1. RELATIONS IN WHICH GOD IS KNOWN - GOD KNOWN IN CREATION
[p. 386] 1. RELATIONS IN WHICH GOD IS KNOWN - GOD KNOWN IN CREATION
Acts 17: 23 - 28; Acts 14: 14 - 17
JT The subject to be considered in these readings is God in the relations in which He is known. I thought these passages would suffice at this time. The subject, of course, runs through the Scriptures. God’s management of the creation, and how He is known in it, are of prime importance and affect us every moment. Viewed as of the creation we are, with others, subjects of God’s care, “For in him we live and move, and exist” (Acts 17: 28). Looking at this part of our subject we should be affected by God’s nearness to us every moment. The ungodly are beneficiaries, but we, understanding it, worship God. As in youth, we are enjoined to remember our Creator. In Paul’s address at Athens, the circumstances called forth this subject, and in Paul’s preaching through the great area of Europe, the Spirit of God used him to call attention to this part of the truth, “in him we live and move and exist”. As christians we know His nearness on other grounds, that is, in redemption, and the Spirit of God dwells in us; God is thus near to us, and in us by His Spirit, but even as creatures, our very breath is from Him, and this is true of all men.
JS What you say involves the animal creation.
JT Quite so, and the vegetable creation as well. I thought we might review all. The Lord says, “The earth bears fruit of itself, first the blade, then an ear, then full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is produced, immediately he sends the sickle, for the harvest is come” (Mark 4: 28, 29). Paul says as to a seed put in the earth, “God gives to it a body as he has pleased” (1 Corinthians 15: 38); it is not simply that the earth yields of itself, but God comes into it.
JS So in His mercy God provides that which sustains life.
JT Yes, whether it be the earth itself, or the animals; all are in subjection to man, and usable, too. God is behind them all; and this enters into our thanksgivings for food. It affects us every moment of our lives, and is accentuated as we go on to redemption, and our heavenly calling. It is well to get hold of this fundamental principle.
EP Does it introduce the thought of simplicity in our relations with God? Cain brought in something cultivated.
JT Abel brought in what was living, but offered through death. God accepted that. Of course, what Cain brought would be acceptable if accompanied with the recognition of sin, or by a suitable offering. Leviticus 2 provides for this. Cain ignored this side of the truth, as many do now. You get no blood out of the soil, but you do from an animal. God had constituted them thus.
JS What would you say in respect of the seed? It is the principle of death and resurrection. “What thou sowest is not quickened unless it die”.
JT That is what is said in 1 Corinthians 15: 36. It is to enforce the truth of resurrection. The figure is striking. The Spirit of God says, “God gives to it a body as he has pleased” (verse 38). It has to do with the actual fruit of the earth. That ought to affect us in the use of these cereals, or vegetables. We are dealing now with literal food. God gives the seed a body; we put it into the ground, and He gives it the form in which it comes up. God has had to do with the very thing I am eating: it is not simply what the earth brings forth, God has had to do with it.
AB [p. 388] Would Psalm 19: 1 bear upon our subject, “the expanse sheweth the work of his hands”?
JT Quite so. There the Spirit of God runs into the figurative side. David speaks in that psalm about the heavens; Solomon speaks of the vegetable and animal kingdoms; all enters into our subject. David and Solomon were used of God to enlarge on the physical world in a figurative sense. Still there is the actual, literal side. It is encouraging to know God has to do with everything we use.
ANW The earth did not bring forth the herb without the word of God.
JT Paul’s remark shows that God has to do with every seed. Thus what we get of material things comes to us through God’s hand.
JS This fact overthrows evolution.
JT Yes; it begins with God. The egg was not made first, but the bird that produced it. Evolution leaves God out. He began with the thing in which life was. The thing which is to be propagated is already there by divine creation.
HH God being Creator, His rights are established in creation in relation to everything.
JT Quite so. There will be a final adjustment of everything; so that the very elements themselves will be dissolved. All that is very solemn. In the meantime we are using these things; every man and woman in the world is too, but christians give thanks for them. Our worship in the service of God includes this matter. God is Creator, and has to do with what He created, operating it throughout. He operates even to the root in the ground. We should take that in. Thus we understand that He is not far from any one of us.
WB-w The serpent sought to displace the knowledge of God. He said to Adam and Eve, Ye shall be as [p. 389] gods.
