God's World.

God's World.

Written by: Charles Kingsley

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1

It may seem hardly worth while to preach upon this text. Everyone thinks that he believes it. Of course, they say, we know that God made the world. Teach us something we do not know, not something which we do. Why preach to us about a text which we fully understand and believe already?

Because, my friends, there are few texts in the Bible more difficult to believe than this, the very first; few texts which we need to repeat to ourselves again and again, in all the chances and changes of this mortal life; lest we forget it just as we are most sure of it.

We know it was very difficult for people in olden times to believe it, else why did all the heathens of old, and why do all the heathens now, worship idols?

We know that the old Jews, after it had been revealed to them, found it very difficult to believe. Else why were they always deserting the worship of God and worshiping idols and devils, sun, moon and stars and all the host of heaven?

We know that the early Christians, in spite of the light of the Gospel and of God's Spirit, found it very difficult to believe it. Doubtless they believed it a thousand times more fully than it had ever been believed before. They would have shrunk in horror from saying that anyone but God had made the heavens and the earth. But Christians clung, for many hundreds of years, even almost up to our own day, to old heathen superstitions, which they would have cast away if their faith had been full, and if they had held with their whole hearts and souls and minds, that there was one God, of whom are all things. They believed the Devil and evil spirits had power to raise thunderstorms, and blight crops, and change that course of nature of which the Psalmist had said that all things served God, and continued this day as at the beginning. For God had given them a law which could not be broken. They believed in magic, astrology and a hundred other dreams, which all began from secret disbelief that God made the heaven and the earth...

And therefore I tell you here; as the church has told Christian people in all ages; if any of you have any fancy for such follies, any belief in charms and magic, any belief you can have your fortune told by astrologers, gypsies, or such like, you must go back to the Bible and learn better the first text in it. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." God's is the kingdom, the power and the glory of all things visible and invisible. All the world around us, with its wonderful secrets is governed, from the sun over our heads, to the smallest blade of grass beneath our feet, by God, and by God alone. Neither evil spirit nor magician has the smallest power over one atom of it; and our fortunes do not depend on the influences of the stars or planets, ghosts or spirits, or anything else but on ourselves, of whom it is written, God shall judge every man according to his works.

"When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?" Isaiah 8:19