Month: June 2023

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 10 ~ ~Psalm 25:11~ ~ “FOR YOUR NAME’S SAKE, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.”

Excerpts from John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”, chapter 4

section: “Pardon Flows From the Pleasure of His Fame”

The great ground of hope, the great motive to pray, the great wellspring of mercy is God’s awesome commitment to His name. The pleasure that He has in His fame is the pledge and passion of his readiness to forgive and save those who lift his banner and cast themselves on his promise and mercy.

The saints of the Old Testament stake their hope for forgiveness not on their merit or their external rituals. They plead mercy on the basis of God’s love for his great name. “FOR YOUR NAME’S SAKE, O LORD, pardon my guild, for it is great” (Psalm 25:11) “Help us, O God of our salvation, FOR THE GLORY OF YOUR NAME, deliver us, and forgive our sins, FOR YOUR NAME’S SAKE!” (Ps. 79:9)

“Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord for your name’s sake; for our backslidings are many, we have sinned against You…..You, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and WE ARE CALLED BY YOUR NAME, leave us not (Jeremiah 14:7-9)

When we say “hallowed by thy name” and end our prayers with “in Jesus’ name”, we mean that the glory of God’s name is the goal and the ground of everything we pray. Our praying for forgiveness should be based not only on an appeal to God’s mercy, but also on an appeal to his justice in crediting the worth of his Son’s obedience. “God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins.” (1John 1:9)

In the New Testament the basis of all forgiveness of sins is revealed more clearly than in the Old Testament, but the basis in God’s commitment to his name doesn’t change. Paul teaches that the death of Christ demonstrated the righteousness of God in passing over sins and vindicated God’s justice in justifying the ungodly who bank on Jesus and not themselves (Romans 3:25-26)

We can see this also in the Gospel of John 5:43, where he tells us that Jesus came IN HIS FATHER’S NAME, and in 10:25 he goes on to say that Jesus did the works IN HIS FATHER’S NAME. At the end of his life Jesus said that he had MANIFESTED THE FATHER’S NAME to those whom the Father had given him. (17:6) and that he would yet MAKE THAT NAME KNOWN to them (17:26)

So all of Jesus’ life and work seems to be aimed at revealing and honoring the Father’s name. This is especially true of Jesus’ death, as he shows us in John 12:27-28. Here He is praying just before his death. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, GLORIFY YOUR NAME”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The hour of Jesus’ death was at hand and the purpose for coming to that hour was to GLORIFY THE NAME OF THE FATHER. Therefore we should think of the death of Jesus as the way the Father vindicated his name—his reputation—from all accusations of unrighteousness in the forgiveness of sinners.

On this side of the cross we should pray as David did in Psalm 25:11 “FOR YOUR NAME’S SAKE, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” but when we Christians pray this, we should mean, “Forgive me, O Lord, because your great and holy name has been vindicated by the death of your Son and I am banking all my hope on Him and not myself.”

This is what John meant when he said in 1 John 2:12, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven FOR THE SAKE OF HIS NAME.”

So whether we are reading in the Old Testament or the New, the great ground of our forgiveness is God’s allegiance to his holy name and the unswerving pleasure that He takes in making the worth and righteousness of that name known, especially in the gospel message that Christ died both to justify the ungodly and vindicate the Father’s justice.

If God were ever to lose his delight in the fame of his glorious name, the foundation of our pardon would be imperiled.

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 9 ~ ~ 2 Corinthians 10:5 ~ ~ “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

Continuing with chapter 4 of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”

“Profaned and Vindicated in Babylon”

But what are we to make of the fact that eventually Israel proved to be so rebellious that she was indeed given into the hands of her enemies during the Babylonian captivity in the time of Ezekiel? How does a God-centered prophet like Ezekiel handle this terrible setback for the reputation of God?

Listen to the Word of the Lord that came to him in Ezekiel 36:20-23. This is God’s answer to the captivity of his people which he himself had brought about:

“’but when they came to the nations during the captivity, wherever they cane, they profaned my Holy Name, in that men said of them ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land’ But I HAD CONCERN FOR MY HOLY NAME, which the house of Israel caused to be profaned among the nations to which they came. Therefore say to the house of Israel, “thus says the Lord God: it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the SAKE OF MY HOLY NAME, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will VINDICATE THE HOLINESS OF MY GREAT NAME, which has been profaned,….. which you have profaned…….and the nations will know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.”

Similarly in Ezekiel: 39:25, God says:

“Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy upon the house of Israel; and I will be JEALOUS FOR MY HOLY NAME.”