JT Yes, the allusion was to what God had said about a certain tree, that tree involved the knowledge of good and evil. Satan suggested that God was keeping back something that was good, therefore beclouding their souls. It was a question of eating what a particular tree produced. So that the enemy attacked, at this point, the matter of food. The first thing that was injected into man’s mind was that God was holding back something good, which was not so. He was guarding man; there was the tree of life, and God did not deny that to Adam.
HH Paul writes to Timothy, “every creature of God is good ... it is sanctified by God’s word and freely addressing him” (1 Timothy 4: 4, 5).
JT Yes. Every creature of God is good, inclusive of marriage and family relationships. The thought that God should come down to the earth itself, giving the seed sown a body, is remarkable. He takes man out of the ground too, to work out things beyond anything the earth itself suggests, but the link with the ground is there.
JB God used the vegetable creation to show Jonah what He had in mind in connection with the city. In the last chapter of Jonah, He prepared a gourd.
JT Yes. The gourd came up in the night and perished in a night. In Nineveh, besides men and women, there were little children and cattle which God took account of. Jonah was reminded of that. He went outside of the city and the sun beat down upon him. Why did he go outside? God followed him and the gourd comes up and then perished. All this has to do with God’s rights in creation.
JB The same divine name used in Jonah 4: 6 is used in the second chapter of Genesis, “Jehovah Elohim”.
JT It is the plural word. It conveys the full idea of God seen in creation. God calls attention [p. 390] to inanimate creation to help His servant. Jonah should not have been in this position; he should have been inside the city. God caused this gourd to come up in a night; God was able to destroy it too, showing how He operates in His creation. He creates evil, the thing that destroyed that gourd was also God’s creation. Clean and unclean creatures alike went into the ark. Unclean creatures are not wicked, but something that God can use — under certain circumstances.
APT Job was lacking in the knowledge of God in His creative rights.
JT God begins with him in the highest part of creation. He begins with the sons of God and the stars. He Himself speaks to Job. He comes down to the creatures, the lower creatures included.
HB With regard to these thoughts in our service Godward, would the last part of Revelation 4 fit in, “for thy will they were, and they have been created”?
JT Quite so.
SMcC Would what you are drawing attention to in this foundational setting, be of special help to those of us who are younger? Great unrest marks us sometimes in regard of material things, because there is not the right knowledge of God in relation to creation.
JT See how distorted it becomes as it is sought to be acquired without God! We are to accept what comes from the creation with thanksgivings. If it is used for commerce it makes way for money, and money in human affairs has greatly accentuated the idea of lust. “The love of money is the [or a] root of every evil” (1 Timothy 6: 10). It is not the only root, but wealth has become so conveniently concrete that you can hold a large amount in your hand. It is not like a cartload of hay. A silver or [p. 391] gold coin is something very concrete, and valuable in human affairs, being a medium of commerce.
ANW It is the love of money.
JT The thing is so very powerful. It was not mentioned in creation. Gold was mentioned as early as the second chapter of Genesis, but not as a medium of commerce. Now it has become an occasion of lust, because of what can be obtained by it. Lust inquires, What can I get for that? That is where the evil has been accentuated, especially in commerce.
SMcC Paul says, “we labour and suffer reproach, because we hope in a living God, who is preserver of all men” (1 Timothy 4: 10). Is that a reference to creation?
JT Yes; God is a “faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4: 19). Young people are enjoined to remember their Creator (Ecclesiastes 12: 1). Let the thought get into our beings in the days of our youth.
HH Creator is in the plural in that passage.
JT Elohim in Genesis 1: 1 is in the plural also. It is Deity in relation to creation. That is what is in mind now in what we are speaking of.
EP Do you think the commercial side hardens the heart? The thought of God as Creator should make our hearts tender.
JT Yes. As to those greedy of gain, “it taketh away the life of its possessors” (Proverbs 1: 19). Then as to commerce, “Bad! bad! saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth” (Proverbs 20: 14). These passages show the evil influence of buying and selling — where those engaged in it do not maintain righteousness.
E God speaks to Job about the goats bringing forth: “Dost thou number the months that they fulfil?” (Job 39: 2). As though God watches over [p. 392] them.
JT All these things are very touching, they should soften our hearts. It is not the lawgiver, but God’s beneficence in creation.
WB-w Unconverted persons are called upon to know about the Creator objectively.
