His Eternal Power by R.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Sep 17, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 36.

"His Eternal Power"

By R.

"The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Rom. 1:20.

"Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14:7.

The psalmist declares that "power belongeth unto God." The energies of the universe that sweep in tides of power, originate in the Creator. If we go back of the creation for the source and origin of its myriad pulsatings of force, all is mystery unless we accept the words of the inspired penman, "In the beginning God."

And coming to the inspired writings of the New Testament, we hear the triumphant Christ declare, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth."

Nature testifies of her Maker. When we gaze at hill and cloud, at valley and sky, it should cause us to look beyond into the unseen yet apparent truth that these all exist because of the creative energy of the Mighty One.

In fact, the Word declares just this: "Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." We are to look deeper than the surface of material things, into the invisible spiritual cause of them all — behold the earth as the hand-work of God, and look from earthly gifts and delights up in gratitude and reverence to Him who made, who gave them.

Something like three thousand years ago, the singer exclaimed, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork." The light of the sky is but a reflection of the glory of God. Christ calls the sun His sun: "Maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." He plainly tells us that these things are caused by God, and that they express His goodness, His kindness to His creatures.

In one of the psalms we read that "His tender mercies are over all His works." If we study nature, we find this is true. Even the sparrow's fall is noted by Him, and the raven finds food under the Creator's thoughtful providence.

Even the weeds evidence the thought of One greater than they. Watch plants and animals, and you will be startled by the fact that there is a power guiding them that is infinitely greater and wiser and better than the creature that manifests it.

It is just this that the text declares: Ever since the creation of the world the invisible things of Him are seen, His eternal power and His character being understood by the things that are made.

Nature is a screen upon which the invisible things of God are pictured. As we look upon material things, in faith we see, in manifestation we behold, tokens of the power and character of God.

Already we have learned something of the vastness of that power. The forces of this universe are incalculable, immeasurable, inconceivable. But God is greater, more powerful, than anything or all the things that He has created.

This power that moves in the earth and universe is not only infinitely great, but the Word declares that it is eternal. Like its origin and source, power is everlasting.

Do we see any evidences of this in nature? — Indeed we do.

It is not necessary for us to go into the arguments that show the conservation of energy; but all scientists have come, after the most exhaustive study, scrutiny, and examination of the forces of nature, to the fact that —

"No portion of energy is ever lost or destroyed. The total quantity of energy in the universe appears to be constant." — Appleton's Physics.

"Energy can in no way [by us] be either created or destroyed; the total amount of energy never changes; it is always conserved. This is a fundamental principle of all science, and is known as the conservation of energy." — Andrews and Howland's Physics.

"When one form of energy disappears, an exact equivalent of another form takes its place, so that the sum total of energy is unchanged." — Gage's Physics.

"All natural phenomena are the manifestations of the same omnipresent energy, which is transferred from one portion of matter to another without loss. The sum total of all the active and latent energies in the universe is constant and invariable. In other words, power is indestructible." — Prof. Josiah P. Cook.

"Energy may be transformed, but it can never be created or destroyed." — Millikan and Gale's Physics.

That ought to settle it. All these statements are equivalent to saying that power is eternal. If "power is indestructible," if it is never "lost," if "it is always conserved," if it can never be "destroyed," then manifestly it is eternal.

Thus says the Word. It is "His eternal power." It is "the power of an endless life." It is exhaustless.

The earth rotates on its axis night and day. It has thus been spinning through the ages. Astronomers find the motion is absolutely constant. It does not vary from day to day or from age to age by the fraction of a thousandth of a second.

When you spin a top, much of the energy you put into that spinning is soon transformed into other kinds of energy than that of the spinning motion, by the friction of the floor and the air; and the top soon wobbles and falls. The energy is not lost, but it is dissipated in other forms. Some appears as heat at the point of the top, to be dissipated soon into the air. Some appears as motion in the air about the top. And hence the motion of the top ceases, the power that passed through it for a time is eternal, and appears somewhere else in heat or motion. But the top wobbles in time, and falls.

But the earth is so supplied with the power of motion, that the energy, if dissipated, comes flowing on in an uninterrupted tide, and the earth does not gradually slow its motion, and go tumbling, wabbling through the universe, like a run-down top. On and on, never ceasing, never varying, it whirls and whirls, without an iota of change. Ages do not affect it. Climate or location or the human tramp upon its surface does not change it.

And there are thousands and millions of other heavenly bodies all doing a like thing. They are all agents of the eternal power, and that power is of God.

Light travels at the marvelous rate of

about 186,000 miles a second. There is light streaming down to us to-night from stars so far away that it takes a thousand years for it to reach us. Yet that light, speeding all those years, does not for an instant slacken its speed. It comes into the depot of the human eye running absolutely on schedule time, 186,000 miles a second. It starts with this velocity, it maintains it through all the vast measures of space for all the years it moves, and it comes to the eye, speeding at the same unvarying rate.

We can not explain it unless we look back of the phenomenon to the One who produced it.

As the Word declares, the things that are seen were not made of phenomena. No, they are not the cause, but the caused. God is the cause. He is the one who works, and the heavens and the earth are the manifestations of His works.

The heavens declare His glory, the firmament shows His handiwork. His invisible things, eternal power and glory, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

Therefore “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”

As you look at nature, see beyond it, and “behold your God!”

Nature is not God. Such teaching is pantheism. But nature is God’s handicraft. As we view it, we find all over it the marks of its Maker.

Logically, then, our next thought should be of Him.