God's Way of Working

When the arch angel came to talk to Daniel he informed us of two strange things: First, that he could not just do his errands for God without having to fight the devil first, and Second, that God does not ordinarily work by fiat in a vacuum, but has an organization of angels, each with his own department and methods of working. When God ordered a form of organization for the Church, it was evidently a copy of the heavenly organization, even as the earthly Tabernacle was a representation of the Heavenly one.

Once we are aware of such divine methods we see them all through the Bible. Jesus did not say, "My Father could speak the word or think the thought and all you persecutors would fall dead". He did say, "My Father could send legions of angels to do it." He did not say God Himself watches over every child, but He said, each child has his angel, sent by God to watch over him.

Many miracles if they came at other times would not have been considered miraculous. But coming just at the moment of need and crisis, that was miraculous: the wind parting the waters, water coming out of a rock, a great tempest, a fish swallowing a man, an army falling before some plague, etc. et al.

Why God uses so many natural in His divine handiwork, we humans cannot fully understand, of course. But if God does it, it must be necessary of the Best Way.

A deeper work was the developing of the New Testament Church and the Bride of Christ. That likewise was not produced fully developed in a day. That was ages in developing, but just one day of God's, on His infinite time scale.

Before the New Testament Church plan was presented, the Old Testament Church and its Law was founded, planned, developed, miraculously nourished, then its failures and limitations allowed to be realized, the failures, sins and punishments of the failing members of that, the Jewish People, and finally the whole system lying virtually dead, a withered branch, and great tree cut off to a stump, and then finally that people allowed to lie hopelessly in a spiritual desert wasteland for 400 years with God sending a prophet.

Was that a long time just for development? We have hardly begun. Consider: Before the Dispensation of the Law was the age of the Patriarchs, extending on backwards in time for thousands of years to Adam. In God's Methods, then, we can see it was necessary first to have a creature that could both reason, think and have some free-will before there could be that New Testament Bride. Before there could be salvation there must be sin and guilt. Darkness was as necessary as light. Light without shadow is blindness.

I might interest my friends to know that I seem to see light continuously, though the room is in total darkness. Closing or opening the eyelids makes no difference, or at least so it was for a while. Now some real light is returning.

But to return-- We are noting the way God always seems to work according to a plan of development. Before He could have creatures with reasoning power, they must have a body to inhabit, one with eyes, ears as well as hands to carry out their own plans. God took some days, His Great Divine Days, to develop animals and man, millions of years in our miniature time scale. And before that long ages to let develop a special star with a special set of characteristics that would sustain life. Our planet is Very Very special. In the countless number of stars and variety of planets associated with them, there is absolutely so solid evidence that there are inhabitants or any sort of life on any of them EXCEPT the Planet Earth.

Some years ago when I interviewed Robert Milliken, America's first Nobel laureate in physics, he said that both the complexity of nature and its beauty were apparently infinite. That the inventions and scientific knowledge so far discovered were as nothing as compared to the unknowns in nature which might yet become known. It was almost as though Nature was the handiwork of a very creative and infinite Designer, And surely no one has been able to prove there was no God. DR. Milliken had written a book on FAITH.

When the rocket to Mars was being planned, some of the most atheistic scientists pushed it hard to prove there was life there and by implication inhabitant planets throughout the universe. The less prejudiced scientists had serious doubts of it, and further doubts about spending millions or billions of dollars for such fantastic science-fiction type of work. The results proved conclusively there was no life of any kind, and, that the development of life must have very special and exacting characteristics. For instance the percentage of oxygen in the air must be very closely to just what it is, any less will be fatal, and an atmosphere rich in oxygen is toxic. The same atheistic scientists spend Your --not their own-- multimillions on huge antennae for seeking out intelligent life in other parts of the universe.

Years ago I took an elderly saint, Bro. L. S. Wolfgang, to see Yosemite. I explained that to form El Capitan required that the interior parts of the earth be raised to form a range, that then other parts be raised to produce a river which would then scour the face of El Capitan clean, showing it to be a monolithic single great rock. Also Half Dome needed to have been a volcano, later becoming extinct, allowing its crater to fill with water forming a great lake, then an ice age freezing it virtually solid to break the crater rim, then a warmer age to melt it all to break out tearing and scouring forming Half Dome with its striking, special beauty. And finally even though the great mountains towered high all around us, a still higher range beyond produced the water and streams forming the spill-taking water- falls, at times crashing down with tremendous force, at times spraying itself into a mist like a bridal veil. Breathtaking and spectacular beyond words.

As I was describing the geological movements necessary to form these wonders and to make them possible, I though he might answer with, "Nonsense. God just created it in an instant with a wave of His hand or snap of a finger." But he did not answer that way at all. He looked aloft with reverence, and said, "It is truly wonderful the extent to which God will go so that we His children may see handiwork and enjoy such beauty."

We should not limit God or make His material universe of small moment. God Himself inspected it and decided it was VERY good. He has gone to a great expenditure of time, billions of years, to produce the earth and finally His Church, the Bride of His Only Begotten Son. He wants us to appreciate it not belittle it. He wants us to appreciate His love toward us. He also wants us to understand that heaven holds marvels greater for us that cannot be even grasped by the human mind, if we are faithful to Him and His love.