JOB 9
7 Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.
Electromagnetic radiations
"Between us and the sun there is a daily traffic of radiation as familiar and predictable as tomorrow's - sunrise. Less, familiar; and much harder to explain, is the fact that across that vast distance is the fact that the sun not only bombards us with light and heat, but also with streams of electrified particles of its own substance.
Although we cannot see or feel them, they have astonishing effects upon the atmosphere of the earth". (Condensed - Walter Orr Roberts, Scientific American).
To try to explain SUCH UNBELIEVABLE PHENOMENA as coming to pass as the result of "fortuitous circumstances" or "mere chance'' is the height of absurdity; such wonders are the work of a supreme Creator.
Because of these "electromagnetic waves" coming from the sun, we not only have Light, and Heat, and Power, but all the modern miracles of radio, television, radar, X-ray, and a hundred other achievements of modem science that have revolutionized our lives since the turn of the century.
The Apocalyptic Messenger, Aug 2023
8 Which alone [El] spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
The universe is a marvellous, majestic, well nigh infinite CLOCK, with wheels within wheels, - to borrow a thought from the book of Ezekiel.
One writer speaks of "the great clock work of the universe".
Another says,
"The heavens are orderly, the stars are not scattered helter-skelter for ever and ever. They are arrranged in orderly systems called galaxies. Any system has a shape. Our galaxy is shaped something like a pin wheel". (Denver post)
And a writer in "Popular Science " writes an article on "Balancing the Heavens" in which he speaks of,
"the apparently purposeful and deliberate movements of other heavenly bodies like the planets".
He explains the
"the movements of the stars and the comets and meteors, as well as of the planets and the satellites of the planets, result from the uniform working of mechanical laws".
"BALANCING THE HEAVENS" - what a happy expression; and how true! The billions of stars, planets and their satellites are all balanced. Between the force of gravitation and the law of inertia. Which states that matter will persisit in a state of rest but when once it is put in motion, it tends to keep going at the same rate and in the same direction, unless acted upon by some external force.
GRAVITATION pulls the stars toward their centre or nucleus - and toward each other.
INERTIA after once the stars have been put in motion, and in a regular orbit determined by the pull of gravity. By the balance between two great laws of nature, we have the explanation of the ceaseless motion in orbits of the stars and every other heavenly body!
...their is scattered through space a small quantity of hydrogen gas, meteors, meteorites, and small particles. But be the matter ever so small, MATTER IN SPACE WILL IN TIME SLOW DOWN AND STOP ANY MOVING BODY. The finest pendulumm ever made, in the most nearly perfect vacuum man can make, will neither START itself - nor keep going indefinitely.
But the serious thinker at once asks two pertinent questions:
(a)What or who STARTED all this motion? Where did the original "push" come from? Science has no answer. The Bible believer has the perfect answer: the Creator gave the universe its original motion and He is the One who keeps it going! Remember, the universe is NOT an absolute vacuum...
The man made satellites require a tremendous "push" to get them 500 to 1 000 miles above the earth; but they gradually lose altitude and eventually fall to earth.
One of the fundamental maxims of the physical sciences is the second law of thermodynamics: that is, there is a universal tendency to run down, a universal trend "toward randomness" and decline.
On the average, things will get into disorder and run down if left to themselves. Obviously, Someone also had to keep it going. Again, we are forced back to GOD. The fact is, if God should suddenly die - which is of course impossible - the universe would become chaotic in a very short time, even though it is running smoothly now, due to the truth of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the universal tendency toward decay and decline.
(b) WHO keeps this vast machine going?
The Apocalyptic Messenger, Feb 2023
11 Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not: he passeth on also, but I perceive him not.
The earth is beautiful. It bears the marks of wise and good contrivance in every fibre; yet the contriver is nowhere to be found. Job's experience is the experience of all:
'Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him' 23:8
There is no explanation of the vexing problem but the one furnished by the Bible, and this, as a rule, is rejected by the wise of this world-poetisers and all other sorts.
Man alienated from the architect and builder of "this house with starry dome and gemlike floor," cannot find Him by searching, and cannot "feel at home" where He hides Himself in displeasure.
"From room to room" He will rove in vain, to find the trace of Him, unless he enter the little sanctuary of Judea, with its treasured records. Here he will find the "Host" has left a message, explaining that we are "captives" because of revolt, but that we may become "guests" by reconciliation through faith in His son, who laid down his life for us; and that being thus "justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," who will be here in due course to resume possession and management of the star-domed house, in which the reconciled children will be wholly at ease and at home for ever in "the presence of His glory with exceeding joy."
The Christadelphian, March 1894. p114-115
12 Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou?
...And has the father embraced the Truth yet? Well, no; he is very friendly, but he cannot get over the prejudice against the divinity of the Bible which he has imbibed from various "learned" sources. The God of the Bible is too petty for him. He does not like the "narrow way" and the "few-there-be-that-find-it" doctrine. He wants a God who will be a God and a saviour to everybody.
This is a very kindly desire on his part. He might as well want a "nature" that will do no drowning and starving with draught and famine. There is no such God as he wants any more than there is such a nature as he would like. Yet you cannot persuade him to accept the God there is. It seems probable he will go to the grave gazing after a God that has no existence, rejecting "the only living and true God," because He is not what he, a creature, thinks He ought to be.