When every other hope was gone and the people lay under the judgment of God himself because of their own sin, one hope remained—-and it will always remain—-that God has an indomitable delight in the worth of His own reputation and will not allow it to be trodden down for long.

Isaiah, writing much earlier, but dealing with the same problem—the dishonoring of God in the captivity of his people—made the motive of God unmistakably clear in saving his people from Babylon:

“For MY NAME’S SAKE I defer my anger, for the sake of y praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.

Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. FOR MY OWN SAKE, FOR MY OWN SAKE, I do it.

FOR HOW SHOULD MY NAME BE PROFANED? My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:9-11)

Daniel, who was caught in the captivity himself, prayed with the same view of God in mind, “O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive; O Lord, give heed and act; delay not, FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, O my God, because your city and your people are CALLED BY YOUR NAME” (Daniel 9:19)

(It is clear that the Almighty’s pleasure in His Name’s sake, is wrapped up in His love for us. He wants all people to be saved. Since salvation is only by the Father through the Son, it is imperative that all people know His power to save. It’s imperative that they all know that He is both the Judge AND the savior. HE IS THE ALL IN ALL. If we had no knowledge of His great power and glory, we would have no faith in His being able to save us and provide an eternal home. Therefore, it is imperative that He makes His great name, (power and mercy) known throughout history. It is still based in His love for us also.)

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 8 ~ ~ Psalm 25:10 ~ ~ “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.”

Continuing with chapter 4 of John Pipers “The Pleasures of God”

“God’s Pleasure in His Fame”

“God-Centeredness Is the Ground of Mercy”

Isaiah too says that God’s aim in the Exodus was to make for Himself an everlasting name. He described God as the one…..

“who caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them TO MAKE FOR HIMSELF AN EVERLASTING NAME, who led them through the depths. Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. Like cattle that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So you led Your people, TO MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GLORIOUS NAME (Isaiah 63:12-14)

So when God showed his power to deliver His people from Egypt through the Red Sea, He had his sights on eternity and the everlasting reputation that he would win for himself in those days.

Psalm 106:7-8 teaches the same thing:

“Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea. Yet, he saved them FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE, THAT HE MIGHT MAKE KNOWN HIS MIGHTY POWER. (See also Nehemiah 9:10; Ezekiel 20:9; and Daniel 9:15)

Do you see the gospel logic at work here? It’s the same precious logic that we saw in 1 Samuel 12:22 earlier. There the sinful people had chosen a king and angered God. But God does not cast them off. Why? Because his great name was at stake. Here it says that the sinful people had rebelled against God at the Red Sea and failed to consider his love. Yet, he saved them with tremendous power. Why? Same answer; for his name’s sake, to make known his mighty power.

(Let’s look at a situation with Joshua 7) Joshua understood this God-centered gospel logic and put it to use like Moses did to plead for God’s sinful people. Israel had crossed the Jordan, entered the Promised Land and defeated Jericho. But now, to everyone’s dismay, they have been defeated at the city of Ai. Joshua is stunned. He goes to the Lord in one of the most desperate prayers in all the Bible:

O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will surround us, and cut off our name from the earth; and WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR YOUR GREAT NAME? (Joshua 7:8-9)

The great ground of hope in all the God-centered servants of the Lord has always been the impossibility that God would let his great name be dishonored for long among the nations. It was inconceivable. This was bedrock confidence. Other things change, but not this—not the commitment of God to his “great name”

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 7 ~ ~ Exodus 9:16 ~ ~ “But for this purpose I have caused you to stand to show you my power, so that my fame may be declared throughout all the earth.”

Continuing with excerpts from chapter 4 of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”

“Why didn’t God Make Short Work of Pharaoh?

Exodus is where God began to shape the corporate life of His chosen people. For the rest of her existence Israel looked back to the Exodus as the key event in her history.

So in the Exodus we can see what God is up to in choosing a people for Himself. In Exodus 9:16 God speaks to Pharaoh a word that lets him —and us—know why God is multiplying His mighty acts into ten plagues, instead of making short work of Egypt’s stubbornness in one swift catastrophe.

This text is so crucial that the apostle Paul quotes it in Romans 9:17 to sum up God’s purpose in the Exodus, God says to Pharaoh, “But for this purpose I have caused you to stand —or “appointed you” …to show you my power, so that my name may be declared throughout all the earth”

So the point of Exodus was to make a worldwide reputation for God. The point of the ten plagues and miraculous Red Sea crossing was to demonstrate the astonishing power of God on behalf of His freely chosen people, with the aim that this reputation, this name, would be declared throughout the whole world. Is it not clear then that God has great pleasure in His fame?

