Posts Tagged ‘Sovereign Creator’

Seeing God’s Grace in the Change of Seasons

Posted: April 3, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Psalms
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Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter. —Psalm 74:16-17 ESV

Henry Law(1878):

The works of creation teach as clearly as the works of providence and grace. In the realm of nature how wondrous are the changes which occur. The day brightly shines, but shadow soon overcasts the scene, and night in thick darkness hides all things from view. Again the morning dawns, the night and shadows flee away, and joy and gladness smile on the face of the awakened world.

The wealth and rich luxuriance of summer robes earth with beauty—makes it as Eden’s garden of delights, and fills it with the melody of heaven. But bright days shorten—winter comes, and strips the fields and groves and gardens of their bright attire, and binds the babbling streams in fetters of ice.

All these changes are the work of God. We are thus taught that changes, also, will mark the course of grace. It may not always be a summer-day. But faith knows that receding summer will return, and winter has its limits. Earth, also, has varying climates. God sets all the borders of the earth. Happy is it to mark His overruling hand, and to know well that He has done and will do all things well.

Remember your Inventor

Posted: December 14, 2012 by Pam Larson in December, Devotionals/Commentaries, Job
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       “For his eyes are on the ways of a man,
        and he sees all his steps.
    There is no gloom or deep darkness
        where evildoers may hide themselves.
    For God has no need to consider a man further,
        that he should go before God in judgment.
Job 34:21-23 ESV

God is the Creator of all, the Grand Designer and Architect.  He knows all, sees all, and is perfect in all His attributes.  Perfect love and perfect holiness.  Perfect justice and perfect mercy.

How is it that WE think we know so much?

I read the following story this morning in “Our Daily Bread” (December 14, 2012):

Willard S. Boyle, Nobel Prize winner in physics, was the co-inventor of the “electronic eye” behind the digital camera and the Hubble telescope.  He was in the market for a new digital camera and visited a store in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The salesman tried to explain the complexity of the camera to Boyle, but stopped because he felt is was too compicated for him to understand.  Boyle then bluntly said to the salesman: “No need to explain. I invented it.”

Let’s remember that God invented the universe.  He invented life.  He invented us. And we can trust Him with our lives.

Changes mark the course of grace

Posted: April 3, 2012 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Psalms
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Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter. —Psalm 74:16-17 ESV

Henry Law(1878):

The works of creation teach as clearly as the works of providence and grace. In the realm of nature how wondrous are the changes which occur. The day brightly shines, but shadow soon overcasts the scene, and night in thick darkness hides all things from view. Again the morning dawns, the night and shadows flee away, and joy and gladness smile on the face of the awakened world.

The wealth and rich luxuriance of summer robes earth with beauty—makes it as Eden’s garden of delights, and fills it with the melody of heaven. But bright days shorten—winter comes, and strips the fields and groves and gardens of their bright attire, and binds the babbling streams in fetters of ice.

All these changes are the work of God. We are thus taught that changes, also, will mark the course of grace. It may not always be a summer-day. But faith knows that receding summer will return, and winter has its limits. Earth, also, has varying climates. God sets all the borders of the earth. Happy is it to mark His overruling hand, and to know well that He has done and will do all things well.

Still praying for Japan

Posted: March 13, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, March, Psalms
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This week, one year ago(March 11, 2011), a massive earthquake and catastrophic tsunami struck Japan.  Today in our read-through-the-Bible plan, we come to Psalm 60:

O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;
you have been angry; oh, restore us.
You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open;
repair its breaches, for it totters.
You have made your people see hard things;
you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger. (Psalm 60:1-3)

This prayer for Japan was posted one year ago, from John Piper of Desiring God:

Father in heaven, you are the absolute Sovereign over the shaking of the earth, the rising of the sea, and the raging of the waves. We tremble at your power and bow before your unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways. We cover our faces and kiss your omnipotent hand. We fall helpless to the floor in prayer and feel how fragile the very ground is beneath our knees.

O God, we humble ourselves under your holy majesty and repent. In a moment—in the twinkling of an eye—we too could be swept away. We are not more deserving of firm ground than our fellowmen in Japan. We too are flesh. We have bodies and homes and cars and family and precious places. We know that if we were treated according to our sins, who could stand? All of it would be gone in a moment. So in this dark hour we turn against our sins, not against you.

