Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1894-02-02
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Bare Arm OF Cod"

II ALMOST taxes our breath AWaV 70 FPA!
some Of tho Bible imagery. There is such
holiness of metaphor in my text that have
been for some time getting my courage uptG
preach from it. Isaiah, the evangelistic
prophet, is sounding the iubi!ate of our
planet redeemed and cries ont, "The Lord
hath made bare His holy arm" What over
whelminc suggeetiveneSI in that figure OF
speech. "The bare arm Of GO1w The poO.
pie Of Palestine TO this dav wear much hinder
ing apparel, and when they want to run a
special race, or lift a special burden, or fight
special battle, they put off the outside
apparel as in our land when man proposes
Il special cx"rtiOn no puts off his coat anI
rolls mp his sleeves Walk through our
founiries, our machine shops, our mines,
our factories. and you fill find that most Of
tn" tnilcrs have their coats off an | their
sleeves rolled M.
Isaiah saw that there must be n treman-
dous amount of work done before this worII
becomes what it ought to be. AMI he fore
sees it all acco npliShed, and ACCOMPLISHED
hy the Almighty, not as We or linlrily think
of Him. but by the Almighty with the sleev,
of His rOhe rolled back to His shoulder
''The Lord hath made bare His holy arm"
Nothing more impresSeS me in the Bible
than the ease with which Col does most
things. There is such a reserve of power.
He has more thundPrDOIts than He has ever
flung, more light than He has ever distrih-
uteI. more blue than with which He has
ovGrdrched the SkY, more green than that
WIFI WHICH lie mas Rmpr1idpd tho
more crimson than that with which He has
FURNISHED the sunsets say it with reyer-
encc, from all l can see God has never half
tried.
You know as woll as DO that many of the
most elaborate and expensive industries of
olr world have been employed in creating
artificial light. Half OF the time the world
IS dark. The moon and the stars have their
glorious uses, but as instruments Of illumi-
nation they are failures They will not
allow you TO read book or stop the ruffian-
Ism OF your great cities. Had not the DARK
ness been persistently fought back by artifi-
cial means, the most of the worlds enter
prtSes would have halted half the time while
the crime OF our great municipalities would
for half the time run rampant and unre-
baked: hence all the inventions for creating
artificial light. from the flint struck against
steel in centuries past to the dynamo of our
electrical manufactures. What uncOunted
numbers OfpeOple at work the year round in
making chandeliers and lamps and fixtures
and wires and batteries where light shalt be
made, or along which light shall run, or
whore light shall pOisei How many bare
arms OF human tOil-and some of those bare
arms very tjred--in the creation of light
and its apparatus, and after all the work tho
greater part of the continents and hemis-
phores at night have no light at all except
perhaps the refiies flashing their small Lam
terms across the swamp
But see how easy God made the light. He
did not make bare His arm He did not even
put forth His rObed arm He did not lift SO
much rs a finger. H,Thc lint out of which He
struck tn" MONDAY sun the word
Light" Let there be light Adam did
not see the sun until the fourth day, for
though the sun was created on the first dav,
it took its rays from the first to the fourth
day to work through the dense mass of fluids
by which this earth was cOmpassed. Did you
ever hear of anything easy as that? So
unique? Out of a word came the blazing
sun, the father of flowers, and warmth and
light Out of a word building a Fireplace
for all the Nations of the earth to warm them
selves by! Yea. seven other worlds, five OF
them incOnceivably larger than our own. and
seventy-nine asteroids, worlds on 9
smaller scale! The warmth and light for
this great brotherhood, great sisterhooi
great family of worlds, eighty-seven larger
or smaller worlds. all from that one magnif
cent fireplace, made out of the one wor,i-
Light. The sun SS6.0 900 miles in diameter.
do not know how much granGer solar SyS.
