God Created All in Wisdom

“God Created All in Wisdom” Psalm 104:1-4, 24-30 www.WORDFORLIFESAYS.com (Please Note: All lesson verses and titles are based on International Sunday ...
Author: Hector Jackson
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“God Created All in Wisdom” Psalm 104:1-4, 24-30 www.WORDFORLIFESAYS.com (Please Note: All lesson verses and titles are based on International Sunday School Lesson/Uniform Series ©2013 by the Lesson Committee, but all content/commentary written within is original to wordforlifesays.com unless properly quoted/cited. As always you are encouraged to do your own studies as well. Blessings!) Introduction: God’s creation is magnificent. The heavenly bodies, the earth, trees, animals, sea, and yes us, we are all wonderful. No, it’s not without its problems or marred state because of sin but the intricacies of any and every part of creation, when we think of the wisdom of God displayed in each, it is absolutely mind blowing. As the psalmist ponders God and His wonderful works regarding creation we can almost sense his mind’s eye traveling back to the Genesis account of the history and making of the universe, seeing God’s hand in it all. I would love to know what event or scene unfolded before him to prompt these melodious musings of the creation of the

world, for I have often found myself in the psalmist’s position – gazing at God’s beautiful works and being caught in the wonderment of it all. Let’s reacquaint ourselves with God’s fashioning of this world and may it prompt praise in your heart at His glorious wisdom involved. Psalm 104:1 “Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.” “Bless the LORD, O my soul” is a command to worship and praise God. Again, we don’t know what spawned this particular sonnet but whatever it was the psalmist demanded himself to praise God. Not knowing the definite author of this psalm, some attribute it to David who wrote Psalm 103 before it and opened that psalm with the exact wording that commands one to, “Bless the LORD, O my soul.” Often the term “to kneel” is associated with this particular word to “bless” and it gets the psalmist and all potential worshipers in the position to attribute to God, in the spirit of humility, the praise that is due His holy name. The NLT versions states “Let all that I am praise the LORD.” With that, the psalmist commands his entire being to be amazed at God and praise Him. “O Lord, open thou my lips;

and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise,” David proclaimed in Psalm 51:15. “O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.” When we think of the word “honour” we think in terms of the highest elevation of character one can recognize an individual as having. Mix that with the word “majesty” and a royal image of supreme caliber come to mind. Even at that, these mere words do not do God justice when describing Him. Yet, the psalmist is thinking in terms of the most elevated way he could praise God, classifying Him in a category of His own as one whom, in his mind’s eye, is seen as being “clothed” in such a superior way. “Thou art very great,” he declared, knowing that adding the word “very” to his description of God’s greatness takes his personal praise to another level; placing the Almighty in a higher stance of his own heart and mind, above all. And that, my friends, is exactly where God should be: higher. The reason for praising Him is because as God He is higher in every way, shape, and form. Psalm 104:2 “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain.” “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment.” The psalmist carries over in this verse the imagery of God dressing Himself. As Creator of all, God is the former, shaper, and maker

of all things. Who would dare have the audacity to stand up and desire to dress God in a manner they see fit. In the beautiful expression of this psalmist, he sees God as covering Himself with “light.” As a spirit, God cannot be dressed per se. But, His pureness and holiness that sets Him high above all others can only be described in the radiance of the brightest light (compare 1 John 3:3). He brilliantly outshines all. Therefore, the psalmist saw Him as being dressed in the true nature of who He is: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” (1 John 1:5; emphasis mine; compare 1 Timothy 6:16). “Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain.” Can a man even fathom to catch one star that falls from the sky, let alone stretch out the “heavens” with galaxy upon galaxy and universe upon universe? God can. As a matter of fact, in His wisdom in the beginning all He had to do was speak a word and creation obeyed and came into existence. All in the sky that looks to be stretched out as a cosmic “curtain” twinkling above our heads is because God is the one “who” made it to be so. Previously I wrote: “No man, in his finite ability to know creation, could possible measure or count the very stars of heaven. Consider this, it is said that every galaxy holds within it billions of stars. Billions of stars for just one galaxy! Wow!