And we cry for mercy for Japan. Mercy, Father. Not for what they or we deserve. But mercy.

Have you not encouraged us in this? Have we not heard a hundred times in your Word the riches of your kindness, forbearance, and patience? Do you not a thousand times withhold your judgments, leading your rebellious world toward repentance? Yes, Lord. For your ways are not our ways, and your thoughts are not our thoughts.

Grant, O God, that the wicked will forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Grant us, your sinful creatures, to return to you, that you may have compassion. For surely you will abundantly pardon. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus, your beloved Son, will be saved.

May every heart-breaking loss—millions upon millions of losses—be healed by the wounded hands of the risen Christ. You are not unacquainted with your creatures’ pain. You did not spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all.

In Jesus you tasted loss. In Jesus you shared the overwhelming flood of our sorrows and suffering. In Jesus you are a sympathetic Priest in the midst of our pain.

Deal tenderly now, Father, with this fragile people. Woo them. Win them. Save them.

And may the floods they so much dread make blessings break upon their head.

O let them not judge you with feeble sense, but trust you for your grace. And so behind this providence, soon find a smiling face.

In Jesus’ merciful name, Amen.

Topic Natural Disasters

He makes a fish his paymaster.

Posted: February 17, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, February, Matthew
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    When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” —Matthew 17:24-27 ESV

J. C. Ryle, wrote this about Jesus:

He makes a fish his paymaster. He makes a voiceless creature bring the tribute-money to meet the collector’s demand. Well says Jerome, “I know not which to admire most here, our Lord’s foreknowledge, or His greatness.”

We see here a literal fulfillment of the Psalmist’s words, “You make him ruler over the works of your hands; You have put all things under his feet–all sheep and oxen, yes, and the animals of the field, the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the seas.” (Psalm 8:6-8.)

Here is one among many proofs of the majesty and greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ. He only who first created, could at His will command the obedience of all His creatures. “By him were all things created. By Him all things are held together.” (Col. 1:16-18.) The believer who goes forth to do Christ’s work among the heathen, may safely commit himself to his Master’s keeping. He serves one who has all power, even over the beasts of the earth. How wonderful the thought, that such an Almighty Lord should condescend to be crucified for our salvation! How comfortable the thought that when He comes again the second time, He will gloriously manifest His power over all created things to the whole world–“The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock–and dust shall be the serpent’s food.” (Isaiah 65:25.)

By his understanding stretched out the heavens

Posted: October 5, 2011 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Jeremiah, October
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Louie Gigio spoke at the Desiring God National Conference September 24-25, 2011. Watch this incredible “mashup of stars and whales singing God’s praise:

Our passage for today, Jeremiah 10:6-12

There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might.

Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?

For this is your due; for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you. They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood!

They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is violet and purple; they are all the work of skilled men.

But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

Thus shall you say to them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

Spurgeon: No limit can be set to God’s knowledge

Posted: April 25, 2011 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Psalms
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He who planted the ear, does he not hear?  He who formed the eye, does he not see?

C.H.Spurgeon on Psalm 94:9 


He fashioned that marvellous organ, and fixed it in the most convenient place near to the brain, and is he deaf himself? Is he capable of such design and invention, and yet can he not discern what is done in the world which he made? He made you hear, can he not himself hear? Unanswerable question! It overwhelms the sceptic, and covers him with confusion.

He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He gives us vision; is it conceivable that he has no sight himself? With skilful hand he fashioned the optic nerve, and the eyeball, and all its curious mechanism, and it surpasses all conception that he can himself be unable to observe the doings of his creatures. If there be a God, he must be a personal intelligent being, and no limit can be set to his knowledge.

To read the rest of the commentary on Psalm 94, from the Treasury of David, click here:

“An undevout astronomer is mad.”

