Book-01-“In The Beginning God”—Gen_1:1

“In The Beginning God”—Gen 1:1

ΤΉΕRΕ is just one mystery, and that is God. Accept the statement of the text, and all things can be explained; re­ject it, and nothing can be understood. The agnostic comes to us with the cry: “I cannot understand, and therefore I do not believe.” An agnostic is an igno­ramus, and when he tells me he is that, I take him at his word. If we refuse to believe everything we cannot understand, then there is nothing we believe, for there is nothing we can understand. The atheistic astronomer says, “I do not believe in your God because I cannot understand him,” and yet he will offer me his book of astronomy, which is being taught in our colleges and universities, and he says everything contained in the book is true. Let us see if he is honest in his objection and if he is consistent in his criticism. We stand out beneath the out-stretched, boundless blue sky and gaze up into the distance. Star after star beams upon us, some glimmering but faintly, and with a far-away look, while others through infinite realms of space shed forth their glorious streams of radiance. Planets, stars, fixed stars, worlds upon top of worlds, how we wonder what you are! This atheistic astronomer says: “I have measured the distance from the earth to the moon and the sun; I can tell you their velocity; I know the material out of which they are formed; I have measured the cir­cumference and the diameter of each; I have weighed them in my balances and can tell you their weight; the moon is a dead planet where no fire is; there is no water and no life there. I can, through my telescope, see the burnt-out volcanoes that exist there.” He grows eloquent when he talks to me about the rings and the satellites. He says, ^{4 4} The sun is the center of the solar system, and beyond this sun there are other suns,” and thus, with his imagination, he mounts his cloud chariots drawn by fiery steeds and leaps from star to star and from world to world, counting until his imagination is worn out and falls back on itself, and he exclaims: “Height without a top, depth without a bottom, length and breadth without a beginning or an ending; great indeed is the immensity of space!” Let us ask this man of wisdom a few ques­tions and find out if he understands. Where is the center of the universe? How old are these stars? Tell me the cir­cumference and the diameter of the uni­verse. Are these stars inhabited? On the right, on the left, before and behind, he will find that things are broken off, and he cannot answer because he does not understand. Then, Mr. Astronomer, why do you not burn up your books of astron­omy and stop teaching the doctrine of the stars, since you cannot understand, and therefore cannot believe in your own books of astronomy? If you can believe in the doctrine of the stars when you do not understand, can you not believe in the God who made the stars, even though you cannot comprehend Him?

I hold in my hand a book. See it fall. What caused it to go down rather than up? You say: "The law of gravity.’’ What is that? Have you ever seen grav­ity? Can you explain it? You tell me that it is an incorporeal, intangible, invis­ible something that causes the lesser body of matter to go toward the greater. Now, if you can believe in gravity, why not be­lieve in the God who made gravity? You refuse to believe in God because you cannot see him, and yet you believe in gravity which you have never seen. The atheistic geologist comes to me with his reasons for his atheism. He re­fuses to believe in God because he cannot understand him, and yet he believes in his book of geology. He says that he can go down and down until he comes to fire; but if there be no God, ask him to tell you who put that fire there. He can go back and back, but he can never touch the be­ginning. Ask him to tell you how it is that almighty God sent forth a ray of heat from the sun millions of years ago with force enough to penetrate the earth and there lie latent until the strong-armed miner dug it from its prison cell and gave it to us in the form of oil to burn in our lamps or coal to burn in our grates! What is fire? Do you know? Are you ready to say there is no such thing, and refuse to be benefited by its comfort be­cause you cannot understand it? What is light? I never heard of but one per­son who could tell, and he was a lazy, sleepy, stupid boy in the school, and when the teacher asked, “What is light?” he, when half awake and half asleep, replied: “I did know, Professor, but I forgot.” The professor said: “Think how much this world has lost because of the bad memory of this boy!” Do you know? Tell us if you can. Now, are you ready to say there is no such thing as light be­cause you cannot understand it? Are you willing to blow it out and live the rest of your days in the dark?

