To Him who alone does great wonders, for His mercy endures forever. Psalm 136:4
This world is not random; it is not meaningless! Each part and particle of this creation has a divinely ordained purpose! And that gives your life meaning! Have you seen God’s love demonstrated through creation?
We looked last week at the first three verses of Psalm 136. Now, this psalm starts with reminding us to give thanks to God for who He is: for His character, for His goodness, for His steadfast love. He is Jehovah, Elohim, and Adonai. When we come to verse 4, it reminds us to give thanks not only for who He is, but also for what He has done. So verse 4 says, “To him who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
What are these wonders that God does? They’re great wonders; they’re supernatural works; they’re mighty works that no one else can do. He is the God who alone does great wonders! There are people in this world, some of you among them, who can do great things. You may have some amazing accomplishments. Those are amazing things, but there’s only one God, the God of heaven and earth, who alone does these great wonders that are being talked about in this psalm.
There is no one else like Him! That’s why we give thanks to Him. The rest of this Psalm 136 is going to tell us what some of these great wonders are. We’re going to see how God’s goodness and His hesed love are revealed through the wonders of creation. No one else could have created this world—God alone! This is a great wonder! So let’s read verses 5–9. Who by his understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever. 6 who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. 7 who made the great lights—His love endures forever. 8 the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever. 9 the moon, and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever. One of the greatest wonders God does are seen in creation.
Creation Reveals His Greatness:
Today, how creation reveals the steadfast love of the Lord! or how does God’s creation show us His steadfast love? Genesis 1:1, which tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And then we remember on the third day, God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.” (Gen. 1:9). Now, what we are reading here is summarized in one phrase, in Psalm 136:5–6, where it says He made the heavens and He, “spread out the earth above the waters.” That’s a poetic way of saying what we read in Genesis 1. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good (Gen. 1:10).
And then we come to the fourth day of creation, and we read a description of what we’ve just seen in Psalm 136:8–9: He made the great lights, the sun to rule over the day, the moon and stars to rule over the night” (Gen 1:16). The psalmist didn’t make this up. We read this in Genesis 1:14–15, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth (Gen.1:14–15).
These are things we know: the sun, the moon and the stars do as God ordered them to do. And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light [the sun] to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. [He made all of these by the word of His mouth!] And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good (Gen. 1:15–19)
Why is it good? Because God is good! “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever!” Of course it was good; whatever God makes is good! It’s a reflection of Himself, of His own character, of His own heart. The earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars are a great wonder that none, but the Lord could have made. A few things you know about these bodies of light that God set into the sky: the sun gives light. Without the sun, the earth would be completely dark. And the sun is a source of life. Without the sun, no plants could grow on the earth. The sun evaporates water from the surface of the earth, and it keeps the oceans from overflowing. So many things the sun does! There’s none like the One who does great wonders. Right?
In addition to the sun and its mass, the Blue planet [that is the earth] also has a moon that offers unique protection from dramatic shifts in climate. One astronomer from Penn State University said the moon protects the earth from more drastic temperature fluctuations by stabilizing the wobble of Earth’s spin. When you get onto Google and start looking, you will find amazing things about the sun, moon, stars, and the earth and how they all work together, and the impact and the influence, and implications that they all have.
Everything would be different if there were even just a little degree of difference in that earth’s tilt. 23.5. . . what if it were 23.6? What difference would that make? There are a lot of differences! These are the things that mark days and seasons and nights and cold and warmth.
The earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, all working together in a way that is hospitable to human life. How did this come to be? Psalm 24:1–2 tells us, The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. 2 For He has founded it (the earth) upon the seas, and established it upon the waters.
God was the original, primary cause for whom there was no cause! Out of nothing— “ex nihilo”—He created the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars. All of this He founded, He created it. Proverbs 3:19 says, “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens.” That’s what Psalm 136:5 tells us: “to him who by understanding made the heavens.”
"By understanding [He] made the heavens and spread out the earth above the waters” (Ps. 136:6). By wisdom, the Lord founded the earth; by understanding, He established the heavens. The Scripture never tries to prove the existence of God or the truth of creation. Dear brothers in Christ we know that and scripture tells us that there is a God who always was, the eternal Jehovah, Yahweh, the self-existent One who needed nothing to bring Him into being. And He is the One who by His wisdom and the word of His mouth and the work of His hands brought into being this earth, this planet, the sun, the moon, the stars and every star, every sun, every moon in every universe that has ever been or ever will be. He created it all!