JT The creation is a universal testimony to all, including the heathen. Psalm 19 has been cited. “Their line is gone out through all the earth”. It is an actual testimony every moment to every living person on the earth.
ANW I think your reference to the hen comes home to everyone of us. Philosophy teaches us to look for the egg. The egg is the fruit of the hen, and the hen is the fruit of God’s creative operations.
JT God made what He intended to propagate. The hen is made and it produces the egg. He makes the thing, and propagates it by generation. Evolution is positively false. The principle in creation, of which we are speaking, enters in christianity; what God produces through the testimony is already there. It is Christ, the great divine standard. The whole thing is there first; then what is to be produced in ourselves. The divine mind is there first — in infinite perfection in Christ. Thus John’s first epistle starts with “That which was from the beginning”.
HH Christ comes in to hold us in right relation to God. The link with God is to be maintained.
JT Yes. This helps us in our gospel preaching; we do not preach to people exactly as ungodly; that they are ungodly is, of course, true, but they are creatures of God, God’s offspring in a sense, and we have a link with them as God has in that way. In Mark the word is “Go into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to all the creation” (Mark 16: 15). The world morally is evil, and against us, but the creation abstractly is of God. We recognise that in men we speak to and preach [p. 393] to.
AR Is that set out in the sheet from heaven, full of creatures? (Acts 10: 11).
JT That is the thought. “What God has cleansed;” they represent believers. Although you preach to men as God’s creation, they cannot come into fellowship as such. We recognise they have a link with God as His creatures, but coming into fellowship involves redemption.
AR “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42: 5, 6).
JT He saw God in what He was saying. Take the war horse, God says in effect, Job have you considered him, how “he smelleth the battle afar off?” (Job 39: 25). That is what marks him, that is the fulness of the war horse. We have a thing or creature basically, and then the fulness of it. The basic side of the creation is in Genesis 1, and the fulness in Genesis 2. That affected Job. It is not simply that the things were there, seen and read about, but God operating in them brings them to your notice as a testimony to Him. That is the idea, “now mine eye seeth thee”. This very remarkable result is the outcome of God saying this and that about His creatures.
AR This is the knowledge of God in creation, preached about in such a way as to bring about repentance. That is the testimony always present among the heathen and everywhere.
JT It is in itself a testimony. A very important matter to keep in mind in the gospel.
CHH In Psalm 148 there is response relative to God in the whole creation. God not only created it, but there is response to Him.
EP God calls Job’s attention to these animals moving in their orbit and Job was not doing [p. 394] that.
JT Quite so. They move generally according to their instincts. Man does not because he is perverted.
APT The young ravens cry to God for their food (Psalm 147: 9).
JT All creatures look to God. It is a divine statement. The book of Job is in a way the textbook of creation, having no allusion to the law of Moses. It is a book by itself; whereas the Pentateuch is the text-book of the law.
JB The haul of fishes, (Luke 5), helped Peter.
JT The Lord knew where the fishes were. In Matthew 17: 27 the Lord tells Peter to take the first fish that comes up, and he would find one piece of money in its mouth. The Lord recognises that piece of money, it was what was needed. “Give it to them for me and thee”, He says.
SMcC Would what you have been suggesting be of great help to our brethren in Europe in the pressure they are going through, and we with them of course — the understanding of how God is so near and operating on these lines?
JT I thought it would come out in that way. God usually helps us in these meetings, according to what is current among His people. God’s relations to the creation in these matters have to be taken into account.
SP This age is marked by the use of what is material, outside of the knowledge of God; what man has been able to fabricate out of what is given by God.
JT The material is misused, because the man using it has got out of hand. He is lawless. The man of sin will honour “the god of fortresses”. Still the actual material is God’s creature, and the christian knows how to regard it. If Satan uses it against God’s people He follows it up; and even on the battlefield men can count on [p. 395] God.
ANW The sparrow does not fall to the ground without the knowledge of the Father.
JT That is comforting. The cry of a man on the battlefield is heard. The Lord says, “How much better then is a man than a sheep!” (Matthew 12: 12). God never withdraws His eye from His people. He is looking at them all the time. Even as to the unconverted, He has rights in them. Any lawlessness perpetrated on the race, God resents. He may use it to scourge, but He watches all, and at a certain time He deals with the evil.
SMcC That is an important matter in connection with the race. While we have been taken out of the world morally it is a great matter to have a sympathetic link with the creation.
