Dec 28: Job 38 | Zec 13, 14 | Rev 15, 16
Reading 1 - Job 38:4-7
"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels [Hebrew 'the sons of God'] shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7).
"If there weren't enthusiasm in creation, it would soon run down. Everything is made of atoms, protons, neutrons and electrons, things you can't keep still -- not for a second! They dash in all directions at tremendous speeds, and the heavenly bodies move the same way. The old Greeks called the movement they made as they passed through space 'the music of the spheres.' I don't think they've missed it by very much at all. I believe that God sang when He created things. The motion and speed of the heavenly bodies, the working of little creatures in the earth to make the soil soft, the working of the sun on the earth -- all this is God joyously working in His creation.
"Enthusiasm is seen in creation; it's seen in light. Did you ever stop to think what it would be like if there were no light? If God Almighty were to put a lead sack around all the heavenly bodies and suddenly shut out all the light there is, I wouldn't want to be alive... Some people are afraid of color. They think that spirituality consists in being drab. But God made color! He made all shades of colors. Look at the sunset -- what is it, just something scientific? Do you think that God splashed the lovely, beautiful sky with rose, cerise, blue and white and wasn't smiling when He did that? Is that just an accident of nature, scientifically explained? Then you've got too much learning for your own good! Go empty your head and get your heart filled and you'll be better off. The Holy Spirit wrote 150 psalms and in those psalms God celebrates the wonders of His creation.
"In my state of Pennsylvania the money-greedy scoundrels have bought the coal rights in certain sections of the state. There were beautiful hills there that I grew up to see and love, beautiful sun-kissed hills sometimes mystic blue in the setting of the sun. And the creeks ran below out to the rivers and down to the sea. It was all very beautiful. But I went back to my old place years later, and I found that these money-hungry fellows didn't dig a hole to get the coal; they took bulldozers and dragged the top off the earth -- trees, grass, everything -- to get down to the coal. The result was that thousands and thousands of acres -- whole hills that used to go up with their green to meet heaven's blue -- lay gashed like one vast, gaping grave. The state of Pennsylvania said, 'You've got to fill them all in or we'll fine you $3,000.' And the mining people looked at each other and grinned and paid the $3,000. They left it as it was, and I went away grief-stricken to see my beautiful hills now great ugly sand pits. I went back in a few more years, and do you know what nature had done? Dear old busy, enthusiastic, fun-loving, joyous Mother Nature began