God's Word is powerful

We have discussed how important it is to rely completely on God. We've said that if we truly trust Him, we will see "that the Lord is good" and we'll be filled with praise and thanksgiving.

Here's where we are camped out today:

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
    their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
    he puts the deep into storehouses.

Let all the earth fear the Lord;
    let all the people of the world revere him.
 For he spoke, and it came to be;
    he commanded, and it stood firm.

 The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
    he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
    the purposes of his heart through all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

    the people he chose for his inheritance. (V 6-12)

The Word of the Lord. It's powerful. We read in Hebrews that:

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12, NKJV)

How often do we think about the power of His Word? In Hebrews, the writer was focused on the written word. In our psalm, we are focused on His spoken word. Both passages are correct - they are simply pointing to different parts of our Father's Word to us! The power of His Word is easily seen in the world that He created. He created all that we see; He still is in control of it, too! In the words that the psalmist chose, we are told about the power of His Word in speaking the world into existence, and then the next verses lead us to recognize His power in ruling the world. After all, Paul told us in Romans that He controls even the circumstances of our lives:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Believers, we should bow in awe before the Lord as we realize His immense power in simply speaking the galaxies into existence -- and His mercy in caring for the tiny, sinful humans who inhabit this planet! It seems that so often when we hear news of scientific discoveries, they pertain to the unimaginable size of the universe. Astronomers and physicists are discovering vast new regions of space, and finding previously unknown stars, quasars, asteroids, and moons. 

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4, NIV)

God didn't have to work hard; it wasn't a strain for Him to create the universe. Instead, He simply said, "Let there be . . " and it happened! In Psalm 33, we read:

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their lights. (v. 6)

Again in verse 9 we read:

For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood firm. (v. 9)

Anyone else feel like having a praise and worship service right about now? (Grin)

Creation is a miracle. Our powerful Lord created everything out of nothing - by His spoken word alone. All miracles are the same in this respect: one must accept the miracle by faith in God (Hebrews 11:3) But which way takes more faith? To believe that a caring and compassionate God created a place for us to live, work, and explore? Or that by sheer random chance matter developed into the millions of intricately ordered forms that we now observe?

Then, in verse seven, the psalmist considers the oceans:

He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He puts the depths in storehouses. (V. 7)

When this psalm was written, the world that he knew was only a small portion of God's created world. He could only have known the Mediterranean sea, or maybe the Red Sea. He would have had no way of knowing that oceans cover two-thirds of the earth's surface. (The Pacific Ocean alone covers almost sixty-four million miles, and is miles deep in places! But the psalmist had seen farmers all his life, as they piled up heaps of grain within their barns. He pictured God, keeping the oceans within their boundaries, as piling up the waters in much the same way as the simple farmer who would easily scoop up grain and arrange it as he liked, within the walls of his barn.

When we think about the grandeur of the heavens and the oceans, our conclusion is the same as the psalmist's:  ".....fear the Lord.....stand in awe of Him...."  Surely reverence and awe are the natural responses to His power! And just a side-note: to those who feel that the universe came about by random chance? Nope! To those who feel that God guided evolution over millions of years? Nope, not that either! The Bible says God spoke and it was done instantly! Isn't it amazing that we humans get puffed up with pride and rebel against Him?

Paul spoke about the creation of the world when he was explaining how we come to know Jesus as our Savior. In II Corinthians, he says first that Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. The devil doesn't want us to see the light of the gospel and glory of Christ. Then he states:

 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (II Corinthians 4:6)

We humans love to take credit for things and get patted on the back for the wonderful things we do . . . .this verse reminds us that even our salvation was not our own doing. We were in spiritual darkness, and we were happy there. (John 3:19)  Then, in His mercy, just like when He spoke the sun and moon into existence, He spoke light into our dark hearts.

But wait! Didn't we have to be able to make a choice? Didn't I choose to believe in Christ? Didn't I choose to begin to grow my fledgling faith? Of course! But the Bible is clear, if we now believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, it's because God opened our blind eyes to see!

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe. (Ephesians 1:18-19a)

What a high note to end on!

I hate to have to say it, though, but we humans are going to mess this up. We are super prone to pride. We think we are awesome! We choose our leaders and we band ourselves into nations and we build up mega-cities. We invent and manufacture crazy numbers of "things" and we assemble huge armies. We argue and fuss with other nations and we scheme and fight to conquer kingdoms. We are so silly that we think we are in total control. "Nothing happens to us that we didn't plan because we are so smart -- and we control our destiny." 

Well, the psalmist is going to have something to say about that -- we will study it next time!