One of the great implications of God’s pleasure in His fame is found in the story of Rahab, the harlot of Jericho. She was converted to the true God and spared from death, because of the fame of God from the Exodus that had run before the Israelites and reached her city. “We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt….The Lord your God is He who is God in heaven above and on earth beneath” (Joshua 2:10-11) Thus God’s love for His fame became the means of Rahab’s conversion. We will see this wonderful connection again and again.

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 6 ~ ~ Revelation 2:3 ~ ~ “and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.”

Continuing with excerpts from chapter 4 of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”. Chapter 4 is “The Pleasure of God in His Fame.”

(He was showing when the chosen people of God turned against His rule and wanted a king. Samuel had just told them how serious this is, and the price they will pay for it. Today we will look at the parallel of that action in the lives of people today.)

He wrote:

When people have been brought to fear and repent of their sin, then comes the good news, “Fear not, you have done all these sins, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; and do not turn aside after vain things which cannot profit or save, for they are vain.”

This is the gospel message, delivered to the Israelites back then and to us today.

Even though you have sinned greatly, and terribly dishonored the Lord, even though you now have a king which it was a sin to get, even though there is no undoing that sin or its painful consequences that are yet to come, nevertheless there is a future and a hope. Fear not!

Then comes the great ground of the gospel in verse 22: “For the Lord will not cast away His people FOR HIS GREAT NAME’S SAKE, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people FOR HIMSELF.”

What is the basis of the fearlessness they should have according to this verse? First of all, it is the promise that God will not cast them away. But that is not the deepest foundation of hope and fearlessness. WHY will God not cast away His people? The answer Samuel gives is, “for His name’s sake”—-His commitment to His own name. The rock-bottom foundation of OUR forgiveness, our fearlessness and our joy is (also this same) commitment of God to His own great name.

FIRST He is committed to act for His own namesake. Then, for that reason, He is committed to act for His people. How does Samuel make that connection for us in 1 Samuel 12:22? Why is it that God’s commitment to His own name results in not casting away His people? How does His commitment to His name produce a commitment to this people?

The last part of verse 22 gives the answer, “Because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people FOR HIMSELF.” Or, to put it another way, it was God’s good pleasure to join you to Himself in such away that His name is at stake in your destiny. Or again: it was God’s good pleasure to possess you in such a way that what becomes of you reflects upon His name. Therefore, FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE, He will not cast you away.

What does that mean—that God has pleasure in His name? We have seen that, even though it might not mean anything different than God’s pleasure in His own intrinsic glory, it often means something slightly different, namely, the glory of God gone public. In other words, the name of God often refers to His reputation, His fame, His renown. This is the way we use the word “name” when we say someone is making a name for himself. Or we sometimes say, that’s a “name” brand. We mean a brand with a big reputation.

This is what I think Samuel means in 1 Samuel 12:22 when he says that God made Israel a people “for Himself” and that He would not cast Israel off, “for His great name’s sake.”

God says in Isaiah 43:21 that Israel is “the people whom I formed for Myself that THEY MIGHT DECLARE MY PRAISE.” And when the church came to see itself in the New Testament as the true Israel, Peter described God’s purpose for us like this: You are a chosen race….THAT YOU MAY DECLARE THE WONDERFUL DEEDS OF HIM WHO CALLED YOU OUT OF DARKNESS INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT.” (1 Peter 2:9) In other words, Israel and the church are chosen by God to make a name for Him in the world.

David teaches the same thing in one of his prayers in 2 Samuel 7:23:

“What other nation on earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be His people, MAKING HIMSELF A NAME, and doing for them great and terrible things, by driving out before His people a nation and its gods?”

In other words, when God went to redeem His people in Egypt and then bring them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land, He was not just favoring the people, He was acting, as Samuel says, for His own great name’s sake (1Sam. 12:22), or, as David says, He was making Himself a name—a reputation. He was revealing the pleasure that He has in His fame.

(As we go on) we will see that knowing this truth about God is immensely practical and has to do with the way we live and serve Christ every day. It is fitting, then, that we not hurry over this pleasure of God. It is such a crucial part of the foundation of our hope, our joy and our obedience.

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 5 ~ ~ 1Samuel 12:22 ~ ~ “For the Lord will not cast away His people for His great name sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for Himself”

Beginning with excerpts from chapter 4 of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”, chapter 4 is “The Pleasure of God in His Fame.” He writes:

Over the first draft of this chapter I put the title, “The Pleasure of God in His Name” I still think that would be a thoroughly biblical title. Dozens of times Scripture says that God does things “for His name’s sake” …But if you ask what is really moving the heart of God in that statement the answer is that God delights in having His name known.

