses, which speak of the Law, the name Jehovah appears seven times. There is a seven-fold description of the Word of God. It is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true and righteous (seven adjectives). There are six nouns describing the Word of God. It is the law, testimony, statutes, commandment, fear, and judgments of the Lord. The Word will convert, make wise and rejoice the heart and enlighten the eyes.
Jesus Christ in the full glory of the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.
The following excerpts are from “Declaring the Glory” by: Rev. Lyn Gitchel
19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
The word “declare” here means to “continually rehearse” and implies constant repetition for a definite reason. It is the picture of a drama that is acted out nightly on the stage of the heavens against a backdrop of the galaxies.
19:2: “Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge.”
The word “uttered” is found other places in the scriptures, sometimes connected with prophecy. It means “constantly telling forth” in the same way that prophecy goes forth and declares a message.
19:3: “Their line is gone out through all of the earth…”
Again we have the thought of a drama acted out day after day, night after night. “Their line” means the “spoken phrase” that is used over and over in this drama. In a play, there are set lines and phrases for each actor to say. He must not deviate from these, he must speak the line, or lines, allotted to him by the writer of the drama time after time, until the drama is discontinued. This is the meaning of this phrase “their line is gone out through all of the earth.”
19:4: “…their words to the end of the world.”
“Words” here in the Hebrew “millah” and is used mostly in the Bible Book of Job and is different from the word generally translated “words”. It means “teachings,” words that instruct. These words are there to teach us something.
Thus we might paraphrase these verses like this:
“The heavens continually rehearse the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handwork. Day unto day is constantly giving a teaching and night unto night supplies the knowledge we need to understand it. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their spoken phrase is rendered daily and nightly on the stage of the heavens, and their teachings give instruction to the whole of the world.”
In these two verses we see several different voices which are speaking:
- The heavens
- The firmament
- Days
- Nights
They connect together. The heavens and the firmament go together, and so do days and nights. Each is saying something different and has a completely different message. Here again we have the picture of a drama. The heavens and the firmament come first and then the days and nights give us the finale and show the purpose. The days and nights show how the whole things will be achieved and worked out by God.
So let’s look at what each act of this drama covers and what it is saying:
Act 1: The heavens…declare…the glory.
Act 2: The firmament…His handiwork.
The first act of this drama displayed in the heavens is about the glory of God and how it affects his creation, his handiwork. It is showing us something God is doing and how he is doing it.
Act 2: Day after Day…is speaking prophecy
Night after night…is giving knowledge or information, poetical language. We can assume that the information being given by the night after night drama is needed to explain the prophetic speech of the Day.
And so to summarize what we see here, we learn that the heavens and the firmament are telling us that the glory of God will be revealed through his creation, God’s handiwork, and that the day and night routine that goes on continually throughout our existence is teaching us the method God will use to achieve it and when.
Genesis 1:1 and 1:6-8:
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
A firmament is a space---literally an expanse---and God set this firmament, this space, in between the earth and its surrounding moisture and gases. The result was that the firmament pushed the gases and moisture away from the immediate surface of the earth thus separating the waters which were below the firmament---rivers, oceans and seas---from the waters which were above the firmament---clouds, gases--- as He did this, there was formed the atmosphere in which life was able to be sustained.
The atmosphere was heaved up into place by the firmament that came between it and the earth. The word heaven was in everyday use meaning something that was lifted up (heaved up) with effort. Over the years, it has come to mean the blue skies above us. Beyond that, the place in the realm of the Spirit where the God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with the Hosts of Heaven are.
19: 4-6: “In them has he put a tabernacle for the sun…”
There are two predominant words used in the Hebrew which have been translated “tabernacle”…The usual word translated tabernacle is “miskaan” which means a residence, a dwelling place, and this is the word used most of the time about the tabernacle in the wilderness that God instructed Moses to have them build.
God’s purpose for this tabernacle, he said, was that he might “dwell among them” (Ex. 25:8) and therein lies the key. It was to be a dwelling place for the presence of God.
It has always been God’s intention to dwell with his people. From the days of Adam and Eve he made that clear. It has been man’s choice to remain separate from God, not God’s choice. We are now the tabernacle of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
But that is not the Hebrew word used in Psalm 19. The word there is different---and also deeply significant. It is the Hebrew word “ohel” and it means “a tent, clearly conspicuous from a distance.” He then goes on to say the word comes from the root word, “ahal” which means “to shine clearly”.
How about that!
Psalm 19 speaks of a “tabernacle for the sun” which is said to shine clearly, so clearly that it is conspicuous from a distance.
