Jess Whitlock
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). My wife and I recently watched a fictional movie which revolved around the NASA launched space probe, Voyager 1. That probe was launched in September of 1977. Voyager 1 races through space at 29,000 MPH. The probe has traveled in excess of 14,000,000,000 miles from earth and still collecting data. In August of 2012 Voyager 1 entered into interstellar space, and still has not entirely left our solar system! Voyager 1 is scheduled to reach the Oort cloud, a group of comets, in approximately 300 more years; but will not pass beyond that cloud until another 15,000 to 25,000 years has passed. Astronomers and scientists at NASA tell us that Voyager 1 should reach our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which is 4.37 light years away. That is a mere 25 trillion miles, so the probe should reach that point in about 70,000 years! Our Milky Way galaxy is only one out of estimated millions and millions of galaxies. And my God created all of this “in the beginning…”
I can remember as a little one having mom and dad to point to the night-sky, pointing to one star after another. Then it was explained to me that God created the heavens on the fourth day of creation (Gen. 1:16). The astronomers finally had to give up trying to count the number of the stars. Yet, God has numbered the stars and given to each one a name (Psa. 147:4). God commands the sun (Job 9:7). Joshua pleaded with God to command the sun and the moon, to give them more time in battle with the Amorites (Josh. 10:12), and in the next verse: “So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies.” It is our Lord and Savior that continually is “…upholding all things by the word of His power …” (Heb. 1:3).
In the fields of all the sciences, man has made many advances, strides, and discoveries of God’s great might and power. Man is miniscule in comparison to the great God and creator of the universe and all that is contained therein.
Yet, God the creator and controller of the universe, “So loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). God’s magnanimous love, like the universe which He created, cannot be completely fathomed by man. The songwriter, F.M. Lehman, was right when he wrote the words of the old hymn, The Love of God:
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, tho’ stretched from sky to sky.
The Psalmist of old was right as well: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth forth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge” (Psa. 19:1-2).
