“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth….For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Psalm 33:6-9. “We need more to be shut in the audience with God. There is need of guarding our own thoughts. We are surely living amid the perils of the last days. We must walk before God meekly, with deep humility, for it is only such that will be exalted. – O how little man can comprehend the perfection of God, His omnipresence united with His almighty power. A human artist receives his intelligence from God. He can only fashion his work in any line to perfection from materials already prepared for his work. In his finite power he could not create and make his materials to serve his purpose if the Great Designer had not been before him, giving him the very improvements first in his imagination. – The Lord God commands things into being. He was the first Designer. He is not dependent on man, but graciously invites man’s attention, and cooperates with him in progressive and higher designs. Then man takes all the glory to himself, and is extolled by his fellow men as a very remarkable genius. He looks no higher than man. The one First Cause is forgotten…. I am afraid we have altogether too cheap and common ideas. “Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee” (1 Kings 8:27). Let not anyone venture to limit the power of the Holy One of Israel. There are conjectures and questions in regard to God’s work—“Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5)…. In the formation of our world, God was not beholden to preexistent substance or matter. For the “things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3). On the contrary, all things, material or spiritual, stood up before the Lord Jehovah at His voice, and were created for His own purpose. The heavens and all the host of them, the earth and all things that are therein, are not only the work of His hand; they came into existence by the breath of His mouth. – The Lord had given evidence that by His power He could in one short hour dissolve the whole frame of nature. He can turn things upside down, and destroy the things that man has built up in his most firm and substantial manner….In fires, in floods, in earthquakes, in the fury of the great deep, in calamities by sea and by land, the warning is given...
