God Creates

September 1, 2013 Background Scripture: Psalm 104 Lesson Passage: Psalm 104:5 – 9, 24 – 30 Psalm 104 is Genesis 1 put to song. The psalmist celebrates God’s work of creation by presenting the creation with a backdrop of drama. In this psalm, the inanimate is given life and personality. The elements respond to God’s voice with fear and complete obedience. They remain wherever God sends them and steadfastly refuses to do anything contrary to His word. God is not presented here as building or constructing physical things but rather putting life into everything and having it obey His instructions. In the beginning, the waters went wherever they desired. Even today we say that water is unstable and continuously seeks the lowest level. But at God’s command, the waters recognized boundaries that previously were unknown and respect them continuously. The obedience of nature to God’s voice is perfect and without any sign of wavering. There is no sin or disobedience in nature. The earth will never again be covered completely by water because God has decreed it. I believe that global warming is real but I know that there are absolute limits to even that because God has set the boundaries. No matter how much the polar icecaps melt they will never be able to completely cover the earth with water. God’s creation is so vast that scientists are consumed with trying to comprehend the earth while pondering the expanse of space that appears to be ever expanding. Every year new creatures are discovered on land as well as in the great depths of the oceans. There are many oceanic regions that have never been seen or visited by man. Every time man goes a little deeper into an ocean, new life forms are discovered that are so unique that we create a new category just to classify them. Even the different oceans have different types of creatures living in them. In spite of the harvesting and burning of forest lands that occur annually, there are still forest areas in the world that yield new creatures to the investigative eye. After all of these years of scientific study and books being printed, we still run across a frog in a forest that’s never been recognized by science before. When the psalmist exclaimed “how manifold are thy works”, it was a statement that still applies today even if one considers just sea life. All of these creatures are at God’s mercy. They depend on Him for their food and they appear to rejoice at His provision for them. When God does not provide the things that are needed to sustain life, the creatures of the wild become disturbed. When He takes away their oxygen, they die and their bodies decompose and once again become part of the earth. Yet the earth remains and life flourishes because God sends forth His life-giving Spirit to replenish it. All of nature, what we call inanimate and animate, responds to God’s voice. Life springs up and gives movements that appear to be random and what we call inanimate responds to what seems to be invisible laws of nature with predictable ebbs and flows. Everything is in perfect harmony even as it was in the beginning. All of this wonder exists because God chose to create. Robert C. Hudson August 26, 2013