As the moon reflects the glory of the sun and has no brilliance of its own. We can apply this to our own lives and learn that we have nothing in ourselves to offer to the world in darkness. The only light we can offer is the reflected brilliance of the risen and glorified Christ.
Now we have gone one step further.
We have learned that the secret to our own lives is in actually “housing” the Son---actually being a dwelling place for him.
Lyn quotes this chorus as her favorite:
“For I was born to be His dwelling place
A home for the presence of the Lord
So let my life now be consecrated unto Thee
That I may be what I was born to be.
We were born to be his dwelling place, in our own selves to house the Lord. It is only as God fully and completely fills our lives that we will be what he intended for us to be from the start.
19: 4-6: In them has he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber…”
…In the book of Revelation, John, in that magnificent vision he had while exiled in Patmos, is told by the angel that he will be shown the bride of Christ (Rev. 21: 9-10)
“Come hither, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” said the angel and then carried John away in the spirit to a high mountain where he was able to look down on a great city, a metropolis---a huge crowd of people. The bride of Christ is made up of born-again believers who have entered into an intimate relationship with Christ.
The picture of the sun, the greater light which is the fullness of the glory, symbolizes Christ our heavenly bridegroom. The bride-groom is seen coming out of his chamber, his bedroom, only it is not any chamber. The word used is the Hebrew word “chuppah” and is the bridal chamber…
Redemption does not finish with the marriage of the Lamb to his bride. The marriage is but a step along the way…The intimate relationship of Christ to his bride is to produce in us duplicates of himself, his image and likeness. We, of course, are not speaking of biological sons, but about the nature and likeness of Christ. Ephesians 4:13: “till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
When that image is “birthed” in and through us, we will be fully reflecting his glory.
(Gal. 4:19) “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”
19:4-6: “…as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.”
…The picture here is one of joy, of exhilaration, a picture of a man giving a joyous whoop and raising his arms in the excitement of accomplishment. One of the hardest things to understand abut the love relationship of Christ to his bride is the intensity of the love that he has for each of us…
Christ actually takes joy in our company and is exhilarated by our time spent with him…
Zephaniah 3:17: “He will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing.” The picture is one of togetherness, the silence of love when two people are so wrapped up in each other they say nothing. They simply enjoy each other’s presence and the love flows between them in happy silence…as we set aside time just to be in His Presence, where his presence is, there is the glory.”
Mt. 17: 1-8: “Jesus…was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.”
Ps. 19:6: “His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. God’s glory appears to all mankind in the speech of creation. All people may hear these natural immortal preachers speak to them in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.
I will now share an allegory of The Dewdrop and its worship of our Lord Savior in the heavenlies.
THE DEWDROP
Job 38:28: “Hath the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew?”
The dewdrop is a small affair; but as is all creation, a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit
Dew is water that condenses upon vegetation during the night and early morning hours.
Jesus Christ, “the Word of God” is Heaven’s Dew unto His people. He personifies the Father’s doctrine and speech just as the Heavens are a picture of a drama that is acted out nightly on the stage of the heavens against a backdrop of the galaxies, so the Dew Drop declares the revelation of Jesus Christ.
“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.” (Deut. 32:2). The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus just as the dew covered the manna, a type of Him who is the “bread of life”. Jesus’ intercession in the Garden of Gethsemane was like the dew, “the drops of the night”. Gideon’s soaking fleece reveals the life of Jesus wrung out on the cross, like “a bowl full of water”.
John Ross MacDuff wrote a charming parable of The Story of a Dewdrop. It is a historical masterpiece. I paraphrased the story using the richest nuggets. The book is in the public domain.
The Story of a Dew Drop
“Three birds of very favorable repute in these regions met together one evening---a Thrush, a Lark, and a Nightingale. And all for what purpose? It was a queer one---to hold a solemn conference about a dewdrop.
The three feathered friends selected the close of a bright day in early summer as the appropriate time for their council; just when things in outer nature were looking their best. The tree foliage had reached perfection; all the mosses, too, looked so green and fresh; the various ferns were uncoiling themselves among the rocks and shady nooks by the stream.
On this occasion the sun coaxed his setting beams into a panorama of gorgeous color. Belts of golden cloud were streaking the western sky. It was unmistakably sundown. The groves, dells and hedge-rows which had kept up a goodly concert the live-long day, were now silent. (We know all creation continually praises the Lord.) Their winged tenants had, one after another, slunk to their nests, with very tired throats.
A stone’s throw higher up the valley, the music of the brook fed by recent rains, rattled in gleeful style over a bed of white and grey pebbles---the tiny limpid waves chasing one another as if they were playing hide-and-seek. It had now reached a quieter spot where, it still kept up a gentle, soothing evening song, a lullaby peculiar to itself.