Electricity—what is it? I remember going to the city with my first son. I had been to town before, but he was ac­quainted only with the mountain scenes. When we pulled into the station he saw a car going by without any horses, and he became greatly excited and cried out: “Father, what is that?” I told him it was a trolley-car. Then he wanted to know what made it go, and I told him electricity. Then he cried out: “What is electricity!” I did not tell him. He is now a man with a family and I have not told him. If you think you can, you may.

I went into a railroad station one day to see a man who had moved to town. I had heard that he was a member of the church, and I felt it would be a good thing to hold a meeting in that town with a view of establishing a congregation. He was a negative Christian. Do you know what kind that is? It is a dead one. I found him at his office and engaged in sending a message. I leaned over on the window- facing, thinking I’d wait for him to get through with his work. I felt something like needles in my arm, and the sensation was going through me. I felt like you do when you hit the crazy-bone in the arm. I became excited, and wondered if I were paralyzed. When I got away from the window the feeling left me. I went back and touched it again, and with the same results. I jumped away just as the operator looked at me. He asked: “Did you touch this window?” I told him I did. He then informed me that he had charged the window with electricity with the view of catching a negro that loafed in the station, and he caught me. Now, I did not argue with him and say, “There is no such thing as electricity,” and that I would not believe in a thing I could not understand. What is electricity? Can you tell? You refuse to believe in God because you cannot see him; have you ever seen electricity? You have seen lightning, but you have not seen elec­tricity. You have not the eyes with which to see electricity. A negro was lecturing be­fore a large crowd of his race and he said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to-night to tell you what electricity is. Electricity is—electricity. Electricity—electricity is, ladies and gentlemen, elec­tricity is electricity, and it is none of your business what electricity is.” Edison cannot give a better definition than did this negro. An evangelist had conducted a meeting in a small town, and a number of the young men had become converted. A professional infidel lived in the hotel, and he took delight in giving the young men that gathered in the hotel at nights theo­logical nuts to crack. One night the old parson had come to town and was in his room in that hotel. The infidel had a group of men about him and he was knocking their props from beneath them, when one of the boys went to the stairway and called for the parson. “Come down, parson, and help us out. This man is doing us all up.” Just as the old parson got to the head of the steps he heard the infidel say: “If you have a God, show him to me; let me feel him; let me hear him; let me taste him; let me smell him.” He was told they could not comply with his requests. “Then,” he said, “if you cannot approach your God through any of the avenues of approach—the senses—you have no God.” By this time the minister had gotten into the room, and he put his hand on the shoulder of the infidel and said: “I perceive that you are an idiot.” The man became angry and said: “I have never been accused of that before.” “I will prove it,” said the minister. “What is an idiot?” He was told that it is a man without a mind. He then said: “Let me see your mind; let me taste it; let me feel it; let me smell it; let me hear it.” He was told that it would be impossible to grant his requests. Then,” said the parson, “you only have five avenues of approach, and if I cannot get hold of your mind through any of these avenues, you have no mind, and if you have no mind, you are an idiot.” The minister says: “I was walking the street one day and saw this man approaching me» I wondered if he meant to thrash me. He came to me and took my hand in his and said: ‘Parson, I want to thank you for what you said to me that night in the hotel. I am now a believer. I never knew before what a fool I was. I believe now in things I cannot understand.” A boy is flying a kite. It is out of sight. A stranger sees the boy and asks:

"What are you doing, my lad?" “Flying a kite,” the boy replies. The man looks into the heavens, but he cannot see the kite. He says: “I do not believe you are flying a kite, my boy, I cannot see it.” The boy says: “Then take hold of this string and you can feel it pull.” We may not see God, but we can feel him pull.