The first and most important prayer that can be prayed is, “Hallowed be thy name.” This is a request to God that He would work to cause people to hallow His name. God loves to have more and more people “hallow” His name, and so His Son teaches Christians to put their prayers in line with this great passion of the Father. “Lord, cause more and ore people to hallow Your name.” That is, esteem, admire, respect, cherish, honor and praise His name.

We begin with a story about human sin and divine mercy. It is a story I love because it is so full of God-centered hope. It puts on the table the great news that God’s love for His fame is the foundation of His mercy to desperate sinners. The key sentence in this story is 1 Samuel 12:22, “The Lord will not cast away His people, for His great name’s sake.” Here everyone can see immediately that God’s mercy (“The Lord will not cast away His people”) is grounded in His allegiance to His name (“for His great name’s sake”) But to feel the full force of this God-centered gospel truth, we need to get the story before us.

(Here is the historical setting)

The period of the Old Testament judges is past. Samuel is now on the scene as a kind of bridge between the judges and the kings and the prophets. Until now Israel has had no king. But now the chaos of the land, with everyone doing what is right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25), drives Israel to demand that Samuel give them a king.

You can see this in 1 Samuel chapter 8. Samuel is old, and his sons Joel and Abijah have become corrupt judges. When the people ask for a king, Samuel goes to God for counsel. He was sure Yahweh would not allow it. But surprisingly God said, “Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. He added this order to Samuel: “Only you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them”

So Samuel gave them all the bad news about what it will be like to have a king. Knowing these things, they still wanted to be like the other nations.

So Samuel anoints Saul king , and he defeats many nations. After this, Samuel made a speech to the people, to make sure they knew how evil this decision was, to turn against their Great God. He says:

“Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that He may send thunder and rain; and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.”

When God sends thunder and rain, the people fear and confess their sins. “Pray for us to the Lord your God, and we may not die; for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.”

Tomorrow we’ll see how all this applies to us today.

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 4 ~ ~ Psalm 8:3 ~ ~ “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,”

Jeremiah 32:17 ~ ~ “‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.”

Finishing excerpts from Chapter 3 of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”, named, “the Pleasures of God in His Creation”

(The fifth and final reason) God rejoices in the works of creation is because they pint us beyond themselves to GOD HIMSELF.

God means for us to be stunned and awed by His work of creation. But not for its own sake. He means for us to look at His creation and say, “if the mere work of His fingers (JUST HIS FINGERS!–verse of the day above) is so full of wisdom and power and grandeur and majesty and beauty, what must this God be like HIMSELF?!

These are but the backside of His glory, as it were, darkly seen through a glass. What will it be to see the Creator Himself?!

A billion galaxies will not satisfy the human soul. God and God alone is the soul’s end. Jonathon Edwards expressed it like this:

“The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here… These are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.

This is why Psalm 104:31-34 comes to a close like this, with a focus n God Hiself:

May the glory of the Lord endure forever.

May the Lord rejoice in His works,

who looks on the earth and it trembles

who touches the mountains and they smoke!

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

May my meditation be pleasing to Him,

for I rejoice in the Lord”

In the end it will not be the seas or mountains or the canyons or even the water spiders of clouds or the great galaxies that fill our heart to breaking with wonder and fill our mouths with eternal praise. It will be God Himself. This is why God has pleasure in His creation. It is the overflow of the satisfaction that God the Father and God the Son have in each other and therefore the revelation and proclamation of God’s glory day and night.

One of the things I would like to happen because of this chapter is that readers would open their eyes even wider to the glory of God in the world around them.

Clyde Kilby had eyes. Oh what eyes he had! He (wrote) eleven resolutions he had made for staying alive to God’s glory. I will only mention one. He said, “I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of the vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the ‘child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder. ‘”

One of the tragedies of growing up is that we get used to things. It has its good side, of course, since irritations may cease to be irritations. But there is immense loss when we get used to the redness of the rising sun, and the roundness of the moon, or the whiteness of the snow, the wetness of rain, the blueness of the sky. (when we don’t notice) the buzzing of bumble bees, the stitching of crickets, the invisibility of wind, the unconscious constancy of heart and diaphragm, the weirdness of noses, ears, the number of grains of sand on a thousand beaches, the never-ceasing crash crash crash of countless waves, and ten million kingly-clad flowers flourishing and withering in woods and mountain valleys where no one sees but God.

I invite you, with Clyde Kilby, to seek a “freshness of vision” to look, as though it were the first time, not at the empty product of accumulated millennia of aimless evolutionary accidents —-which no child ever dreamed of—- but at the personal handiwork of an infinitely strong, creative, and exuberant Artist who made the earth and the sea and everything in them.