JT I do not think in our prayers we should ever forget our fellow men. Christians are to be sympathetic. We have a link with men as creatures, and our prayers should be for them. Our prayers should include them. God is the “preserver of all men, specially of those that believe” (1 Timothy 4: 10). If we are with God we shall include all men in our thoughts and prayers.
ANW “For in him we live and move and exist; as also some of the poets amongst you have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17: 28). He says “we live”, including the congregation with himself.
Rem In 1 Timothy 2 we are told to pray for all men. God would have all men to be saved.
JT Yes; not kings first, but all men. “For God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2: 5). That is redemption, but He is the Mediator between God and men. God desires that all men should be saved; that is, men, women and children.
JS Going back to the question of seed, do you think there is progression in God’s word to Noah, as to seed-time, and harvest — the agricultural year?
[p. 396] JT Quite so. God introduces that in relation to the covenant that He made after the flood with men. The first covenant was with Adam, which he transgressed, now God makes another with Noah (Genesis 9),with which we may connect Genesis 8: 22. We see this running on to this very moment. It is an additional thought to creation. It is a covenant. Very comforting, too, for when the Lord comes out and puts His right foot on the sea and the left on the earth He bears the sign of that covenant, Revelation 10.
WB-w “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5: 24). What was his impression about God?
JT He would not have any more than what was available; creation afforded him much. The line is Adam, Seth, and others. Cain is left out. It is the life line, and Enoch is “the seventh from Adam”. Whatever light or instruction there had been from Adam onward, Enoch got the benefit of it through exercise. We are getting the benefit of exercise come down during the last one hundred years. And so, I believe, all that preceded him culminated in Enoch, the seventh from Adam. His name implies that he was disciplined or instructed, and hence, we can understand that he gathered up these exercises. He would ask questions about Adam and Eve and all who preceded him. That is a very important thing for the young people now. Do they ask questions about the exercises connected with the testimony? “The seventh” suggests the full result of the education of that period. Whatever had come from God, as well as what existed in the creation objectively, was developed through exercise and prayer on the part of others and particularly with Enoch, because he walked with God three hundred years (Genesis 5: 23). We may be sure God said things to him, leading to an increased knowledge of Himself. If [p. 397] we, and especially young people, are to have increased knowledge of God, we have to go back to earlier exercises and follow them up, as Paul says to Timothy, “thou hast been thoroughly acquainted with my teaching, conduct ...” (2 Timothy 3: 10).
JS Job is outstanding as a man who had accumulated knowledge.
JT He was an early subject of the work of God, and a hopeful case. Jehovah Himself definitely took him in hand. Elihu does not finish. God finishes His work. At the end Job is, as it were, a finished product. He has come through severe discipline, the loss of his children, the chidings of his wife; and then he listens to his friends and Elihu. God takes him on. It is God who finishes; this is a principle, so that Job is seen as a priest at the end of the book.
JS He now has a single eye.
JT He is a contributor to the service of God. He is made a priest. God blesses his friends through him, then he has another family, the second family. The first is set aside and the second established. God is to be known in His creation, that is the great result in the book of Job. It is not simply that the creation exists, but God calls attention to it, and His operations in it. It is a most touching thing. The Lord says, Look at the lilies how they grow. It is that God is having to do with them.
HH Does not Job fit in with the godly man in the first Psalm?
JT Yes. You can bring him into the Psalms.
Rem God uses the creation to affect man morally on the line of recovery. The book of Isaiah is filled with such references.
JT Indeed, showing how the prophets took up this matter. We should expect it in the Psalms too, everything that has breath praises [p. 398] God.
HH Enoch prophesied that the Lord would come with ten thousands of His saints (Jude 14). The power that brings God in and establishes things for Him, is a different kind of power to that which is in the world in a destructive way.