Now consider this, it is also said that in the “observable universe” there are more than 170 billion galaxies, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy). Is your mind blown? Yeah, mine too! . . . He took something vast and immeasurable to us and spread it out like a curtain or a tent. Amazing!” (The Foundations of the Earth/Wordforlifesays.com) Psalm 104:3 “Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind.” “Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters.” This reminds me of the story of David desiring to build a physical house for God and God sent the prophet Nathan back to ask of David, “Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in?” (2 Samuel 7:5). In Isaiah 66:1 God also said, “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?” What the psalmist probably had in mind when thinking on God’s “chambers” (upper room) was the metaphoric “beams” of His holy dwelling being set up upon the supports of nothing more than “the waters.” In dealing with the story of creation Genesis 1:6-8 gives us a layout of the term “waters.” He created the “firmament” to

separate the two waters that appear in those verses: waters above and waters beneath. It is upon the upper “waters” which we would think in terms of being above our current skyward view; more toward the atmospheric realm. This is what the psalmist was referring to. With beams set up on what appears as nothingness to us, who or what could prevent Him from riding the clouds like a “chariot” (compare Elijah in 2 Kings 2:1, 11), or walk on “the wings of the wind?” (compare 2 Samuel 22:11; Psalm 18:1). What seems impossible to most, the psalmist imagined God operating in the impossible, doing things that seem so astoundingly unreal to the human mind. But do them, He does. Remember Jesus in the flesh walking on the support of nothing more than the lower waters of the sea (Matthew 14:22-33)? God is just that awesome! Psalm 14:4 “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:” “Angels” are created beings. God “maketh” them. Angels are ministering “spirits” that do the will of God. Angels are messengers of God (see Matthew 1:20-21; 28:5-7). Angels are sent on missions to assist people (see Psalm 91:11; Acts 12:7; Hebrews 1:14). And, angels are beings of force to fight when they need to be (see Daniel 1:13 and Revelation 12:7); or as the

psalmist envisions them in today’s lesson as being “a flaming fire,” (compare Hebrews 1:7). They are God’s servicemen created, employed, and deployed to operate under His divine will. Psalm 104:24 “O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.” “In wisdom hast thou made them all.” Going back to Proverbs 8, “wisdom” testifies of itself, speaking in the first person, as being at the beginning when God created everything. “The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was,” (vss. 22-23). All that the “earth is full” of was brought forth with “wisdom.” Before the mountains, before the hills, before the fields, before the heavens . . . before anything and everything, there was “wisdom.” And, with “wisdom hast thou made them all.” All the many or “manifold” aspects of creation and all the “riches” of the earth God made “in wisdom.” “The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens,” Proverbs 3:19. Psalm 104:25-26 “So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.

There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.” In 2008, an article on Purple Slinky states this “I cannot imagine that there is still life under the deepest part of the ocean, here is the list of some newest discovered creature down under the ocean.” In that list were some strange things noted such as: Dumbo Octopus, a Flower Hat Jelly and a Jewel Squid, just to name a few. “The Mysterious Deep Sea” is referred to as Earth’s Final Frontier on Science on NBCNEWS.com. There it says, “Basically, we know so little about the deep sea that we don’t know what we don’t know,” quoting Michael Vecchione. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” is an awe-striking statement because it shows that there is a limit that man can understand on the unlimit-less nature of God. Here in our lesson we are told that they are “innumberable.” To me, that implies past finding out. Psalm 104:27-28 “These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.” Every creature, human or beast, is dependent upon God for sustainability whether they acknowledge it or not. “These wait all upon thee” gives the picture in my head of baby birds waiting for the mother bird to return to the nest with food at

the ready to supply. There is an expectation that comes from waiting on the source of their supply. This too is how man ought to view their relationship with God. Unfortunately, man too often takes the credit for himself of bringing home the bread and the bacon, so to speak. Philippians 4:19 says, “My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” It is by His “hand” we are sustained and maintained. Psalm 104:29-30 “Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.” All life begins and ends with God. Acts 17:24, 28 says, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands . . . For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” We live because He that created us caused it to be so. We move because He that is “Lord of heaven and earth” commands it. All of our very being is in existence because of God. No accidents. No cosmic collision. Rather, because God ordained life. And, He that ordained life can also recant it at a moment’s notice if He “takest away their breath.” Conclusion

All of creation, man and beast, are here because God made it so. In the book of Genesis we see a day by day detailed account of creation and psalmist here is reiterating to his readers God’s sovereignty over all. Man cannot take credit for any of it. Rather, we should with humbleness of heart appreciate and reverence God’s wisdom and sovereignty in bringing forth it all.