Posted: December 10, 2010 by Pam Larson in Amos, December, Devotionals/Commentaries
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Seek the Lord and live…Amos 5:4 and 6

He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
and turns deep darkness into the morning
and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface of the earth,
the Lord is his name; Amos 5:8

Charles H Spurgeon, in a sermon from 1907, “Reasons for Seeking God”

The order, the regularity, the manifest calculation and design which appear in every one of the constellations, in every single planet, in every fixed star, and in every part of the great multitude of worlds which God has created, are such decisive evidences that, if men do not see something of God in them, they must be weak in their minds or wicked in their hearts. Surely, what is seen of God, in this way, has tended to make us worship him. Many of you may know but little of astronomy; but, still, you see every day that God is working everywhere around us, and that heaven, and earth, and land, and sea, are teeming with the products of his marvelous skill. The revolutions of day and night, and the formation and fall of rain are indisputable proofs of the presence of eternal power and Godhead. Let us, therefore, seek the Lord!

Lord of ALL Laws

Posted: October 19, 2010 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries
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J.C. Ryle comments on John 6:16-21

walk waterLet us notice, in the last place, our Lord Jesus Christ’s power over the waves of the sea. He came to His disciples as they were rowing on the stormy lake, “walking on” the waters. He walked on them as easily as we walk on dry land. They bore Him as firmly as the pavement of the Temple, or the hills around Nazareth. That which is contrary to all natural reason was perfectly possible to Christ.

The Lord Jesus, we must remember, is not only the Lord, but the Maker of all creation. “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3.) It was just as easy for Him to walk on the sea as to form the sea at the beginning–just as easy to suspend the common laws of nature, as they are called, as to impose those laws at the first. Learned men talk solemn nonsense sometimes about the eternal fixity of the “laws of nature,” as if they were above God Himself, and could never be suspended. It is well to be reminded sometimes by such miracles as that before us, that these so-called “laws of nature” are neither immutable nor eternal. They had a beginning, and will one day have an end.

Let all true Christians take comfort in the thought that their Savior is Lord of waves and winds, of storms and tempests, and can come to them in the darkest hour, “walking upon the sea.” There are waves of trouble far heavier than any on the Lake of Galilee. There are days of darkness which test the faith of the holiest Christian. But let us never despair if Christ is our Friend. He can come to our aid in an hour when we do not think, and in ways that we did not expect. And when He comes, all will be calm.

Stop defining and limiting your future in terms of your past and start defining it in terms of your God.

Posted: September 15, 2010 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Isaiah, September
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John Piper, in a sermon, “Fear Not, I Am with You, I Am Your God” (Isaiah 41)

When God calls you to be free from fear as you do evangelism, as you take a test, as you face an interview, as you take a stand against an unjust business practice, as you confront someone with sin in their life, when you leave a secure position and take a risk in a new venture, when you face an operation or a treatment, when you lose a spouse or a friend—when God calls you to be free from fear (to overcome this natural emotion and have peace), he does not leave the command hanging in the air. He puts pillars under it. Five of them. That’s the nature of all biblical commands. They come with divine support.

  1. Fear not . . . God is with you;
  2. Fear not . . . God is your God;
  3. Fear not . . . God will strengthen you;
  4. Fear not . . . God will help you;
  5. Fear not . . . God will uphold you.

The Key to Overcoming Fear

The key to overcoming fear is resting on the pillars of the promises of God.

We’ll come back to these pillars in a moment. Look with me for a minute at the verses leading up to verse 10 to see how they intensify these promises and strengthen these pillars.

If the key to fearlessness is believing that God is your God and is with you and will strengthen you and help you and uphold you, then knowing the greatness of this God will intensify your faith and your fearlessness.

Four Glimpses of God’s Greatness

So look at the Glimpses of God’s Greatness that Isaiah gives.

Glimpse #1: The Judge of All the Earth

In Isaiah 41:1 God says, “Coastlands, listen to Me in silence, and let the peoples gain new strength; let them come forward, then let them speak; let us come together for judgment.”

Here is a picture of God calling all the coastlands and all the peoples to gird up their strength and come before him for judgment. The God of Isaiah 41:10 is the judge of all the earth. He calls all nations to give an account of their lives and their religions and their thoughts. He is not called to account. He is not on trial. They are. They come into his courtroom. He is the judge of all and will pass sentence on every person. That’s the God who is with you to strengthen and help.

Glimpse #2: The Ruler of All Rulers

In Isaiah 41:2–3 Isaiah asks, “Who has aroused one from the east [probably Cyrus the Persian king that God stirred up to come against Babylon] whom He [God] calls in righteousness to His feet? He delivers up nations before him, and subdues kings. He makes them like dust with his sword, as the wind-driven chaff with his bow.”

