Genesis 1:16, "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."

This morning, our mind is drawn again to the unfathomable subject of the size and awesomeness of God. Truly, there comes a point in our own meditation when we must bow in submission to One that we cannot fully comprehend. (Romans 11:33-34) While that thought does not excuse us from doing as He has commanded nor attribute something to Him that we should understand from Scriptures is impossible (such as iniquity), we must still approach with the understanding that He is past our finding out with His ways and thoughts so much higher than ours. (Isaiah 55:10) To gather some appreciation for this topic, we must first understand some things about what He has done to gather insight as to who He is. When studying the natural creation, we understand that the evidence screams in thunder tones to the design of an orderly Creator. (Psalm 19:1-2) It takes a complete fool, according to Biblical language, to look at the heavens and not see the glory of God. (Psalm 14, Psalm 53) Therefore, let us look for a moment at a brief moment of His creation to see portions of His greatness.

In the Genesis account of the creation, we see two things that stand out. The first is that everything that God says will happen does happen. Every day of His work, the word says, "And God said let..." In every instance, it came forth just as He said, and this shows us the principle of cause and effect that cannot be circumvented. When the Lord speaks, it is done. When He commands from a positive declaration, things happen. This account should give us comfort and consolation in the spiritual realm, for the same principle applies to the spiritual creation that God does in our heart. (II Corinthians 5:17) When God commands His children in a regenerative way (and one day at the resurrection), things happen just as He commands them to happen. None can stay His hand and prevent His purpose from being accomplished.

However, not all of God's commands are in this positive declarative sense. When He commands His people in the Old Testament by the mouth of His prophets, they sometimes heeded the commands and sometimes did not. They received the consequences He declared for the particular course (Isaiah 1:19-20), and today, not all of His children obey His commands when they sound from the pulpit or speak from the Scriptures on the page. In these cases as well, we receive the consequence for obedience or disobedience based on what He has declared. But, the comfort of the Scriptures in the creation extend to the comfort we have in the knowledge of the spiritual creation in the new birth. Someone asked me one time, "How many times are children of God identically obedient in that all children of God are obedient in the exact same way?" The point of the question was that he was trying to lay out some generic way in which all children of God behaved in a form of obedience that would allow us to declare who is and is not a child of God. My answer then is the same as today, "Twice. In regeneration, He says, 'Come,' and we come. In the resurrection, He says, 'Come,' and we come." Those two cases are identical in the cause and effect of all children of God in every case, identically, and without exception.

The other point that sticks out in the creation account is the fact that God surveys all that He does each day and declares it "good." In fact, the conclusion of the account shows God declaring these things "very good." Were we present to survey the conclusion of God's works after six days, we would be left with no other course but to say, "All has been done good and very good with nothing less or more to be added." The finished creation needed nothing else, nor was there something that was overkill. The point of this is to show that when God works, there is no problem. When we see a problem with something, we must look elsewhere to find the root source. When temptations occur in our lives, we cannot justly say, "God has brought this upon me." (James 1:13) Truly, our chastisement from Him could be described as an "evil" as it appears many times in Scriptures, but that evil is just and righteous. None can justly declare God bad in His works and actions. The whole reason that anything faulty came into the creation had its root source in Adam not God.

Therefore, knowing those two thundering points from this account, let us investigate this verse from the events of the fourth day. One of the interesting points about this particular verse is that the sources of light that we see today (sun, moon, and stars) were created three days after light came into the world. God instituted light (with an evening and morning to transpire) on the first day before ever setting the heavenly bodies of light in motion. Therefore, God must have had a source of light (or Light) before our natural bodies of light. We read from Scripture that light and no darkness is in Him. (I John 1:5) Therefore, light came from Him (more specifically from His Son) for the evenings and mornings to occur before the sun, moon, and stars.

What draws our minds particularly about this verse is the small little phrase at the end of the verse that states "he made the stars also." This type of expression is not quite as insignificant as an afterthought, but it shows the small exhibition of power it took to accomplish. Should I say about one of my own works, "In designing this widget, we had to assemble the structure and form the material, and we also had to give it color." By the expression and structure of language, the emphasis is on the structure and material, while the color is added for informational purposes but not the main point of the statement. The information of God making the stars is for our instruction, but not the main point of the verse (although still quite important). In my own statement, it is understood that I spent more time, energy, and effort on the first two items and relatively little time, energy, and effort on the color.

Consider how much people are discovering about stars. The more man learns about the stars in the sky the more he is forced to admit he did not know before. They still have no conception of how many there are, how far out in the universe they extend, or any other of the various details about them. Some of the stars are so large in girth that they will not fit within the 93 million miles between the earth and sun. Consider a star so large that it dwarfs our natural sun! All of these awesome natural qualities about the stars were written in close to afterthought fashion by the Holy Ghost. We like to trumpet some of our most notable accomplishments or things we have done that we believe no one else could figure out or duplicate. God certainly worked a work on the fourth day that we cannot duplicate or completely figure out, and He wrote it in the smallest of details!

The Psalmist declares further that these stars' creation was some of the smallest of God's exercise of power. They are the workings of His fingers. (Psalm 8:3-4) Our own exercises of the fingers, such as writing, typing, or touching, are but mere fractions of our overall strength, and that is the creation of these stars for God. They did not deplete His resources, and for that matter, neither did the creation of any other thing. Knowing that these things, beyond our ability to fully fathom, are just a fraction of His power, how should we act accordingly? On a clear night, step outside and look up in the black darkness. If in a city with lights and other obstructions, find a place with a clear line of sight into the black curtain with the speckled holes of light that show forth stars' presence.

How far up are they? Immeasurable for us. How many are there? Immeasurable and more than we can see. Therefore, in comparison how far up and great is He? So much more than we could possibly understand. But, here is the comfort in the story. What are we compared to? God compares us to the stars of heaven and sand of the seashore. (Genesis 15 and 22) God's children are just as innumerable as the stars in the sky, and while some may go unnoticed (unseen to the eye), they are all still important to Him. We may overlook stars or not see stars, due to our limited sight. He sees and knows each and every one. The greatness of their creation is given in brief detail compared to the glory that they possess. While our creation in Christ Jesus is given more space in Scripture than the creation of the stars, consider how much was involved compared with how much we know. Do we understand how far the distance from heaven to earth is? He travelled it. Do we understand how far into the miry pit we were? He fathomed it. Do we understand how long separation from God in eternal judgment consists? He experienced it.

The work for our creation in Him is beyond my ability to comprehend when looking at just those factors. Further still, it is hard for me to comprehend the Just One being made sin for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (II Corinthians 5:21) Yet, by our spiritual birth and His revelation, we understand that God required nothing less. I cannot fully describe the consistency, pattern, size, etc, of the stars, but I know that it took nothing short of the power of God to bring them into existence, with nothing less being suitable to bring us into reconciliation with Him. There is a modern song that is termed "praise music" that carries a truly noble thought (while I wonder if those singing it understand what they are saying), "Our God is an awesome God." Indeed, He is past our finding out, but thanks be unto Him that we have been blessed to have a portion of His counsel revealed unto us for our comfort, His glory, and our thanks to Him. May we sing of His awesomeness for all that we know of Him and pray to know more of Him going forward than we did before.

 

In Hope,

Bro Philip