JT Christianity is unique, there is no other testimony like it; although each family of God will be the product of a certain testimony. The Lord Jesus will have to do with war when He comes back, and in the sense in which it was exercised by David and others. He comes out of heaven riding on a white horse, and the armies of heaven following Him. There is war, and He executes judgment in a military way. The character of our weapons now is mentioned by Paul. “The arms of our warfare are not fleshly” (2 Corinthians 10: 4). What is important as to warfare now is for the saints to discriminate; “our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities, against authorities, against the universal lords of this darkness, against spiritual power of wickedness in the heavenlies” (Ephesians 6: 12). The example set by the Lord Jesus forbids His disciples taking a sword in the literal sense now, but they retain their position in the heavenly war as good soldiers of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2: 3). Our weapons are not carnal, they are spiritual. We can, however, pray for those who have to take the sword (Romans 13: 1 - 6). They belong to another department, a provisional governmental one, for the preservation of order. Therefore, although we do not belong to it, we can pray for it and pay tribute to it. I believe our prayers are the turning point of all these matters. What are monarchies ordained for? They are provisional for the maintenance of order in view of the testimony, pending the return of the Lord Jesus who will shepherd the nations with an iron rod. The position of the saints is difficult; to the natural mind it seems unreasonable. That is where [p. 399] we need the special support of the Lord to maintain a right attitude with regard to it.
SMcC So at the beginning of the Acts when the brethren were under the fire of persecution they withdrew into their own company. The appeal went up to the Lord God “who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them” (Acts 4: 24), and then they say, “look upon their threatenings” (verse 29), appealing to God in that light.
JT They address Him as ‘despot’ (Acts 4: 28 - 31), and request, “give to thy bondmen with all boldness to speak thy word, in that thou stretchest out thy hand to heal”. That is the kind of warfare; that is how the matter is met; and it is to mark our position — we have to hold to our heavenly status before God. And yet we cannot ignore this material matter, because it belongs to God’s government among the nations. The four monarchies of Daniel relate to the government of the world, but having God’s testimony in view, including the assembly. He is Lord of heaven and earth and is operating with these things to make way for the testimony. Well, if any elements are contending for what is right, I am with their efforts in my prayers, because God is using them to keep ways open for His testimony; not in any national sense, but for the sake of the testimony of God universally. As we see that, we shall be on the side of God in His governmental dealings.
JS We should also become more acquainted with our weapons.
JT Yes, the weapons of our warfare; we are having part in what is wider than current international issues. God is the Lord of heaven and earth (Matthew 11: 25). We are to be with God in what He is doing, and in prayer for those He may use, although they may not be christians. Nebuchadnezzar is called God’s servant, and Cyrus; so today [p. 400] certain governments are serving God; to a point we are with that. God is using them.
CHH Would our spiritual armour and weapons be, “the shield of faith”, “breastplate of righteousness”, “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6: 14 - 17)?
JT That is right; the whole armour of God. Ephesians is on that wide platform. “God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all” (Ephesians 4: 6). He is operating in us, and Ephesians 6: 11 - 13 tells us we are to take the whole armour of God. Then we are to persevere in prayer (verse 18).
JS God’s government being for us is evidenced in our being able to hold these meetings.
JT I believe the brethren are praying for the authorities more than ever. We must recognise that it is not an illegal thing for these authorities to have a sword, but it is for us. Our sword is the “sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word” (Ephesians 6: 17).
WB-w Solomon called for a sword, recognising the idea, but he used wisdom instead.
SP I suppose there was a sword in the hands of Aretas, 2 Corinthians 11: 32, 33: “In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes shut up, wishing to take me; and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands”.
JT It would be used against the testimony. The Jews used their skill (Acts 9: 23), and then the brethren used their skill that Paul might escape; they did not use a literal sword, they used their prayers, and so they defeated the enemy. Paul escapes, not only through prayers, but they let him down through a window in a basket. They must have taken counsel as to the basket. “Through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands”. That shows we must be simple [p. 401] and practical in what we are doing, and not governed by mere legal thoughts.
ANW They would have to work together mutually.
JT It all brings out our position, as belonging to the heavenly army of God. One thing is going through, that is the testimony of God. Other things are subservient. These four monarchies are only appointed in view of the testimony; they belong to God. In Zechariah 6: 5 there are mentioned “the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth”.
CHH Are we entitled to regard all men in the light of Proverbs 8: 31? Wisdom says, “my delights were with the sons of men”. Could we regard all these men as God’s creatures, and on that ground, God having delight in them?
JT It would be only in an abstract sense. “Sons of men” would be a figurative form of speech to convey the pleasing character of manhood as in the relation of sonship. I believe christians are in mind, it is the idea of sonship; not men in their present state, but men in the abstract, as according to God. Adam is the idea of man made in God’s image. Christ is the Son of man. There is the idea of a primary thought developed in sonship. Certain divine thoughts must come out on the principle of generation, not only creation. Adam was made a living soul by the breath of God; he was of God. All is worked out from that.
