Psalm 104:24-30 O LORD, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches. It is our privilege and duty to meditate upon the works of God. 1. Our privilege: as we alone of all the mundane creation are able to do this. To us alone the universe as such exists. God who makes everything beautiful in its season, takes pleasure in His works, and in that pleasure we may suppose the angels join. And we are also permitted to join, if we will, and thus become sharers with the angels in the Divine happiness. 2. Our duty: for the possession of the power carries with it responsibility for its exercise: we who are men ought not to be thoughtless as the brutes. (1) It is a duty which we owe to ourselves, for though it will not feed the body, it stimulates and feeds our higher nature. (2) It is a duty which we owe to God; he who slights the works, slights the Worker. In meditating upon the works of God, notice — I. HOW MANIFOLD THEY ARE, even if like the psalmist we keep to man's world. 1. The earth itself, with its mighty mountain ranges and ocean depths, its lakes and rivers, its ancient garment of rock strata, rent and folded, worn and renewed, recording in its present condition the history of its experiences in ages past, its rich stores of metals and minerals, furnishes a theme for lifelong meditation. 2. How pleasing and varied are the forms of vegetable life which adorn its surface from the humble lichen which discolours yet adorns the face of the rock to the lofty fir tree which overhangs it. 3. How infinitely manifold are the manifestations of animal life from the mere dot of living albumen to the specialist in biology who is investigating its chemical and vital characteristics! 4. If with the telescope we search the heavens, or with the microscope pry into the marvels of minute structures, we shall find further illustrations of the wonderful unity joined with endless diversity manifested in the works of God. II. THE WISDOM MANIFESTED IN THEM ALL. 1. This wisdom is apparent not only in the contrivance, formation, and management of the whole, but in the adaptation of each to its element and to its place in the scale of being. The fish is perfectly adapted for the water, and the swallow for the air. The marvellous instincts of the bee and ant are out of all proportion to the development of their nervous system, but are essential to them in the struggle for existence. The strength of the horse makes him a useful servant to us, but if he excelled us as much in intellect as he does in strength, he would be our servant no longer! 2. This wisdom is further manifest in the perfection of workmanship, finish and colouring even in the most minute of the works of God. The microscope shows that the wing of the moth is as perfectly feathered as that of the bird, that the joints of an insect's limbs are as perfect as those of the horse, that the sting of the bee is pointed with a smoothness impossible to the art of man. III. THEY ARE ALL THE WORKS OF GOD. "My Father made them all." Cowper well says, "Nature is but the name for an effect whose cause is God." If the scientific theory of evolution were proved completely true, which at present it is very far from being, it would only unveil to us the process by which in the ages of the past our Father wrought so as by degrees to bring about the present condition of things; and the power possessed by many creatures to adapt themselves within certain limits to changes in their surroundings, only places in clearer light the wisdom of God in imparting to those creatures a power without which they must soon fall out of the ranks of the living. It was our Father's mind that planned, and His the hand that wrought. Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of His glory. IV. THEY ALL BELONG, TO HIM. "The earth is full of Thy riches." Divine ownership is not like human, acquired by inheritance, conquest, or purchase. It is original and essential, grounded upon the absolute dependence of all things upon the great First Cause. Without Him there had been no universe, and without His continued support and providential care all things would sink into their primitive nothingness. His ownership is absolute and eternal grounded in the nature of things, they must ever be dependent. He must ever be the Fountain of good to all His works. (C. O. Eldridge, B.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.WEB: Yahweh, how many are your works! In wisdom have you made them all. The earth is full of your riches. |
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