TEN God could have created if He had put
forth His robed arm, to say nothing of an
arm made bare But this [ know. that our
MONDAY sun was spark struck from the
anvil of one word, and that word Light"
But, says some one. ''iO you not think
that in making the machinery of the uni
verso, OF which our solar system is com
paratlvelya small wheel working into might
Ier wheels, it must have cost God some eX-
ertion? The upheaval of an arm either
ro5ei or an arm made bare?" No; we are
distinctly told Otherwise. The machinery OF
universe God made simply with His fingers
David, inspired in night song. says so
"Whcn | consider Thy heavens, the work of
Thy fingers"
\ Scottish clergyman told me few weeks
ago OF dyspoptic Thomas Carlyle walking
out with friend one starry night ana as
tn" TREND looked up and said, What Il
splendid sky Mr.. Carlyle replied as he
glanced upward Sad sight, sad sight -
Not SO thought David as he read the great
Scripture OF the night heavens. 1t was a |
sweep OF embroidery, Of vast tapestry, Col
manipulated. That is the aliusion of the
psalmist to the woven hangings of tapestry
as they were known long before Davd's !
time. Far back III the ages what enchant-
ment of thread and color, the FlOrentne
velvets of silk and gold and Persian carpets
woven Of goats hair! If you have been in
the GObciin mandatory of tapestryin Paris |
alas, now no more you witnessed Won
drOus things as you saw the wooden needle |
or broach going back and forth and in and |
out YOU were tranStlXed with admiration at |
the patterns wrought. No wonder that Louis |
NV bought it, and it became a possession of !
the throne and for long while none but |
thrones and palaces might have any of its
work! What triumphs of loom! What |
victory Of skilled fingers SO David saws OF !
the heavens that Gods fingers wove into
them the light that Gods fingers tapastriei
them with stars; that Gods fingers en-
brOiderei them with worlds
How much of the immensity OF the heavens
David understood do not know Astronomy
was born in China 2SOO years before Christ
was born. During the reign of HOang-Ti |
astronomers were put TO death it they made
wrong calculations about the heavens. Job
understood the refraction of the suns rays
and said they were ''turned as the clay to the |
seal. Tho pyramids were astronomical Oh
S"rEatOries, and they were so long ago built |
that Isaiah refers to one of them in his nine
teenth chapter and calls it the ''piilar at the |
border The first of all the sciences born |
w;Is astronomy. Whether from knowledge |
already abroad or from direct inspiration. it |
seems to me David had wide knowledge of /
tho heavens. Whether he understood the |
full force OF what he wrote, know not. but |
the God who inspired him knew, and He |
would not let David write anything but truth, |
and therefore all the worlds that the tee- |
scope ever reached or CopernicuS or Galilai |
or hepler or Newton or Lapiace or Herschol |
or our own Mitchell ever saw were so easily /
made that they were made with the fingers. !
AS easily as with your fingers you mold the |
wax. or the clay, or the dough to partic-
uar shapes, so He decided the shape of |
our world, and that it should weigh six sex |
tiltiOn tons and appointed for all worlds |
their orbits and decided their cOlOr-the |
white to Sirius, the ruddy to Aldebaran, the |
yellow to POllux, the blue to Affair, marry
ing some of the stars, as the 2400 double stars |
that Herschel observed, administering to the |
whims of the variable stars as their glance
becomes brighter dim. preparing what |
astron 3mers called, ''the girile of Androme-
da" and the nebula in the sword handle of |
Orion. Worlds on worlds! Worlds under |
worlds! Worlds above worlds Worlds be-
yond worlds! So many that arithmatics are
of no use in the calculation But He counted |
them as He made them. and He made them
with His fingers! Reservation OF power
Suppression of omnipotence! Resources as
vet untouched! Almightiness yet undemon-
strated Now, ask. for the benefit of all |
Christian workers. if God ac-
complished so much with His fingers. what
can He do when He puts out all His strength |
and when He unlimbers all the batteries of
His omnipotence? The Bible speaks again
aud again OF Gods outstretched arm but