God: Creator
God: Creator
Tracks of God
"Father," said Thomas, looking up from his studies. "How do you know there is a God?"
"Why do you ask that question? Do you doubt the existence of God?" asked the father.
"Well, I heard one of the professors say that we could not be sure that there is a God. Is there any way really to know?"
"Well, my boy. Do you remember the other day that you were laughing about Robinson Crusoe's dismay at discovering that there were other persons on the island beside himself? How did he discover them? Did he see them? No, he discovered one track of a bare foot in the sand, and he knew that it could not be his own. He knew that only a human being could have made it, and he knew that whoever made it could not be far off, for the tide had not yet reached it. All those things he knew to be true, although he had not seen a human being within miles of the island. And the knowledge was all gained from a mark in the sand.
"If one print of a bare foot in the sand is absolute proof of the existence and presence of a human being, what are we to suppose when we see the prints of the Master's shoe, as Bunyan calls it, covering the whole wide world? We see on mountain and valley the print of the fingers of God. We see a million plants and flowers and trees that only God could make grow. We see all the rivers and the springs of the world fed from invisible specks of atmospheric moisture. What do all those things mean-those millions upon millions of footprints on the clay of the world? They mean God living, present, ruling, and loving! They mean God and nothing else!"
God's Existence
Imagine a family of mice who live all their lives in a large piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the mu sic-invisible to them-yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see.
Then one day a daring young mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer believe in the Unseen Player. Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But the Pianist continued to play.
Teaching Existence of God-Garden-Creator
A Scotch philosopher wanted to teach his five-year-old son about God. He went into his garden alone and with his finger traced out the lad's name. He planted cress and mustard seed in the outline.
About 10 days later the lad came running to his father crying, "My name is coming up in the garden."
His father said, "Nonsense! It can't be!"
They went to the garden, and his father said, "Oh, that must just have happened."
"No, no," said the boy, "somebody must have planted it."
So the lad learned his first lesson about the Creator.
Properly Equipped
An example from the animal world shows how God makes provision for stability in the most difficult circumstances. In bold defiance of gravity, the mountain goats that live from the Northwest United States through Canada into Alaska demonstrate incredible stability in the most difficult of terrains. They leap surefootedly from ledge to ledge and scamper around steep, rugged mountainsides with the utmost confidence. Unusually flexible, the two toes of the goat's hoof can spread apart wider than the hoof is long to distribute the animal's grip. Or they can draw together to grasp a knob of rock. The goat also has a rough, pliable traction pad on the bottom of each toe which makes them skid-resistant on ice. Dewclaws projecting from the rear of the ankles provide additional traction on steep, downhill routes.
Just as God makes provision in the animal world for creatures to stand with stability in the most difficult terrain, He will surely make provision for His redeemed children to stand in the most difficult spiritual circumstances. He can and will stabilize you in the midst of insuperable difficulty.
It Is All Part of a Plan
A medical student had a hard time accepting that the whole world and even Christ's birth was part of a plan.
One day this lady medical student said, "I was working on an arm and hand, studying the perfect mechanical arrangements of the muscles and tendons-how the sheaths of certain muscles are split to let tendons of certain muscles through, so that the hand may be delicate and small and yet powerful. I was all alone in the laboratory when the overwhelming belief came. A thing like this is not just chance, but a part of a plan, a plan so big that only God could have conceived it.
"Religion had been to me a matter of form, a thing without conviction. Now everything was an evidence of God-the tendons of the hand, the patterns of the little butterfly's wings-all was part of a purpose."
The Psalmist wrote, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works" (Psalms 139:14). But, has there ever been a better plan for the salvation of man than for Jesus coming into the world to save sinners? It was not a matter of chance, it was all planned and executed at the right time.
How Great Thou Art!
A few years ago, Joseph M. Stowell and his wife had the joy of teaching the Word of God in Hawaii. It was February, which happens to be when the humpback whales arrive. Humpback whales are about 40 feet long at maturity and weigh about one ton per foot. They carry a thousand pounds of barnacles, and when they jump, or "breach," they extend themselves totally in the air, and then free-fall back into the ocean. You can see the splash five miles away.
During the Stowell's stay, they went out on a whale-watching boat. As they watched the whales jump and play almost within reach, the guide told them that the whales come down from Alaska every year to calve in the warm Hawaiian waters. Year after year, each family comes back to the very same place around the island. When the calves are born (they weight about five tons), they are born breech-or tail first. If they were born head first, these air-breathing mammals would drown during the birth process. As a baby whale is born, another humpback whale comes alongside and pushes it up to the surface to help the baby take his first breath of air.
The guide also said that the humpback whale sings a "song" that can be heard more than 50 miles away under water. Every one of these whales sings the same song. Each year, the song changes slightly, and every humpback whale in the world will sing that year's song. Amazing! Incredible! What a display of the wonderful creative power of our God!
Design in Creation
The seal of the Designer is stamped upon all His created works, and it is a seal that cannot be obliterated. Design in creation is indelible like the watermark in paper. Scripture infers that the hand of the Designer is to be seen in all His works.
"He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He" (Deuteronomy 32:4).
"Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance" (Isaiah 40:12)?
According to the latter verse, the waters, the heaven above, and the dust of the earth (matter, or the chemical elements) are measured. God has infinitely measured all the works of His hands. Number is the underlying principle of nature. There are no created works without the numbers inherent in them.