If you do not believe in anything you cannot understand, then you do not be­lieve in your parents; you do not believe in your children; you do not believe in yourself. Who can understand man? The ancients one time had a motto: “Man, know thyself.’’ None of us have learned this art. Like Sir Isaac Newton, we are children drifting on the surf-beaten shores, gathering here and there a pebble, while all of the regions about us are depths of unexplored knowledge.

We are told that a man by the name of Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. If there be no God, can you tell us who started that blood through the veins? Books have been written on the formation of the hand, but Bell and all who have written on the subject cannot tell how I move my finger if there be no God. Take the mechanism of the eye. Can you un­derstand this self-focusing machine? See it as it makes many pictures in a second! Is beauty in the eye or is it in the indi­vidual? A man said: “I am thankful that all men cannot see as I do." When asked why, he said: “They would want my wife Nancy.” A man replied: “If everyone saw as I do, there would not be a man in the world who would have her.” Who understands the brain? We boast of liv­ing in the twentieth century, and of our wonderful inventions, but I want to tell you that I agree with Solomon in the statement that there is nothing new under the sun. Take telegraphy. When God made Adam and placed him in the garden he established a complete system of teleg­raphy, and every one born into the world since has been a duplicate of the same. Let me illustrate. You are sitting in the church on some hot August night and the minister is preaching a lengthy sermon, and you find a mosquito sailing over the heads of the people looking for his cousin, when all of a sudden he takes up his abode on your bald pate. A message is at once sent to the central station—the brain, and a call is made for connection, and then a dispatch is sent to your hand with the news, “A mosquito is on the head,” and it is gone! This is telegraphy. Messages are coming and going all the time, and they never get confused when the central office is all right. Do you understand this? The backbone is an immense tele­graph pole with forty pairs of nerves— wires—and with ten million branches run­ning in all directions.

Take the body, which is covered all over with pores. We are told that one grain of sand will cover one hundred scales, and that each scale covers from three to five hundred pores, and that each pore has in it an innumerable multitude -of living things swimming around in it, and with as much freedom as a whale has in the sea. Can you understand this? Do you believe it?

Some years ago I met a noted atheist who took great delight in giving young preachers theological nuts to crack. She said: “If you have a God, then show him to me and I will believe.” When asked how this world came into existence, she said: “From chance or from evolution.” When I asked her who made her, she said:

“I came from a spore, an atom, a germ. I began with an atom and kept on evolv­ing until I became a tadpole, and then a monkey, and then a creature of intelli­gence.”

I had heard that there is a con­necting link somewhere, and I concluded that if the theory of evolution be true I had found this link, for she was the ugli­est woman I had ever seen. I further told her that she might be related to the monkey, but I did not claim to be of any kin to the animal.

Let us notice her objections. Could not believe in God because she could not see him. Ask her if she had ever seen an atom and she would say “No.” If she could believe in the atom without seeing it, why not believe in God who made the atom? If a man came from an atom, who put the life into the atom? When the germ of an egg, the germ of a snake and the germ of a man are all placed under the microscope, why do they all look alike, and what is it that keeps the germ of the tree from evolving into a snake, and the germ of the snake from evolving into the man, and the germ of the man from evolving into a tree? Why does not man evolve into an archangel?

If the world came from chance, how do you account for the order and per­fection and the wisdom revealed in the creation? Suppose I would quite a beau­tiful poem and you would ask me who was the author, and I would say, “There is no author. I just took a handful of type and threw them against the wall, and it happened!” You can spell my name with four letters, but you could not do it by throwing four letters against the wall, if you were to try for a century.

