The picture above is called “The Pale Blue Dot.” It was taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from earth. In it our planet appears as a tiny dot — a blueish-white speck in an overwhelming, vast space.

Stephen Hawkins is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author. He says that his “goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” Knowing how indescribably vast the universe is and how small we are compared to it, he comments, “We are so insignificant that I can’t believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.”

The Bible teaches that after God created man, He created no more (Genesis 1:1-2:3). This tells us that man is the crown and climax of creation. It also means that everything that God created before man, he created for man.

Also, of all the great and awesome creatures that God created, man is the only one that He created in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). Stephen Hawkins is wrong. We are special and significant. The immensely vast universe exists for our benefit.

So, why specifically does the universe exist? Or better yet, why specifically did God create the universe?

1. God created the universe to sustain us.
2. God created the universe to preach to us.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens…
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet…
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
(Psalm 8)