Psalm 93:1 (ESV)
The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
What did the writer of Psalm 93 know about the size of the world? When he wrote “the world is established”, did he have any idea about how big the world was? Probably not, although it is probably true that the ancients knew more science than we currently give them credit for. He probably did not know that the solar system, was helio centric not terra centric. He probably did not know that the universe is well over 10,000,000,000 light years wide and ever expanding. (That’s 186,000 miles every second x 60 seconds every minute x 60 minutes every hour x 24 hours every day x 365 days every year x 10,000,000,000). He probably did not know that there are millions of other galaxies and even more planets and suns and solar systems. He likely did not know the depths of the oceans and the vast number of species that exist on the earth and in the sea. Given that we are still discovering new species all the time it is unlikely that we know this either. But God did. God knew it all. And God is the One who inspired the Psalmist to write this Psalm and all the rest of the Bible.
Some people credit the ignorance of the ancients for the reason they ascribe sovereignty to God. If they had known the vastness of space and the intricacies of earth they would never have said that God was over it all. It is easier, so the thinking goes, to believe in a God who is in charge of everything, when there is not very much to be in charge of. But get educated and consider the wonders there are and the vastness of the universe and you will give up on believing in a sovereign God. But the vastness of the universe makes the possibility of it all coming into being by chance all the more incredulous. If something this big, this complicated, this intricate could not have come into being spontaneously then what does that say about the Being that created it? The knowledge that mankind has accumulated in its history has not been given to us so that we can say “No God could have made all this”. Its purpose is to say, from the heart “What kind of God is it who could fashion something as vast and complicated and precise as all this?” A stunningly incredible God who deserves far more worship than we can ever give. Couple this with the main truth about God that the Bible gives us, that we actually rebel against this incredible Being, as if we could overcome Him, and that His response has been to come into the world to die to redeem mankind, and this is truly stunning, truly mind warping. Such a God deserves all the praise that we can give Him and much more.
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