Sermon Central
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The Handiwork Of God Series
Contributed by Dennis Davidson on Nov 15, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: As we look at our unsearchable universe and our brievity of life in it, people can feel their true insignificance. When we connect ourself to the love of its Creator we can find our true significance.
THE HANDIWORK OF GOD
God’s majestic work as Creator is now emphasized. Isaiah describes God’s power to create, His provision to sustain and His presence to help. From His sovereign position in heaven God watches over His created universe. Nothing or no one can be compared with our transcendent God. God is almighty and all-powerful, but even so He cares for each of us personally. Isn’t that awesome? ... that the Sovereign of the Universe cares for you?
I. THE GOD OF CREATION, 21-22.
II. THE NOTHINGNESS OF MAN, 23-24.
III. THE IN-CONTROL GOD, 25-26.
Let’s jump down to verse 21. I love Isaiah’s awareness here. "Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?"
News about God’s sovereign power is not new. It has been evident to one and all since the beginning of time. God existence and amazing power has been evident since the foundation of the cosmos itself for the inanimate cosmos itself could not be responsible for such grandeur and intelligent life. Isaiah boldly proclaims that the Lord is the "unmoved mover" (Aristotle) behind His awesome creation. So many who see and hear are blind and deaf toward God.
God is also the Governor of the world. Look at the first half of verse 22. "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers."
Twenty-two hundred years before Christopher Columbus, God said our planet was circular (The Hebrew word encompasses the concept that the earth is a sphere) and not flat. Here it was in God’s Word all along. Science acts like it is superior to Scripture, but I’ll take God’s explanation every time.
If you feel small when you imagine God’s creation, it’s because you are! God says we’re like grasshoppers! Picture yourself on a hot summer night out on the deck with your family and friends having a barbecue. How much do the grasshoppers in your lawn affect your evening? A little background noise maybe? Hardly a distraction.
That’s the entire human race before God and His awesome purposes.
Verse 22 continues to declare that the Heavens Are God’s Handiwork. God "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in."
The word heavens describes all of God’s created universe. In the beginning He said, "Now, let’s make the universe" and poof ... as easily as you put up an umbrella, it was all there. Do you have any idea the immensity of the universe God spoke into existence? For many years I’ve tried to find a decent description. Try this on for size: We’re on planet earth, and we are 93,000,000 miles from the sun. Imagine that distance as the thickness of a piece of paper. From the earth to the sun, 93 million miles equals a piece of paper.
With that in mind, the distance to the nearest star is a stack of paper 71 feet high, with every single piece of paper representing 93 million miles. (Stay with me; this is getting outrageous.) The size of our galaxy is represented by a stack of paper 310 miles high (the distance from Chicago to St. Louis), with every single piece of paper in that stack representing 93 million miles. That’s just our galaxy, and it’s one among millions.
You say, "Oh, I understand that." Well, think about this then. The known universe is a stack of paper 31 million miles high with every piece of paper representing 93 million miles! Now for those of you who like math, there are 10.4 million sheets of paper in a stack 1 mile high. Therefore the known universe is 31 million miles of paper, with each mile representing 10.4 million sheets of paper and each sheet of paper representing 93 million miles. Are you getting a headache? [Gripped by God’s Greatness, p 42.]
In every description we see of God’s reality, we are struck by the immense distance that exists between us and God-in power, in size, in ability, in majesty. The gap is too great to measure. This must be what the astronauts felt viewing the earth from the moon’s surface. We are so small... so infinitesimally tiny. God, on the other hand, could inhale the universe in a single breath. The writer of Hebrews understood this.
You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands; They will perish, but You remain; And they all will become old like a garment, And like a mantle You will roll them up; Like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end (Heb. 1:10-11).