I met the husband of this woman. He was an intelligent man, but an atheist. When I asked him why he did not believe, he said: “I cannot understand. I do not believe in a thing I cannot see.” He said man came as a result of evolution. There has never been an evolution where there has not been an involution. The hardest thing I ever tried to do was to evolve out of my pocket a ten-dollar bill to pay for a new hat for my wife, when it had not been involved into my pocket. Did you ever try it? If the world is here as a result of evolution, who involved the idea? In my early manhood I was a schoolteacher, and after getting my license I purchased a Waterbury watch. It could out-tick any small piece of machinery I had ever seen, but I had to keep winding it all the time to keep it going. It was like some church-members. One day I decided to look into that watch and see the jewels. I took out the three little screws, and there jumped out in that schoolroom a spring nine feet long. I tried to place it inside of the watch, but I could not find room enough to hold the spring. I took it to town and sold it to a man who had watch sense. I could not fix it because God had never involved into my head any watch sense. He had in­volved some into the head of the other man and he could fix it. That watch could not repair itself; when it stopped it could not start itself. It had no sense. It was unorganized matter.

Let us look up into the blue sky and behold the greatest piece of clockwork man has ever looked upon. It did not make itself. A creation implies a Crea­tor; a design, a Designer. The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim. The unwearied sun, from day to day, Doth his Creator’s power display, And publishes to every land The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth;

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets, in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all Move round this dark terrestrial ball;

What though no real voice nor sound Amid their radiant orbs be found; In reason’s ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing as they shine, ’The hand that made us is divine.’

You may burn all the churches and kill all of the preachers, but so long as there is a blazing star shining in the heavens, so long will there be a witness to testify in burning eloquence, and with logic that can never be refuted, that God is. This intelligent atheist said he did not believe in God because he could not under­stand him. He believed in himself and in his fellow-man, and yet had to confess that he did not understand either. Man eats, but he does not understand diges­tion. He cannot tell how it is that the food produces hair, bone, flesh, nerve, etc. What is it that takes the part out of the beefsteak that makes hair and puts it on the head; that makes nail and puts it on the finger and never on the nose? He tells us that where the artery ceases to be an artery and the vein begins to be a vein (no one knows where this is) the selection is made. Two men eat the same food for five years, and one has a mus­tache and the other has not; why is it? When the man said he could not believe in God because he could not see him, I asked: “If I can prove to you that you have never seen your father, that you have never seen your mother, and that you have never seen yourself, will you confess that you never had a father, that you never had a mother, and that you do not exist?” He said he would. Then I said: “I stab you with a knife, and your body falls upon the hard pavement and it is soon cold and lifeless; is that you? Is that lump of cold clay lying there the one that invented that machinery, that enjoys the sublime and the ridiculous, that thinks and acts? If that be you, why not let us embalm you as the Egyp­tians did, and keep you with us for­ever?” He confessed that the body was not the man. Then I said: “You have never seen yourself; no man can see a live man. It takes spiritual eyes to see God and to see man. You have only seen the house in which man has lived. These eyes do not see; they are the windows, and I am back inside looking out through the windows. That was not your baby that you deposited in the grave; it was only the place in which the baby lived for a short time.” He said: “I do see myself manifesting myself through my­self.” “You see God manifesting him­self through himself, too, and if you can believe in your own existence upon such evidence, why not believe in God upon the same kind of testimony?” I asked.

What is life? What is death? With­out God all is mystery; with him all may someday be understood. He has century plants, and they will unfold in their own good time.

Death! A father puts his son into a plain building, and tells him he must live there for a short time and then he may have a beautiful mansion. The house becomes dilapidated and a leak is re­vealed. The carpenter is called and the leak is repaired. Then another break is seen and he is called again. Soon the building is almost ready to fall down, but in sight of this building is another that is nearing completion, and the father, when it is finished, comes to the son and says: “You have remained in this house without complaining, and now I want you to come into this beautiful dwelling I have prepared for you.” Man is put for a season into the body which is his house. Again and again the break is dis­covered and the physician is called to repair and make it comfortable, but after a time it is ready to fall to pieces because of disease, and the father says to his son: “Come now and live in this house I have prepared for you. This is to be your home.” And the soul comes out of this house of mortality and enters into a house that is to be eternal. This is death.