GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 1

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 1 ~ ~ Job 12:10 ~ ~ “In whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

Continuing with excerpts from chapter 3 “The Pleasure of God in His Creation”

in John Piper’s book, The Pleasures of God”

The second reason God rejoices in the works of creation is because they praise Him. In Psalm 148:3,5 & 7– the psalmist calls on creation itself to praise the Lord:

Praise Him, sun and moon, Praise Him, all you shining stars! Praise Him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord! For He commanded and they were created….Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps.

Again in Psalm 103:22, David wrote:

“Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominion”

(in the entire Bible, “works” that God does represents all of Creation)

What does this mean? We might say that sun and moon and stars praise God by testifying to us about God, (as we saw in Romans 1:19-23 yesterday) That would be true, as we have just seen, but what about Ps 148:7 above, (“Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps.”) What human is in the deeps to hear this praise?

One of my favorite poems is “Elegy Written in a Country churchyard” by Thomas Gray in 1751. One of the stanzas says:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Gray had been moved by the thought that on the bottom of the ocean there were beautiful gems that no human eye would ever see and that in distant deserts millions of flowers would bloom, blush with vivid colors, give off a sweet fragrance, and never be touched or seen or smelled by anybody but God!

(God pointed this very thing out to Job in Job 38:16, 25-26 and 39:1)

He asked hi: “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? ….Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on the land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man……do you know when the mountain goats bring forth? Do you observe the calving of the hinds?”

In other words, God was claiming that He alone sees the deeps of the ocean and brings rain in the desert where no man is, and watches, like a midwife, at the birth of every mountain goat and wild deer.

This is what moves the psalmist in Psalm 148:7 (above) “Praise the Lord you sea monsters and all deeps.” He (the psalmist) doesn’t even know what is in all the deeps of the sea! So the praise of the deeps is not merely what they can testify to man.

Creation praises God by simply being what it was created to be in all its incredible variety. Since most of creation is beyond the awareness of mankind, it wasn’t created merely to serve purposes that have to do with us. It was created for the ENJOYMENT OF GOD.

I read about the European water spider that lives at the bottom of the lake, but breathes air. It comes to the top of the water, does a somersault on the surface and catches a bubble of air.

Then it holds the bubble over the breathing holes in the middle of its body while it swims to the bottom of the lake and spins a silk web among the seaweed.

It goes up and brings down bubble after bubble until a little balloon of air is formed under its silk web where it can live and eat and mate.

When I read that, there was a moment of worship on our living room couch. Doesn’t that make you want to shout, “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures” Psalm 104:24

( and to think that God enjoys things like this every second from the first day of creation, and millions and millions more!!!)

Consider sea monsters that we never see. Ps 104:25-26

“Yonder is the sea, great and wide, which teems with things innumerable,

living things both small and great.

There go the ships, and leviathan which You formed to sport in it.”

Why did god create great sea monsters? Just to play, and to frolic in the ocean where no man can see, but only God. The teeming ocean declares the glory of God, and praises Him a thousand miles from any human eye.

That’s the second reason God rejoices in His works.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *