The God Who Does What He Pleases Text: Psalm 135:5-7
Introduction: A Universe with a King
We live in an age that is terrified of absolute authority, unless, of course, it is an absolute authority of its own making. Our culture is busy constructing a pantheon of petty, impotent gods, demanding that we bow down to them. We have the god of self-expression, the god of sexual autonomy, the god of the state, and the god of scientism. These gods are loud, demanding, and ultimately, they are nothing. They are idols, the work of men's hands, propped up by committees and enforced by digital mobs.
The central lie of our time, and of every time, is that man can be his own god, that he can define his own reality, and that the universe will politely rearrange itself to accommodate his delusions. The result of this rebellion is not freedom, but a profound and inescapable slavery. When you reject the absolute sovereignty of the living God, you do not get a world with no master. You get a world with a thousand masters, all of them cruel, capricious, and stupid.
Into this frantic idolatry, Psalm 135 speaks a word of bracing, clean, and glorious reality. It presents us with the God who is actually in charge. Not a god who is trying to be in charge. Not a god who is negotiating for control. Not a god who is wringing his hands over the state of the world. This psalm presents us with the God who does whatever He pleases. This is not a truth to be whispered in embarrassment; it is a truth to be shouted from the housetops. It is the bedrock of our comfort, the foundation of our worship, and the death knell of every idol.
The psalmist is not engaging in abstract theology here. He is leading the people in worship. And true worship must be grounded in true knowledge. We cannot praise a god we have invented. We must praise the God who is. These verses are a direct assault on every form of paganism, ancient and modern. The pagan gods were localized, limited, and subject to the forces of nature. The God of Israel is the Lord of heaven and earth, and nature is not His master, but His servant.
The Text
For I know that Yahweh is great And that our Lord is greater than all gods.
Whatever Yahweh pleases, He does, In heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deeps.
The One who causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; Who makes lightnings for the rain, Who brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
(Psalm 135:5-7 LSB)
The Greatness of God (v. 5)
The psalmist begins with a personal and corporate declaration of faith.
"For I know that Yahweh is great And that our Lord is greater than all gods." (Psalm 135:5)
This is not a guess. It is not a pious hope. It is knowledge. "For I know." Christian faith is not a leap in the dark; it is a step into the light based on what God has revealed. And what does the psalmist know? He knows that Yahweh is great. This is not greatness in the way a mountain or an empire is great. This is a statement of category. God is in a class by Himself. He is the Creator; everything else is the creature. There is an infinite, qualitative distinction between the two.
But he immediately puts this greatness into a polemical context. "Our Lord is greater than all gods." This is a direct challenge. The ancient world was crowded with gods. Baal, Molech, Ashtoreth, Dagon. The modern world is just as crowded, though the names have changed. Progress, Equality, The Market, The State. The psalmist lines Yahweh up against all comers, all rivals, all pretenders to the throne, and declares that there is no contest.
Notice the possessive pronoun: "our Lord." This is covenantal language. This infinitely great God is not a distant, abstract principle. He has bound Himself to His people. He is their God, and they are His people. This is why His greatness is not a terror to them, but a comfort. The one who is in charge of everything is for us. The one who is greater than all the powers that rage against us is our Lord. This is the confidence that enables the saints to stand in the courts of the house of our God and praise His name.
The Pleasure of God (v. 6)
Verse 6 is one of the most potent and glorious statements of divine sovereignty in all of Scripture.
"Whatever Yahweh pleases, He does, In heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deeps." (Psalm 135:6)
Let that sink in. God does whatever He pleases. His will is the ultimate cause of all things. There are no constraints upon Him from the outside. He is not reacting to circumstances; He is creating them. He is not bound by fate; He is the author of the story. His will is never frustrated, never thwarted, never delayed. What He wants to happen, happens.
This is a comprehensive sovereignty. The psalmist leaves no room for exceptions. "In heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deeps." There is not one square inch of all creation, from the highest angelic realms to the darkest abyss of the ocean, where God is not Lord. There are no maverick molecules. There are no rogue nations. There are no random events. As the apostle Paul would later say, He "works all things according to the counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11).
Now, this is a doctrine that makes modern man very nervous. We want a manageable God, a limited God, a God who respects our autonomy. But a God who is not sovereign is not God at all. He is just another idol, another limited being we can try to manipulate. The pagan gods were capricious and arbitrary. You never knew what they might do. You had to bribe them, flatter them, and hope you did not get on their bad side. But the Bible tells us that our God does what He pleases, and then it spends the rest of its pages telling us what pleases Him. And what pleases Him is righteousness, justice, mercy, and the salvation of His people through His Son. Because He is good, His absolute sovereignty is the best news we could ever hear. It means that the one who is in complete control is completely good. He does whatever He pleases, and what He pleases is good.
The Power of God (v. 7)
The psalmist then provides concrete examples of God's sovereign pleasure in action, drawing from the realm of meteorology.
"The One who causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; Who makes lightnings for the rain, Who brings forth the wind from His storehouses." (Psalm 135:7)
This is another direct shot at the pagan fertility gods, like Baal, who was supposed to be the god of rain and storms. The psalmist says, no. Baal is a fiction. It is Yahweh who runs the weather. He is the one who manages the water cycle, causing the vapors to ascend. He is the one who orchestrates the thunderstorm, making lightnings for the rain. He is the one who commands the wind, bringing it out of His treasuries as though it were His personal possession.
We tend to think of these things as natural processes, governed by impersonal laws. And they are processes, and they do follow laws. But who wrote the laws? Who sustains the processes? The Bible's view of nature is not deistic. God did not just wind up the clock and let it run. He is actively, personally, and constantly involved in the operations of His world. The weather forecast is not outside of His control. He is not surprised by a hurricane. He is not vexed by a drought. He is governing all of it, down to the last raindrop and gust of wind.
This is profoundly practical. It means we are to thank Him for a sunny day. It means we are to trust Him in the storm. It means we are to pray to Him for rain for our crops. It demolishes the secular/sacred distinction. All of life, from the highest worship in the temple to the patterns of the jet stream, is under the direct and purposeful rule of our Lord. He is not a part-time God. He is the Lord of all.
The God Who Pleases to Save
This vision of God, great, sovereign, and powerful, is the only foundation for true worship and lasting comfort. A weak god cannot save you. A god who is trying his best but is hampered by your free will or the devil's schemes is a god who will ultimately fail you. But the God of Psalm 135 is the God who cannot fail.
And the ultimate expression of His sovereign pleasure is found in the gospel of His Son. It pleased the Lord to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10). Why? So that through His suffering, He could bring many sons to glory. God's sovereignty is not just displayed in the weather; it is displayed most gloriously at the cross. There, all the powers of darkness and the rebellion of sinful men were gathered together to do what they pleased. And in doing so, they accomplished exactly what God's hand and God's plan had predestined to take place (Acts 4:27-28).
God took the greatest evil in the history of the world, the murder of His perfect Son, and turned it into the greatest good, the salvation of His people. If He can govern that, He can govern the details of your life. He can govern the waywardness of your children, the uncertainty of your job, the health of your body, and the politics of your nation.
Therefore, we do not come to this God with fear and trembling as though He were a tyrant. We come to Him with joyful praise, because this great King is our Father. We know that He is great, and that He is greater than all the false gods that clamor for our allegiance. We know that He does whatever He pleases, and it pleases Him to be good to us. And we know that He controls all things, from the lightning in the sky to the synapses in our brains.
Our only sane response is to join the psalmist in praise. To stand in His courts and bless His name. To trust His sovereign pleasure, even when we cannot trace His hand. Because the God who brings the wind from His storehouses is the same God who has stored up for us an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you by His mighty power.