The Astronomy of the Bible; or, God Among the Stars -7
Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832 – 1902)
He who builds His layers in the sky, And has founded His strata in the earth; Who calls for the waters of the sea, And pours them out on the face of the earth— The LORD is His name (Amos 9:6).
It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, And hath founded his troop in the earth; He that calleth for the waters of the sea, And poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name (Amos 9:6 KJV, emphasis added).
Thank God that we now know where our own world is, bounded on all sides by realms of glory, instead of being where Hesiod in his poetry described it to be, namely, half-way between heaven and hell, an anvil hurled out of heaven taking ten days to strike the earth, and hurled out of earth taking ten more days to strike perdition:
From the high heaven a brazen anvil cast,
Nine days and nights in rapid whirls would last;
And reach the earth the tenth; whence strongly hurled,
The same the passage to th’ infernal world.
I thank God that we have found out that our world is not half-way between heaven and hell, but it is in a sisterhood of light; and that this sisterhood joins all the other sisterhoods of worlds, moving round some great homestead, which is no doubt heaven, where God is, and our departed Christian friends are, and we ourselves, through pardoning mercy, expect to become permanent residents.
Furthermore, I get now from all this an answer to the question which every intelligent man and woman since the earth has stood has asked, receiving no answer. Why did God let sin and sorrow come into the world, when he could have prevented them from coming? I wish reverently to say I think I have found the reason. To keep the universe loyal to a holy God, it was important in some world somewhere to demonstrate the gigantic disasters that would come upon any world that allowed sin to enter. Which world should it be? Well, the smaller the world, the better; for less numbers would suffer. So our world was selected. The stage was large enough for the enactment of the tragedy. Enter on the stage Sin, followed by Murder, Pain, Theft, Fraud, Impurity, Falsehood, Massacre, War and all the abominations and horrors and agonies of centuries. Although we know comparatively little about the other worlds, lest we become completely dissatisfied with our own, no doubt the other worlds have heard and are now hearing all about this world, in the awful experiment of sin which the human race has been making. In some way interstellar communication is open and all worlds, either by wing of flying spirits or by direct communication from God, are learning that disloyalty and disobedience doom and damn everything they touch, and the spectacle practically says to all other worlds: “Obey God, keep holy and stay in the orbit where you were intended to swing, or you will suffer what that recreant world out yonder has been suffering for thousands of years.” It is no longer to me a mystery why so small a world as ours was chosen for the tragedy.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 