Here is a picture of God rousing a king and leading him in conquest and delivering up nations before him. So the God of Isaiah 41:10 is Ruler of the rulers of history. He controls the affairs of men and nations for his purposes. That’s who gives the pillars for fearlessness in Isaiah 41:10.

Glimpse #3: The Uncreated First, Yahweh

In Isaiah 41:4 Isaiah asks, “Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’”

Here is a picture of God not only judging the nations and ruling the rulers of the earth but calling all the nations of the earth into being—”calling forth the generations from the beginning.” God is the first—he is the absolute reality before all other reality and on which all other reality depends. He is the uncreated first. And he will be there with the last when all is accomplished according to his eternal purpose.

When God answers, “I, the Lord, am the first . . . ,” the word “Lord” is “Jehovah” or Yahweh. Franz Delitzsch comments on this verse: “It is the full meaning of the name Jehovah which is unfolded here; for God is called Jehovah as the absolute I, the absolutely free Being, pervading all history, and yet above all history, as He who is Lord of His own absolute being, in revealing which He is purely self-determined; in a word, as the unconditionally free and unchangeably eternal personality” (cited in E.J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 3, p 76). That’s the God of Isaiah 41:10 who strengthens and helps and upholds.

Glimpse #4: The God Who Chose His Own People

In verses 5–7 Isaiah shows us the desperate attempts of the nations to persuade themselves that they and their gods are strong. Verse 5: they are afraid and they come together. Verse 6: they try to encourage each other not to be afraid, and say, “Be strong!” Verse 7: the idol makers who smooth the metal and nail up the idols with nails try to encourage each other and say, “It is good.”

In other words, there is a picture of the unrepentant nations desperately trying to convince themselves that their self-wrought gods, made with soldering and nails, are really adequate for their needs.

Over against this desperation of self-reliance and idolatry God says to his people in verses 8–9, “But you [are] Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham My friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its remotest parts, and said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.’”

In verses 1–9 there is a picture of the God who judges the nations, and rules the rulers of the nations, and calls the nations into being, choosing his people for himself, calling them from their hopeless distance from him, and taking them to be his servant.

That is what God has done for us in Christ. He chose us before the foundation of the world. He called us out of darkness and death. And he took us for himself to be his. To make himself our God.

These Glimpses Intensify the Five Pillars

Now all that, I say, intensifies the five pillars of fearlessness in Isaiah 41:10.

  • The God who judges all the earth and calls the coastlands to give account . . .
  • The God who rules the rulers of history . . .
  • The God who calls the nations of earth into being because he is first and last . . .
  • The God who calls his own people and makes himself their God freely and graciously . . .

That God says to us who believe,

  • I am your God.
  • I am with you.
  • I will strength you.
  • I will help you.
  • I will uphold you.

Then Comes the Command—On These Pillars

  • Therefore—because I am the judge of the nations . . .
  • Therefore—because I rule the rulers of history . . .
  • Therefore—because I call nations into being . . .
  • Therefore—because I choose freely my own . . .
  • Therefore—because I—this great and sovereign God—
  • am your God and
  • am with you and
  • will strengthen you and
  • will help you and
  • will uphold you . . .

Therefore, do not fear.

Or change the image for a moment. Not five pillars. But God in five relations to you expressed in five different prepositions.

  • I am your God—over you.
  • I am with you—by your side.
  • I will strengthen you—from inside of you.
  • I will help you—all around you from wherever the enemy comes.
  • I will uphold you—from underneath you.

Over you, by you, inside you, around you, underneath you.

Therefore do not fear.

Our Final Ground for Fearlessness

We come to the end of this series with one great ground for fearlessness—GOD!

  • I am your God.
  • I am with you.
  • I will strengthen you.
  • I will help you.
  • I will uphold you.

I call you this morning to stop defining and limiting your future in terms of your past and start defining it in terms of your God.

I call you to recognize that God is greater than your personality. God is greater than your past experiences of timidity. God is greater than your “family of origin.” And God calls you to joyful fearlessness.

The crucial factor in your fearless living is not your family but your God.

“Let not your hearts be troubled, BELIEVE IN GOD.” Believe in God! Trust God! Let God be your God! Your help. Your strength. He will uphold you with his righteous right hand.

To read or listen to the rest of the sermon, click here:

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