The Yale expositor., 1901-06-21
The God of Abraham.

night, and he looked up at the star
and cried, This is my God" but the
star disappeared, and Abraham said,
mo, that cannot be my God" After
awhile the moon rose, and Abraham
said, THAT is my God" but it set, and
Abraham was again disappointed. At
ter awhile the sun rose, and he said,
why, truly, here is my God" but the
sun went down, and Abraham was sad
dened. Not until the God of the Bible
appeared to Abraham was he satisfied,
and his faith was so great that he was
called "the Father of the Faithful"
All that the theologians know of Gods
wisdom is insignificant compared with
the wisdom beyond human comprehen-
sion. The human race never has had
and never will have enough brain or
heart to measure the wisdom of God.
can think of only two authors who
have expressed the exact facts. The
one was Paul, who says, ooh, the depth
of the riches, both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God, how unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past
finding out" The other author was
the scientist who composed my text.
| think he wrote it during thunder
storm, for the chapter says much about
the clouds and describes the tremor
Of the earth under the reverberations.
Witty writers sometimes depreciate the
thunder and say it is the lightning
that strikes, but | am sure God thinks
well OF the thunder, or he would not
make so much OF it. and all up and
down the Bible he uses the thunder
to give emphasis. 1t was the thunder
that shook Sinai when the law was
given. 1t was with thunder that the
Lord discounted the Philistines at
Eben-ezer. Job pictures the warhorse
as having a neck clothed with thunder.
st. John, in an apocalyptic vision,
again and again heard the thunder.
The thunder, which is now quite well
explained by the electricians, was the
overpowering mystery of the ancients,
and standing among those mysteries
Job exclaimed: 10, these are parts
of his ways. But how little a portion
is heard of him? But the thunder Of
his power who can understand?
The Omnipresence of God.
We have all been painfully reminded
in our own experiences that We can
not be in two places at the same time
Nader, the astronomer, went on with
his explorations until he concluded
that the star Alcyone, one of the
Pleiades, was the center of the uni
verse, and it was a fixed world, and
all the other worlds revolved around
that world, and some think that that
world is heaven and Gods throne is
there, and there reside the nations Of
the blest. But he is no more there
than he is here. Indeed, Alcyone has
been found to be in motion, and 1t also
is revolving around some great center.
But no place has yet been found where
God is not present by sustaining
power. Omnipresence! Who fully
appreciates it? Not l. Not you.
Sometimes we hear him in a whisper.
Sometimes we hear him in the voice
of the storm that jars the Adriondacks.
But we cannot swim across this ocean.
The finite cannot measure the infinite.
We feel as Job did after finding God
in the gold mines and the silver mines
of Asia, saying, There is a vein for
the silver and place for the gold
where they fine it." And after ex-
ploring the heavens as an astronomer
and finding God in distant worlds and
becoming acquainted with Orion and
Mazzaroth and Arcturus and noticing
the tides of the sea the inspired poet
expresses his incapacity to understand
such evidences of wisdom and power
and says: 10, these are parts OF his
ways. But how little a portion is
heard of him? But the thunder of his
power who can understand"
So every system of theology has at
to describe and define the di-
vine attribute Of love. Easy enough
is it to define fatherly love, motherly
love, conjugal love, fraternal love, sis
terly love and love of country, but the
love of God defies all vocabulary. For
many hundreds of years poets have
tried to sing it and painters have tried
to sketch it and ministers of the gospel
to preach it and martyrs in the fire and
Christians on their deathbeds have ex-
tolled it, and we can tell what il is
like, but no one has yet fully told what
it is. Men speak of the love of God
as though it were first felt between
the pointing of Bethlehem star and the
of the crucifixion hammer.
But no! Long before that existed the
love of God
Seeing God Face to Face.
Only glimpses of God have we in
this world. but what an hour it will
be when we first see him, and we will
have no more fright than feel when
l now see you. 1t will not be with
mortal eye that we will behold him,
but with the vision of a cleansed, for
given and perfected spirit. OF all the
quintillion ages of eternity to us the
most thrilling hour will be the first
hour when we meet him as he is.
This may account for something you
have all seen and may not have unv,r-
stood Have Won not noticed how that