APT Does not Paul’s position in Acts 16 show now he was affected by the two governments? God’s government operating in the Roman jail to restrain evil; Paul himself is there, and God’s kingdom is in operation concurrently, and God triumphs.
JT Paul identifies himself with all in the prison: “we are all here” (Acts 16: 28). He takes account of them in a different way from mere criminals. The [p. 402] prisoners had been listening to the service of God; that is credited to them. “We are all here”, is very remarkable.
JS I suppose the apostle in that way would act as God’s servant to the jailer.
JT The jail was turned into His temple! What a complete revolution it was! The jail was a temple for the time being where there was prayer, praise, the gospel; and there was a Bible reading in the jailer’s house — all is stated in a few verses.
Now in Acts 14: 15 - 17 the apostle says to the people who would have offered sacrifices to him and Barnabas, “Men, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, preaching to you to turn from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them; who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways, though indeed he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness”. Paul speaks of the creation, but as directly beneficial to man. Men as such, give way to their passions. God suffered all that, “suffered all the nations to go in their own ways, though indeed he did not leave himself without witness, doing good and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness”. God says, I gave you that meal. This testimony brought in here is remarkable. They were going to use the creatures of God for idolatrous purposes, to turn the service of God into idolatry. This is creation’s testimony to support the gospel.
AR Moses speaks of idolatry. “The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to sport” (Exodus 32: 6), and in the days of Noah we have the same thing (Matthew 24: [p. 403] 38).
JT They enjoyed the creatures of God and left Him out. Do I give thanks to God for my dinner? It is not wrong to enjoy it, your heart is filled “with food and gladness;” but if I go beyond that to what is idolatrous that is another matter. Paul brings in this testimony as applying to everyone, good and bad.
EP In the end of Acts 2 “they received their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people”.
JT That is christianity, that is how the christian takes up the benefits of God in creation.
EP In Acts 4: 32, following the threatenings, “not one said that anything of what he possessed was his own”. They sold their possessions and laid the price at the apostles’ feet.
JT Christians are brought constitutionally into accord with God. I may be naturally glad of a good meal, but if I say I will give another man that meal, or half of it, because he needs it as well as I, I become like God.
EP “The whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now” (Romans 8: 22). The thought of feeling enters into that, and it works in our hearts sympathetically.
CHH Peter says to the man in Acts 3: 6, “what I have, this give I to thee”.
WGT While we are looking for the coming of the Lord, we should take account of the longsuffering of God at the same time.
JT Yes. We have to balance ourselves. We are to be like God. We should be longsuffering. We say, We would like the Lord to come, because the pressure is very great, but millions of men may be left out if He comes today. If He had come fifty years ago how many of us would have, been left out? We should consider our fellow men.
JV God is behind everything. “Who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways”. Then in Acts 17: 26, 27, “having determined ordained times and the boundaries of their dwelling, that they may seek God”.
JT That is very touching. That is, God has restricted men that they might seek Him. So the division of the race in Genesis 11 implies what are called national boundaries. He set bounds. “Jehovah scattered them thence over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11: 8). That might seem as though He let them go out indiscriminately to do as they liked. As you travel about the Pacific you wonder how the people got into the many islands. How did the aborigines get into Australia? God set the bounds of their habitations, He did not let them go on as they wished. God has not lost sight of men. The nations are the consequence of God having to do with men. The blessing of Abraham has arrived at the nations, but in the limitations in which God has set men. National boundaries curb aggression and tend to preserve order. They should be preserved, because they preserve order and make way for the gospel. It is remarkable how the western nations opened up for the gospel.
EP Do you think boundaries such as oceans and mountains would remind man that he is not up against man simply, but up against God?
JT Boundaries, climatic and other conditions, have tended to distinguish certain groups from each other. If all were alike, spoke the same language, and had the same pursuits, you would have more rapid development of sin, but the dividing of the nations has tended to weaken the power of Satan; government also has weakened the power of Satan. We perhaps do not think of these matters. The book of Genesis shows how God foresaw the necessity for these limitations. He had Abraham in view,
“[p. 405] in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12: 3). That would change the patriarch’s mind about men generally. Genesis shows how God ordered things for us so that the gospel should have free course. “That the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations” (Galatians 3: 14).
JS That is God’s governmental control.
JT That has not ceased. He is dealing with current conditions today on this principle.
HH In Deuteronomy 32: 8 “He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel”.