Did you know there are hundreds of verses in the Bible that talk about nature or use something in the natural world to teach us a life lesson?
If you love nature and the outdoors like I do, it’s pretty cool when we run across so many places in the Bible that refer to the natural world.
Just start looking through an online Concordance and you’ll see what I mean!
In this Bible study, we’ll take a look at just some of these verses, 20 in all. I’ve narrowed it down to four in a few different categories:
- The heavens
- Mountains
- Trees
- Water
- Flowers and fruit
- Animals
Down the road, I’ll do a separate post for each of these—there’s that much content in the Bible that refers to nature!
Here’s the video version of this Bible study—or if you prefer to read, then just skip down to the next section:
Get free printable Study Sheets for this Bible study: The Natural World in the Bible
The Heavens
We’ll start with what the Bible calls the heavens—the sun, the moon, stars and galaxies. The clouds.
Three of these are in the Psalms (they’re just so good). And we can learn something different from each verse:
Psalm 19:1
Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands.”
This verse tells us how creation worships the God who created it. How does it declare God’s glory? By its vastness. Its complexity. Its order. Its variety. By being. By doing what God created it to do.
Psalm 108:4
Psalm 108:4: “For Your faithful love is higher than the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches the clouds.”
Have you ever tried to measure God’s faithfulness?
Just like we can’t measure the height of the heavens, so we can’t measure His faithfulness. It reaches as high as the clouds. Even higher—higher than the heavens.
That’s BIG faithfulness!
What a great reminder when we’re going through something tough. God’s faithfulness is big enough.
Psalm 147:4
Psalm 147:4 is the next one. It says: “He counts the number of the stars. He gives names to all of them.”
This reminds me of the verse in Matthew that says the Father counts the very hairs on our head. There are billions upon billions of stars in the universe. Not only does He count them, He names them!
He cares. And He cares even more for you and me. He hasn’t forgotten us. He knows our name, too, and everything we’re going through.
Hebrews 1:10
Hebrews 1:10 is a New Testament version of Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, Lord, You established the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands.”
A reminder that the Lord created ALL this. He established it. He thought it all up and put it here.
It belongs to Him and it’s all under His authority. That includes us.
Mountains
Let’s move on to the mountains—the tallest structures on earth.
Psalm 125:2
Psalm 125:2 says, “Jerusalem—the mountains surround her. And the Lord surrounds His people, both now and forever.”
What a vivid illustration. Like the mountains surround Jerusalem for its protection, so the Lord surrounds us, His people.
He’s well able to protect us from anything contrary to His plans for us.
Nahum 1:5
This short little Old Testament book can be found with the other minor prophets—between Micah and Habakkuk.
Nahum 1:5 says this: “The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt. The earth trembles at His presence, the world and all who live in it.”
This verse also tells of God’s power but in a different way. Mountains are the most solid structures on earth. They seem immovable…but they’re no match for God’s presence!
Sometimes we have mountains in our lives that seem immovable or impassable. But if the Lord wants them out of the way, He’s well able to make them quake apart.
Micah 4:1
Micah 4:1: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills. Peoples will stream to it.”
No one will miss it! No one will miss knowing the Lord is King of heaven and earth.
And people will stream to the Lord’s house. His presence will draw everyone there.
1 Corinthians 13:2
Our last verse about mountains is always a great reality check for me! Maybe it is for you, too.
1 Corinthians 13:2 says, “If I have [the gift of] prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
That’s the value the Lord places on love!
Not our cultural mushy, feely, conditional love. But God’s kind of love. This agape love (the Greek word used there) is full of forgiveness and kindness and truth.
If I don’t have that kind of love in me for God and for other people, the Lord says it doesn’t matter if my faith is big enough to move mountains. It doesn’t matter if I know so much about the Bible I can teach everyone else.
God is love. And that’s His priority for me, too. And for you.
Isn’t it cool how the Bible gives us these kinds of word pictures?!
Trees
Trees. The earth has more than 64 thousand species of them (and maybe more we don’t know about yet, says an article on ScienceNews.org).
Here are just four of the hundreds of Bible verses about trees:
Psalm 96:12
Psalm 96:12 says, “Let the fields and everything in them exult. Then all the trees of the forest will shout for joy.”
I wonder if one day we’ll really be able to hear the trees shout for joy before the Lord! Can you picture it? I think many of them do that now just with their beauty.
The huge, stately giant redwoods of Califonia. The age-old olive trees of Israel. The bright yellow and red fall colors of the leaves in the northern climates. The spring flowering of the fruit trees.
In their way, they all “shout for joy” to the Lord, the one who created them.
Jeremiah 17:8
I love this picture from Jeremiah 17:8: “He [the one who trusts in the Lord] will be like a tree planted by water. It sends its roots out toward a stream. It doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.”
When our roots drink from the stream, the living water Jesus offers us, we can stay green and fruitful even in the dry times.
Even in the hard times, when we trust Him.
Matthew 7:18
Matthew 7:18 says, “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit. Neither can a bad tree produce good fruit.”
Jesus is comparing trees here to people. He said “We’ll know them by their fruits.” People know whether we’re a good tree or a bad tree by the fruit of our lives. We can only fake it for so long!
If we want to produce good fruit in our lives, we need to be that tree Jeremiah talks about, planted by the stream. Planted by that living water.