Nature had rung her curfew bell and the sentry stars were coming out, one by one, to keep their night watch.
It was a great puzzle to the curious representative members of the bird-world where the Dewdrop came from; why it had come about? And still a greater puzzle, what it was made of?
The Dewdrop was evidently a visitor from some unknown land. These birds, in succession (with the curiosity birds generally have) had endeavored by stealth to track its dainty footsteps. The Dewdrop managed to perch itself so daintily on the tip of a roseleaf. The leaf was not only pretty in itself, of a subdued delicate green, but it hung right over a full-blown rose with a mass of pink leaves.
The Thrush, with his brown plumage and yellow spotted neck, being the biggest, and if anything the most talkative of the three, began the conversation.
The consultation was a long and animated one, too long indeed to report in full, besides there being a considerable amount of bird-language called chattering.
Well said the Thrush, summing up the discussion, “I must now be off to bed. So too must the Lark, whose left eye was beginning to droop as he stood with one leg up. “We shall leave to you, Bird of the night” –as he addressed the Nightingale. “We shall leave to you the first interview with this little sparkling thing from Heaven. We shall defer our visit till tomorrow.”
So away the two brown-winged companions sped. The Nightingale was left all alone. Being fully acquainted with the position of the rose-leaf, he took wing, and settled himself on the branch of a birch close by. He forthwith began to pipe one of his very best and most enchanting songs. “Answer me, pretty Dewdrop,” he said. But the Dewdrop was silent. It appeared to not pay the slightest attention. The Nightingale continued, “Pretty little noiseless thing, what are you? Where were you born? You appear sad.”
At last the Dewdrop replied in the quietest, mildest, silveriest voice imaginable. “I have reason to be sad. “You call me a Dewdrop, but in truth I am not, I am a teardrop; a teardrop which fell from the sky.”
The Nightingale was astonished. Tell me what you mean.
“The sky always weeps at the loss of the Sun; and no wonder. I tell you again, believe it or not as you please, I am one of the tears it shed tonight. You need not grieve for me. I shall be all right when the Sun appears again.”
I always get bright when the Sun shows himself. Look up to those stars, glittering in the sky. Do you know how they twinkle so? It is because they are either suns themselves or else get light from that beautiful Sun you saw some time ago tingeing the sky with red and gold. “My sun” continued the dwarf thing of mystery, raisings its tones, with a sort of conscious pride.
The Dewdrop then turned on the leafy bed, shut both eyes, and went to sleep. The Nightingale said, “Good night to you, little teardrop, or dewdrop. The nightingale flew away to perch among the old hawthorns to serenade until morning.
“Good night, kind bird” replied the Dewdrop. Thank you for thinking of me in my loneliness. As the Nightingale burst forth in song, it seemed that every star in heaven might hear and appreciate his melodies.
It was now morning. The mist still slept drowsily in the valley. Already our friend the Thrush was on his round of daily work and pleasure; as active and busy as the thrush family always is. Off he sped until he found himself perched on a branch right above where the rose and the dewdrop were.
How he piped, and chirruped, and throstled! After these musical preliminaries, our new friend (Songster No. 2) ventured by. The Nightingale had told him the dewdrop was a teardrop. “A teardrop indeed!” There was not a bit of the tear about it. It was like a bright, unmistakable, beautiful diamond. How it glistened and sparkled; and with all the prismatic colors! “What in the world can be so lovely, silent sleeper on the rose leaf, with your round crystal cheeks? Dewdrop we thought you were; teardrop you say you are: If you are not a diamond set in rubies---stolen, for all I know, from yesterday’s rainbow---you certainly look like one.”
“I am indeed a diamond,” answered the Dewdrop. “Look at me. "Do you not say I am fit for a monarch’s crown?" It is the monarch’s crown I am presently to be set in. Every day I meet the Queen of the Morning. (a type of the Bride of Christ). I see her even now advancing with her rosy feet, “sowing the earth with pearls. See for yourself, how the few stars which still linger in the sky, and which with their glittering torches lighted her out of the Eastern Gate are paling every minute behind her!” She says, “Of all the jewels in her tiara there is not one she is fonder of, or prouder of, than me.” “Away, away, little bird,” stammered out the dewdrop. I must prepare to meet this queen Aurora. But, it added in a kind of after thought, “the procession will soon be over; come back shortly and see if, if you please.”
The Thrush looked and to his wonder sorrow and amazement, lo, the leaf was empty. Not a trace of either dewdrop or diamond. It was evident that the Queen of the Morning, in passing by had picked up the dew diamond, and inserted it in her crown.
