Nothing can frustrate His designs–and nothing can hinder His purposes!
(“Theology Explained” Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817)
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
“By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth!” Psalm 33:6
“The heavens are Yours, and Yours also the earth; You founded the world and all that is in it.” Psalm 89:11
“Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God!” Psalm 90:2
“In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing You will change them and they will be discarded. But You remain the same, and Your years will never end!” Psalm 102:25-27
How great and glorious is the character of God as seen in His Creation!
Possessed of perfect excellence, contemplating with infinite delight His glorious attributes, and containing in Himself a boundless sufficiency for the accomplishment of everything great and desirable–God saw that it was befitting to His character to unfold His perfections and communicate His goodness to an endless and innumerable race of beings.
From an infinite height, He took a survey of the limitless range of possible beings; and in a cosmos without limits, but desolate and wild, where nothing was–He called into existence with a word, the countless multitude of worlds, with all their various furnishings. With His own hand He lighted up at once innumerable stars, and rolled around them innumerable worlds! All these He perfectly dispersed and arranged–and all, at the same time, He stored and adorned with a rich and unceasing variety of beauty and magnificence.
Throughout His vast empire, He surrounded His throne with intelligent creatures, to fill the immense and perfect scheme of being which originally existed with infinite splendor in His own incomprehensible mind. Independent of all possible beings and events–He sits at the head of His universe unchanged; and incapable of change–amid all the vicissitudes, tossings, and tumults by which it is agitated.
When empires are overthrown, or angels fall; when stars are extinguished, and solar systems return to their original nothingness–He is as equally unmoved as when a sparrow expires, or when a hair falls from a head. Nothing can happen, nothing can be done, beyond His expectation, or without his permission.
Nothing can frustrate His designs–and nothing hinder His purposes!
All things, beside Him–change and fluctuate without ceasing. Events exist–and vanish. Beings rise–and expire. But His own existence, the thoughts which He entertains, the desires which He has, the purposes which He forms–are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Throughout the coming limitless Eternity, also, and the boundless tracts of Immensity–He sees with serene delight His own perfect purposes daily and invariably advancing with a regular fulfillment towards their absolute completion. In its own place, in its own time, and in its own manner–each exists in exact obedience to His immutable will, and in exact accordance with His choice.
Nothing lingers, nothing hastens–but His counsel exactly stands, and all His good pleasure will be precisely accomplished.
“For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods! In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care!” Psalm 95:3-7
Tom Stearns, WASI Chaplain, 907 715-4001
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