As we conclude our study on the attributes of God, think about this: the God who created the stars and inhabits eternity is concerned with your wounds and healing. This truth should bring us to our knees in praise!
“He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.”
- Psalm 147:4–5
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Transcript: Welcome to Five Minutes With Pastor Lutzer. I’m so glad that you have joined us once again as we continue to study the attributes of God. Specifically, we are studying the unsearchability of God. We are expanding our mind, trying to understand God better, but obviously we reach our limits very soon.
The passage of Scripture that I am referring to today is Psalm 147, and I’m beginning at verse 4: “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to them all their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.” And believe me, it is.
Let’s just pause for a moment and see what these verses say. First of all, He numbers the stars. He determines the number of the stars. How many stars are there? Well I discovered that there are about 400 billion in our galaxy apparently. But they don’t know how many different galaxies there are. You know, one day I was with an astronomer who actually has a telescope in a separate building. It’s a very serious telescope, and I need to say that the stars were just like heaps of sand once you look at them carefully and closely. Nobody knows.
We have to think about this. We think a billion is a lot. But a thousand billion is a trillion. And then you get beyond the trillion, and I saw somebody estimating it with 23 zeros—googleplex. That’s what my kids used to say. Nobody knows their number. But God could have created more of them. He could have created less of them. That was His choice. And He just spoke, and the Bible says, and He created the stars also. No effort. He spoke, and it happened. So that’s the number of the stars.
Let me ask you a different question. He names them—that’s what the text says. How would you like to name a hundred stars? Could you name 200? I know that I would run out of names if I were to name 50. And then think about thousands of stars, and tens of thousands of stars, and millions of stars and billions and trillions! And yet He has all of them by name. And He knows the longitude and the latitude, and where they fit in the galaxy. Do you understand now why His understanding is unsearchable beyond measure and human understanding?
And by the way, how far are the stars away? I want you to visualize in your mind that I have a sheet of paper, and on the top of it, I have a circle the size of a golf ball. At the bottom of the paper, I have a dot representing the Earth. The circle represents the sun, and the dot represents the Earth. Now using that scale, how far away do you think that Orion would be, for example? About 40 miles away. It’s mind boggling. I like to say that when Martin Luther was nailing the theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg back in 1517, the light that left some of the stars in Orion have not yet come to Earth. They’re still on their way, hustling at 186,000 miles a second, and they still aren’t here. Infinite. Mind boggling, if I might use that word once again. That’s our God.
Now you say, “Well, Pastor Lutzer, that’s wonderful all about the stars and so forth. But I’m hurting today. I’m going through a very difficult time in my life. And it’s nice to talk about the infinity of God, and the billions of stars, but what about me?” Well I have a word for you. More specifically, the Scripture has a word for you. I find this to be very interesting. The passage of Scripture that I have just read—if you read the previous verse, notice what it says: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” And then it goes on to say that He determines the number of the stars. He gives all of them names, et cetera, et cetera. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Can you get your mind around this, that the God who created the stars, the God who is infinite, the God who inhabits eternity—which we certainly cannot understand—He is able to bind up your wounds today and heal the brokenhearted? Would you let Him? Would you say that this infinite God, despite all of the mystery—and believe me, there is plenty of mystery—I stand in awe of God. I’ve contemplate Him in many different ways, many different times even in this study, and sometimes I’m brought to the very limits of my thoughts and say I can’t go further. But that God heals the brokenhearted, binds up their wounds. If you know him through Jesus Christ, our Lord, you can be confident. We sure cannot know Him fully, but thanks to Jesus, we can know Him truly.
Thanks so much for joining us today. We hope that you will join us again next time and as for today, go with God.