Away up in the blue morning sky and the light fleecy clouds, the Sun has climbed higher. It is now above the tallest of the poplars. The cattle are again lowing the fat meadows. High in that bright dome of azure, there is a delightful frolicsome twitter heard. It is not the Nightingale; no not so clear and mellow as that. Not the Thrush; no not so loud or gushing as that. It is our little friend the Lark. Oh! How merry he is! More so than either of the other two. He is floating, soaring, sauntering and curtseying, skimming and dipping, rollicking and frolicking.
The Queen of the Morning had come with all her court, and troupe of gay courtiers. The gates of day had unbarred for her. Pink clouds, quite like tiny angels with wings, were holding up her train, discharging tiny golden arrows from silver bows; others to paint in delicate hues of amber and purples the fringes of clouds.
Each flower joined the royal procession. All of creation joined as performers in this choir of nature. The Blackbird, Redbreast, and Goldfinch each took part with striking effect. Even the Swallow in his own quiet way twittered, and the Beetle droned and the Bee hummed.
When the Queen came to a pause, with radiant grace, she put her hand up to her crown and took out the diamond. There was a little crimson cloud that happened to be floating past at the moment. She laid the lustrous gem on this roseate pillow; then slowly she and all her entourage vanished from sight.
What does this have to do with our friend the Lark? His quick little eye had discerned what our eyes cannot see. He had watched everything. He sees that flashing speck of light lying so daintily on its cushion cloud. “Pretty sparking thing, I know what you are. You are a rare diamond just taken from the crown of the Queen of the Morning. But, I confess, you look too, very like the dewdrop I spied at a distance a few hours ago, on the tip of a rose-leaf.”
The Dewdrop replied, “though the Queen of the Morning borrowed me, I am really and truly a jewel from the crown of the Sun; that when he took off his royal robes last evening, to lay his head on his nightly pillow, I dropped out of his crown and tumbled down to the earth. “Though they call me Diamond, I like quite as well the name with which God’s beautiful mist baptized me, that of a dewdrop. Just as the Queen of the Morning vanished, I am about to do the same myself. I am going to my Palace yonder. I should rather perhaps say my Home.”
It is said by people who are wise about bird-lore that the lark family has eyes almost like a microscope; things invisible to us are said to be quite visible to them.
What the Lark saw or thought he saw was a wonderful army on march of a million, million little dewdrops. The Lark says to them, “where is your home? “The Sun! the Sun! One after the other answered. The dewdrop was a tear that fell from the sky because the Sun was gone. We are all parts of the Sun. We are on our way again to the golden entrance to his Palace.”
The army of misty drops rose higher and higher. The Lark rising with them until his little wings was tired. When he could act as convoy no father, down he came. He took breath after the exhaustion and excitement and then hastened straight to the home of the Nightingale and Thrush to tell of the glorious ascent of the Dewdrop on the rose-leaf; its severance into a million fragments; and how these in the shape of a great army, had marched right within the Sun’s Golden Gates!
“An Angel’s Whisper”
“The Soul and the spirit of Man---apart from the Great Son of God becomes a teardrop. All is dark to it, when that All-glorious source of Light and Love is away, earth’s sweetest songs cannot cheer it. But when the morning comes, and the Son appears, the teardrop becomes a dewdrop---gleaming like a diamond in that peerless radiance. And at death, when it seems to be dissolved, and has apparently vanished from sight, it is exhaled---not annihilated. It passes upward to the Golden Gates, to be lost in the splendor of the Everlasting Light!”
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Believers have been filled with the Holy Spirit, “the dew of heaven”. The absence of the dew’s anointing, depicting the King’s favor and blessing will result in a spiritual famine. We are like “drops of dew” begotten by the Father of spirits. The unity of the spirit was described by the psalmist to be like dew, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like…the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion…Micah prophesied about the end-time church, And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass. (Mic. 5:7).
Isa. 18:4: “The Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
Isa. 26:19: “Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise, “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for your dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”
Zech. 8:12: “For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.”
Deut. 32:2: “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.”
Just as the heavens declare (continually rehearse) the glory of God, so does all of creation. My speech shall distil as the dew.
Psa. 110:3: Your people shall be willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth.
The Bride of Christ shall break forth in glory, holiness and beauty just as the morning breaks forth upon the earth, day unto day.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
I entered into the labors of John Ross MacDuff, The Story of the Dew Drop. Scripture from K.J.V. Text from Declaring The Glory by: Rev. Lyn Gitchel; Principles of Present Truth from Psalms by: Kelly Varner; Matthew Henry Bible Commentary. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those from whom I have gleaned.