For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 96:4-5)

He Made The Heavens

The ultimate irony of the wisdom and power of man compared to the knowledge and power of the Lord God is without question the greatest paradox in man’s existence. There is nothing that man has done compared to the magnificent glory of God’s creation. For untold thousands of years, the earth, sun, moon, and heavenly hosts of stars have remained constant in their designed purpose as civilizations of men come and go across the landscape of time. The Pharoah’s of ancient Egypt gazed upon the same moon that fills the night sky of today. Each day begins with the rising of the sun, and when the sun completes its heavenly path across the sky, it fades across the horizon as it has done since the day Adam and Eve first beheld the brilliance of the nearest star. The cluster of the Pleiades and the belt of Orion are known by men as old as Job, who also beheld the Mazzaroth and the Great Bear with its cubs in the blackness of the night sky. All that fills the heavens remain as a lasting testimony of the power of God.

Humanity has accomplished many great things. The pyramids of Egypt, the great wall of China, the Panama Canal, and the International Space Station stand out as engineering marvels. Man has gone to the moon, mastered flight, created medicines able to save millions, and opened the world with electronic devices. There is much the human mind has been able to accomplish in the many thousands of years it has sought to achieve a higher course of life. Ironically, the wisdom of men is solely dependent on the power of God to exist. The pyramids of Egypt are one of the world’s great wonders, but they are decaying to the point of ruin. There is no function of purpose to the pyramids today but museum pieces. The great wall of China is a structure with 13,000 miles of mortar and brick that is visible from space but has no purpose apart from a tourist attraction. As great an accomplishment as the International Space Station, it survives based upon exact mathematical and scientific principles keeping it in orbit above the circle of the earth. Like all things made by man, it has a shelf life that will see its destruction one day. Designed for fifteen years, it may continue for another few years, but one day, it will crash and burn through the earth’s atmosphere.

The psalmist describes how great the Lord is and that He should be greatly praised. Written nearly three thousand years ago, the writer did not have the advantages of the modern wisdom of man, but he knew enough about the knowledge of men to know that on his best day, man is nothing compared to God. Everything man does fails. In the world of the psalmist, men carved idols and formed their totems in the fashion of men and beasts. The gods of men have been multiplied in the thousands as the heart of the carnal mind worshipped everything from the heavenly hosts, the animals, mountains, forest, streams, and gods of wood, metal, and stone. There is nothing man has not formed into an idol. How does an idol of man’s creation compare to the Lord God who made the heavens? On a clear night, the International Space Station can be seen by the naked eye as a tiny light in the dark canopy of space. It represents the greatest accomplishment of human engineering, but it is only a microcosm at the atomic level of what surrounds it. When men gaze on the light of ISS passing through space, do they notice what surrounds it – created by the hand of God? And the remarkable lesson is that what God created has yet to be counted, and with all the advancements of technology, man has yet to find everything made by the Lord God.

Man makes an idol and brags. God created the heavens and shamed the knowledge of human wisdom. The Lord is great because there is nothing mankind will do that will come close to the creation of God. Only God can be greatly praised, and honor and majesty belong to the Lord God because He is the One who made the heavens and the earth by speaking the word, and they were formed. God created man. The marvel of the human body is a testimony to the power of God. All power and glory belong to God. There is none like Him. He is great, and He is to be feared. By His hand, He created man. Through the word of God, the world remains. One day all that is in the heavens and on the earth will end because God has spoken. Praise God. He is so great.