Revelation 22:2
Revelation 22:2 talks about my favorite tree of all, the Tree of Life.
It says: “On both sides of the river [the crystal-clear river that comes from God’s throne] was the Tree of Life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations.”
Can you imagine? The trees we have here on earth now only bear one kind of fruit during a certain season. But this Tree of Life will have 12 kinds of fruit. And it’ll produce its fruit all year long!
[I wonder if it’ll be a different kind of fruit every month? Or if it’ll be all 12 kinds of fruit every month? What do you think?]
And it’s not only the fruit from this tree that’s amazing—its leaves bring healing to the nations. Constant fruitfulness and healing.
Wow!
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Water is our next category in the natural world that the Bible has a lot to say about. Rivers, streams, springs and the seas.
Let’s take a look at just four of the hundreds of verses about water in nature:
Song of Songs 8:7
Song of Songs 8:7: “Mighty waters cannot extinguish love. Rivers cannot sweep it away.”
While the Song of Songs is mostly about romantic love between a husband and wife, I love the analogy to the Lord’s love for us in this verse.
When you think of the power of water—a tsunami or a river at flood stage. It sweeps everything away in its path.
But even waters like that can’t sweep away or extinguish God’s love for us. It’s too powerful.
It makes me think of the end of Romans chapter 8—absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Ezekiel 47:9
Ezekiel 47:9 says this: “Every [kind of] living creature that swarms will live wherever the river flows, and there will be a huge number of fish because this water goes there. Since the water will become fresh, there will be life everywhere the river goes.”
There will be life everywhere the river goes.
Jesus said that HE offers this kind of living water to all who ask Him. Whoever has His river has life!
Isaiah 41:18
Isaiah 41:18: “I will open rivers on the barren heights, and springs in the middle of the plains. I will turn the desert into a pool of water and dry land into springs of water.”
Again, because water signifies life, this verse is so encouraging!
The Lord can bring His water of life into the driest places of our lives.
John 7:38
Here’s the verse in John where Jesus talks about His living water:
John 7:38: “The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”
Flowers and Fruit
Flowers and fruit in nature speak to us about growth, beauty, abundance, nourishment and new life.
Here are just four verses from the Bible about flowers and fruit, pulled out of hundreds:
Isaiah 35:1-2
Isaiah 35:1-2 says, “The wilderness and the dry land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose. It will blossom abundantly and will also rejoice with joy and singing.”
All of Isaiah 35 is full of references to nature! It’s a wonderful prophetic word about what God will do one day.
Here it’s the land itself that will blossom like a rose and rejoice.
Isaiah 40:8
“The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever” says Isaiah 40:8.
Flowers are so transitory, even the most gorgeous ones. They last a day, maybe a few days. Some bloom for a few weeks even. But they’ll fade before long.
Not so with God’s word! With His promises and His truth. His word remains. It’s even more solid than the mountains and the earth itself.
Matthew 3:8
Matthew 3:8 says this: “Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance.”
The New Testament, especially, has so much to say about a fruitful life. These are John the Baptist’s words, but they’re consistent with what Jesus taught too.
What does it mean to produce fruit consistent with repentance? It’s very similar to our next verse…
Galatians 5:22-23
Galatians 5:22-23 is super familiar to most of us: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control.”
These fruits the Spirit develops in us are consistent with a life that’s lived in repentance before God. Not just once at salvation, but every day.
It’s God’s character in us, produced by the Holy Spirit, with our cooperation.
We read earlier that only a good tree can produce good fruit. Let’s be good trees so our lives produce fruit that honors and pleases the Lord!
Animals
Last, we’ll look at four verses that refer to animals. Again, there are hundreds more, but we’ll stick with these for now:
Psalm 148:7 & 10
Psalm 148:7, 10 says, “Praise the Lord from the earth…wild animals and all cattle, creatures that crawl and flying birds…”
Like the stars at the beginning of this video, the animals of Earth praise the Lord by being what God created them to be.
Simply by being.
They’re part of God’s grand design. He infused them with life and they praise Him.
Proverbs 28:1
Proverbs 28:1 says this: “The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”
Why are the righteous as bold as a lion? Because the one who fears the Lord doesn’t have to fear anything else. Not other people. Not the future. Not the past.
When our trust in is the Lord and we’re walking in Jesus’ righteousness, as we read earlier in Jeremiah we’re planted. We’re secure.
Proverbs 21:31
Proverbs 21:31 says, “A horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory comes from the Lord.”
A warhorse represents anything we might try to put our trust in for our own daily battles. Our money. Our power. Our intelligence.
None of these things are bad in themselves. But we just need to know that they don’t guarantee our victory.
That comes from God alone.
Job 39:27
Job 39:27 “Does the eagle soar at your command and make its nest on high?”
This verse is part of several chapters at the end of the book of Job where God is putting Job in his place. “Does the eagle soar at your command?”
In fact, the entire natural world is a humbling reminder that we’re just one more created being, at God’s mercy.
But even if we can’t command the eagle, we can be in awe at the way it soars effortlessly…and worship the Lord because it’s HIS doing.
Do YOU have a favorite Bible verse that refers to nature or teaches us something through the natural world?
Bible verses: Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.
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