I invite you to believe—like children believe— “that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course you shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the Architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega”

(Clyde Kilby’s 10^th Resolution)

GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 3 ~ ~ Amos 5:8 ~ ~ “Amos 5:8

“He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning And makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth; The Lord is His name.”

We’re on chapter three of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God” with what he sees as the fourth of five reasons that God takes pleasure in His works of creation.

The fourth reason God rejoices in the works of creation because they reveal His incomparable POWER. In Isaiah 40:26, Isaiah looks up at the star-filled sky and says:

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

by the greatness of His Might,

and because He is strong in power

not one is missing.

If Isaiah was stunned at the power of God to create and name and sustain every star in the heaven that he could see, what would be his worship today if he were shown that the nearest of those stars in his sky, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri are twenty-five million million miles away?

What would be his worship if he knew that what he was seeing in his night sky was a tiny patch of our galaxy which has in it a hundred billion stars, and that beyond our galaxy there are millions of other GALAXIES???

It seems in recent decades that God is enjoying keeping the astronomers on the edge of their seats with new glimpses of His power. In the fall of 1989, newspapers reported the discovery by two Harvard astronomers of a “Great Wall”

of galaxies stretching hundreds of millions of light years across the known universe. The wall is supposedly some five hundred million light years long, two hundred million light years wide, and fifteen million light years thick.

In case your high school astronomy has grown fuzzy, a light year is a little less than six trillion miles (6,000,000,000,000) This Great Wall consists of more than fifteen thousand galaxies, each with millions of stars, and was described as the “largest single coherent structure seen so far in nature.”

I say “was described” because three months later, in February 1990, God opened another little window for tiny man to marvel at again, and the newspapers reported that astronomers have discovered more than a dozen evenly distributed clumps of galaxies stretching across vast expanses of the heavens, suggesting a structure to the universe that is so regular and immense that it defies current theories of cosmic origins. The newly found pattern of galactic matter dwarfs the extremely long sheet of galaxies, dubbed the “great wall”—-now written without caps!, that was reported in November 1989 to be the largest structure in the universe. They now say the great wall is, in fact, merely one of the closest of these clumps, or regions, that contain very high concentrations of galaxies.

What is this universe but the lavish demonstration of the incredible, incomparable, unimaginable exuberance and wisdom and power and greatness of God!

WHAT A GOD HE MUST BE!!!!

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GOD’S WORD FOR JUNE 2 ~ ~ Isaiah 43:20 ~ ~ “The beast of the field will honor Me,
The jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen.”

Taking excerpts from chapter 3 of John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”. Chapter 3 is entitled, “God’s Pleasure in His Creation.”

The third reason that God rejoices in creation is because they reveal His incomparable wisdom. This is the point of Psalm 104:24:

“O Lord, how manifold are Your works!

In wisdom You have made them all:

The earth is full of Your creatures.”

“In WISDOM You have made them all!” In other words, the Lord delights in the expressions of His wisdom. This universe is a masterpiece of wisdom and order. Or, if you take part of it, like the human body—what an amazing work of knowledge and wisdom!!! Who can fathom the human brain and the mystery of how mind and body work together? Whether you look near or far, whether you look for bigness or smallness, the wonders of nature stagger the ind with the wisdom woven through it all.

Did you know that there are ten thousand known species of diatoms? In a teaspoon of ordinary lake water there may be a million of these tiny invisible plants. What are they doing while entertaining God with their microscopic beauty? They are making tons and tons of oxygen so that the animals in the water can breathe!! The world is full of the wisdom of God!!!

Ps 104:14

“O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate.

That he may bring forth food from the earth.”

What a wonderful experience it is when God grants us a moment in which we don’t take anything for granted, but we see the world as though it was invented yesterday. How we would marvel at the wisdom of God!

We should pray for the eyes of children again, when they saw everything for the first time.

William Quayle reminded me of this recently in his lively book, “The Pastor-Preacher”. He said, “A cow has pretty eyes, as quiet as a pool of quiet water, but uneventful eyes. There is no touch of wonder in their dreamless depths. The eyes are therefore soulless.

A child’s eyes are fairly lightning. They are to see things: they are the windows of the brain and bewilder like a play of swords of fire”

These are the eyes we need to see the unending wisdom of God running through all the world. There will be no exhausting the understanding of God. We will be making new discoveries for all eternity.

Isaiah 40:28:

“The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth,

He does not faint or grow weary, HIS UNDERSTANDING IS UNSEARCHABLE.”

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.