Psalm 136:4: “[He] alone does great wonders.” Verse 5 tells us He made the heavens. Verse 6 says He spread out the earth above the waters. Verse 7 says He made the great lights in the sky, the sun to rule over the day, the moon, and the stars to rule over the night. God made these!
This psalm affirms that there is a Creator. “[By wisdom], by understanding [the Lord] made the heavens . . . [He] spread out the earth above the waters” (vv. 5–6). Therefore Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord. The skies proclaim the work of his hand.” There is a Creator. This world is not the product of chance. It didn’t just happen. It was brought into existence by a wise, loving, powerful Creator! Creation has a Creator, and this Creator is personal, and He is powerful.
He’s the Creator of this creation, and the creation of this world that we see around us is a great wonder that no one but God could be responsible for! So this psalm affirms that there is a Creator. It affirms the wisdom and the understanding of that Creator God, who carefully, skillfully, masterfully crafted this world! He brought order out of chaos. He created this world to function in elaborate, complex ways. God is wise; He is understanding, and He is purposeful. He was intentional in making this world.
This world is not random; it is not meaningless! Each part and particle of this creation has a divinely ordained purpose! We can see in Psalm 136:8–9 He made the sun to rule over the day; He made the moon and the stars to rule over the night. He made them with a purpose. There’s purpose for all of this; there’s intentionality about all of it. Every created thing has a created purpose!
And so much of creation fulfills the purpose of God; whereas we, the apex of His creation, human beings, many times resist our created purpose. How can this be? The sun, the moon, and the stars do what God put them in the sky to do. He was purposeful, intentional in making this world.
Creation Reveals His Goodness:
And then, Creation reveals the goodness of God and the kindness of God! “His steadfast love endures forever,” we see in each verse of this psalm. He created water and air and land to reflect His goodness and His steadfast love.
He created them as an environment in which the smallest particle—amoeba and plants and fish and birds and bugs and animal life and human life—could survive and thrive! He made the perfect environment for His created life to function. He gave the sun and moon and stars to regulate life on this earth.
He created a world in a way no one else could possibly have done, that is hospitable, and it’s suitable for human life. He created the macro, and He created the micro. He made the world for man to live in, but He also made the garden and put the man into it. God is the Creator who was looking to how He could bless, how He could make an environment suitable for His creatures.
What is the reason God made this world? He made this world for us to live in. He made it for our delight and our enjoyment. He’s not just a functional, utilitarian God. Things do function; they function well, but He made it for our joy, for His joy, and our enjoyment. He made it to reveal His character to us, His goodness, and His steadfast love.
This is what we read in Romans 1:19 about how Creation reveals the character of God. It says, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” These are people in parts of the world where they’ve never had a Bible, they’ve never had a hymnal, they’ve never had a church, they don’t know the name, Jesus. God has made Himself undeniable to them. For they have eyes and ears, they can feel, they can touch, and they can taste. They are able to recognize the world as His creation.
For his invisible attributes [His goodness, His steadfast love, these you can’t touch those, you can’t see those, but His invisible attributes], namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (v. 20).
God showed His eternal covenant-keeping love—His hesed, His faithfulness—by creating this world. That steadfast love of the Lord underlies His creation in its origins, in its sustenance, in its continuity, in its future. The love and mercy of God will always be the steadfast bedrock for everything in this world. The created order of the heavens and the earth reflects the steadfast covenant keeping love of God!
There’s an interesting passage in Jeremiah that makes this clear. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night . . . the Lord of hosts is his name . . . If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever. - Jeremiah 31:35–36.
What is God saying? The fixed order of this universe, the fact that the sun comes up again tomorrow, and the next day and the next day. We here in Texas don’t always see the sun But it’s there! There are seasons; there is day; there is night; there is routine; there is regularity to all of this. There’s a fixed order that doesn’t change. God says, “That’s what My covenant-keeping love is like.”
If the sun could just fall out of the sky or forget to shine or a day God says, “I would forget my covenant with you.” But they’re not going to go into chaos until God says it’s time for this fixed order to change. And God says, “As they don’t change, so I don’t change! My steadfast love for you, my covenant with you is fixed.” And so, the psalmist says in Psalm 8:3–4, When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, what is the man that you are mindful of, and the son of man that you care for?
When you stand watching the sunset, when you look up into the night sky and you see twinkling stars, too many to count, when you wake up during the night and you see the full moon lighting up the earth below, remember how big God is! Remember how small you are! And marvel that this God is not only great, but He is also good! He not only keeps this entire universe going in its fixed order, but He knows you. He sees you; He cares for you. His steadfast love is forever!
When you see this created world, then give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His steadfast love endures: how long? Forever! Amen!