God has measured the waters. The Word of God was not given to teach science primarily, but some of its statements anticipate scientific discoveries, and wherever the Scripture statements touch upon science they are accurate. Every drop of water in the universe is a mathematical equation. Science tells us that water is the combination of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. Two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen meet to form water. It is measured. It is not an accident. It does not just happen so. Our universe is an orderly universe, and every drop of water reveals the hand of the Designer.
Seeing God in Nature
A Christian was invited to admire a great skyscraper. After looking at its majestic height, he called his host's attention to a little flower that he had on his lapel, saying, "True, this building speaks of man's achievement, but this flower with its life speaks of God's creation. I can see God more clearly in the flower than in the skyscraper." A Doctor's Testimony
Here is the testimony of a medical doctor: "In an anatomy room, a dead body meant nothing to me. I could not visualize the man or woman it might have been. Life left few records on the immobile face. For weeks I worked, and each day the wonder grew. Then one day I was working on an arm and hand, studying the perfect mechanical arrangements of the muscles and tendons, how the sheaths of certain muscles are split to let tendons of other muscles through, so that the hand may be delicate, small and yet powerful. I was all alone in the laboratory when the overwhelming belief came: a thing like this is not just chance but a part of a plan, a plan so big that only God could have conceived it. Religion had been to me a matter of form, a thing without conviction, but now everything was an evidence of God-the tendons of the hand, the patterns of the little butterfly's wings-all are a part of God's wonderful design."
God Gives Life
A city missionary visited a poor old woman in an attic room who had scarcely enough money for her bare existence. He observed a strawberry plant growing in a broken teapot on the windowsill, and on a subsequent visit remarked how it continued to grow and with what care it was watched and tended. "Your plant flourishes nicely; you will soon have strawberries on it." "Oh, sir, it is not for the sake of the fruit that I prize it. It is a great comfort to have that plant living, for I know it can only live by the power of God. As I see it live and grow day by day, it tells me God is near." This lonely Christian wanted something to remind her constantly that life in its continuance and growth was a direct result of God's activity.
Consider the Heavens
One evening when Napoleon was returning to France from the expedition to Egypt, a group of French officers entered into a discussion concerning the existence of God. They were on the deck of the vessel that bore them over the Mediterranean Sea. Thoroughly imbued with the skeptical and atheistical spirit of the times, they were unanimous in their denial of God. It was decided to ask the opinion of Napoleon, who was standing alone wrapped in silent thought. On hearing the question, "Is there a God?" he raised his hand and pointing to the starry firmament simply responded, "Gentlemen, who made all that?" The Wonderful Recreation
John Ruskin was walking along the streets of London one rainy day when he noticed the great quantities of mud at his feet. The thought occurred to him that it would be interesting to have the mud analyzed to find out exactly what inorganic elements were in it. This was accordingly done, and it was found that London mud consisted of sand, clay, soot, and water. He was struck by the fact that these are the very substances from which our precious jewels and gems are formed. From the sand come the onyx, agate, beryl, jasper, amethyst; from the clay come the sapphire, ruby, emerald, topaz; and from the soot, the diamond. London mud composed of precious jewels! Man cannot transform the mud into those glittering points of light, but God transforms and recreates the mud-poor, sinful, wayward humanity-into redeemed souls who sing a new song and carry with them glad tidings of great joy!
Follow the Architect's Plan
Beecher, that great preacher, once said, "If the architect of a house had one plan and the contractor had another, what conflicts would there be! How many walls would have to come down, how many doors and windows would need to be altered before the two could harmonize! Of the building of life, God is the architect, and man is the contractor. God has one plan, and man has another. Is it strange that there are clashings and collisions?" How much better if the contractor follows the Architect's plan. How wonderful for man to accept God's will for his life without any questioning whatsoever. Who Made You?
"Who made you?" someone once asked a little girl. She replied, "God made me that much," indicating with her two hands the ordinary size of a newborn infant, "and I growed the rest myself." The little girl said this in her simplicity. Profound thinking must surely lead us to the same conclusion-that God made us for He made all things. But we may be tempted to think that we have done a great deal ourselves, not acknowledging even God's providential care.
God, the Creator
A businessman once gave the reasons why he knew there was a God. He had been earnestly considering the wonders of the stars and planets, their system and order. Then he said, "It takes a girl in our factory about two days to learn to put the seventeen parts of a meat chopper together. Some may believe that these millions of worlds, each with its separate orbit, all balanced so wonderfully in space-that they just happened; that by a billion years of tumbling about they finally arranged themselves. I am merely a plain manufacturer of cutlery. But this I do know, that you can shake the seventeen parts of a meat chopper around in a washtub for the next seventeen billion years and you'll never make a meat chopper." Not Mere Chance
To think is to grow in awareness. Think as you look at a flower, a sunset or gaze at the starry sky. Someone has said that the unbelieving astronomer is mad. "What do you see?" a friend asked a famous botanist who was scrutinizing a flower. "I see God," was the reverent answer. A Scottish doctor wrote with his finger in the garden soil the letters of his little son's name, sowed cress in the furrows, and smoothed the ground. Ten days later, his son ran to him in astonishment and said that his name was growing in the garden and insisted on his father seeing it. "Is it not a mere chance?" asked the father. "No, someone must have arranged it that way." "Look at yourself," said the doctor. "Consider your hands, finger, legs, feet; did you come here by chance?" "No, something must have made me." "And who is that something?" As he did not know, the father told him the name of the great God who had made him and all the world. He never forgot that lesson.