This is a kind of intellectual infatuation that it is very difficult for common sense to understand. It is the characteristic of wisdom by every standard to find FACTS AS THEY ARE, and accept them with the utmost docility. The man who dictates to facts is bound to be carried away by their irresistible force at last.
Bro Roberts - Second Voyage to Australia
21 Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.
An Argument on the Soul 145 Years Old
-In Benjamin Martin's Philological Library, published in 1740, there occurs the following argument against the popular doctrine of the soul:-
"Notwithstanding the antiquity and universality of the doctrine of the soul's existence, and the many efforts of the most learned pens to support it, I have never yet been able to see anything of reason or truth therein sufficient to render it credible, or indeed intelligible.
The grand principle on which this opinion is received is that mere matter cannot think. It is granted it cannot; and it is also as evident that mere matter cannot move of itself; yet it does not follow that it is incapable of motion, of which, we know it is easily susceptible.
Why then should it be thought incapable of the power of thinking from the Divine Being! I have not seen it proved a contradiction by its greatest oppugners [to oppose]; yea, so far is it from that, we have frequent examples of mere matter being immediately endowed with the power of life and thought by the Divine Omnipotence.
Witness Moses' rod. Was it not matter one moment, and a cogitative animal the next? Is not dust mere matter? And did not God immediately convert it into animals by endowing it with life and thought? . . .
It is evident, therefore, that mere matter being capable (by the Almighty power) of the faculty of thinking is no longer an opinion, but real fact; and consequently the bodies of men and other animals are rendered capable of life and thought on principles more rational and intelligible than that of the existence of souls."
The Christadelphian, Apr 1886
22 This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
Not right. Yahweh brings the perfect to his kingdom.
Job 9:22 is similar to what Job said in Job 2:10. "... What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? ..." But, Job wanted answers as to why evil befell him, and in Job 38:2, Yahweh challenges Job to answer His questions, as Job spoke "without knowledge."
The lessons righteous Job needed to learn were that calamities that befall even the good were not just to prove them, but to improve them even more; that no matter what the circumstances, the end would be for good. Job didn't think he needed proving, but what he needed to understand was that when evil befalls the good, it has nothing to do with their righteousness, but Yahweh's righteousness.
Thus, Job learned the lesson of Rom 8:28 - in that all things work for good because it is meant to improve us and prepare us for the Kingdom. Yahweh blessed his latter end more than the beginning, as our latter end will be if we remain faithful.
Sis Valerie Mello [in isolation, 2017
27 If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself:
If we could lift the lids, as it were, and look in upon what is going on in the brain, we should see that everyone has a gnawing distress of some kind that they cannot get rid of. On that said glad morning all these mental toothaches will cease; the evil that depresses will take flight like the night before sunrise. We shall find ourselves in the presence of a noble King, vesting in himself the proprietorship of the whole earth, come from the God of the whole earth, who can say "I live for ever;" who can say,
"My Father hath given me glory everlasting, and the glory which He hath given me I give you."
Think of being recognised by the gracious smile of such an one, not as a distant act of politeness, but as a close, personal, cordial friendship. That will be the beginning of many ecstasies, for Christ has many friends, and we shall know and rejoice in them all. They are hid away in darkness just now, but he will bring them up again-the salt of the earth, the pick of mankind, God's jewels. We are to be introduced to them. We are to be made one of them.
That will be "receiving the right hand of fellowship" worthy of having. We receive the right hand of fellowship among each other now, but God has to ratify it before it is of any value. If God receive us not, what does human recognition avail? But God will receive us then, if we please Him now, and will introduce us to delightful friends whom we shall never lose, and never tire of, or find any fault in. Rejoicing together with them, we shall be invited to bless a world in darkness.
The promise embraces all the perishing world. All families of the earth shall be blessed. The immortal friends of God are going to be sent out on that errand, and to have power and plenty in their hands for that purpose. At present we can do nothing, though our hearts may break at the universal misery. All we can do is to wait for God, doing the little we can meanwhile. Think of going forth as Christ's representatives, clothed with his authority, and supported by his power, to listen to all cases, and rectify all abuses, punish all crimes, and supply all needs.
Bro Roberts - Trouble now, power soon.
32 For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.
We pray, and our prayers are known to ourselves, and they are known to God; but His thoughts or dispositions towards our prayers are not made known to us till the right time, and so we pray the prayer of faith in the darkness. It befits not His greatness or His holiness that He should speak familiarly in an age like this, when little less than perfect barbarism prevails in all the earth.
It would be refreshing, as no language can describe, to have His response to our advances. He will guide our affairs in answer to our requests; but this is a silent answer, and all the answer suitable to a state of things described by a David as "a dry and thirsty land", The day of "streams in the desert" is coming.
The tabernacle is a prophecy of it, but it is also a prophecy of the days of drought that now prevail, when men, as foretold, "run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and find it not" (Amos 8:12). A recognition of these things is of great value to us while the time of silence lasts. They save us from the destructive disappointment that awaits the anticipations universally fostered by a false theory of God's relation to man.
Law of Moses Ch 14