The immensity of the material universe is for us a symbol of the
infinity of God's long-suffering love.
The creation proceeds from a greater Creator. That gigantic and
overwhelming magnitude, that hoary and immemorial age, that complicated
and innumerable multitude of details, what less can they show than ONE
Eternal and Infinite?
The immense suggests the infinite.
Granted that you cannot from the immense creation rise logically to the
Infinite Creator, still the facts that the soul conceives that there is
an infinite God, and is conscious of the spontaneous evoking of that
thought by the contemplation of the immeasurable, are strong reasons
for believing that it is a legitimate process of thought which hears
the name of God thundered from the far-off depths of the silent
heavens. The heavens cannot be measured, no plummet can reach to the
deep foundations of the earth. We are surrounded by a universe which to
our apprehensions is boundless. How much more so from expansions of our
conceptions of celestial magnitudes since Jeremiah's days, and what is
to be the lesson from that? That we are insignificant atoms in this
mighty whole? that God is far away from us? that the material stretches
so far that perhaps there is nothing beyond?
The thought of faith is that the material immensity teaches me my God's
infinity, and especially His inexhaustible patience with us sinners. It
teaches us the unfathomed depths of His gracious heart, and the abysses
of His mysterious providence, and the unbounded sweep of His
long-suffering forgiveness. His forgiving forbearance reaches further
than the limits of the heavens. Not till these can be measured will it
be exhausted, and the seed of Israel cast off for what they have done.
He, the Infinite Father, above all creation, mightier than it, is our
true home, and living in Him we have an abode which can never be
'dissolved,' and above us stretch far-shining glories, unapproached
masses of brightness, nebulae of blessedness, spaces where the eye
fails and the imagination faints. All is ours, our eternal possession,
the inexhaustible source of our joy. Astronomers tell of light which
has been travelling for millenniums and has not yet reached this globe;
but what is that to the flashing glories which through eternity shall
pour on us from Him? So, then, our confidence should be firm and
inexhaustible.
God has written wondrous lessons in His creation. But they are
hieroglyphs, of which the key is lost, till we hear Christ and learn of
Him. God has set His glories in the heavens and the earth is full of
His mercy, but these are lesser gifts than that which contains them all
and transcends them all, even His Son by whom He made the worlds,
and--mightier still--by whom He redeemed man. God has written His mercy
in the heavens and His faithfulness in the clouds, but His mercy and
His faithfulness are more commended to us in Him who was before all
things, and of whom it is written: 'As a vesture shalt Thou fold them
up, but Thou art the same and Thy years shall not fail.' God has
confirmed the covenant of His love to us by the faithful witnesses in
the heavens, but the love shall abide when they have perished. The
heavens bend above us all, and over the head of every man the zenith
stands. Every spot of this low earth is smiled upon by that serene
apocalypse of the loving will of God. No lane is so narrow and foul in
the great city, no spot is so bare and lonely in the waste desert, but
that thither the sunlight comes, and there some patch of blue above
beckons the downcast eye to look up. The day opens its broad bosom
bathed in light, and shows the sun in the heavens, the Lord of light,
to preach to us of the true light. The night opens deeper abysses and
fills them with stars, to preach to us how fathomless and immense His
loving kindnesses and tender mercy are. They are witnesses to thee,
dear friend, whatsoever thy heart, whatsoever thy sins, whatsoever thy
memories. No iniquity can shut out God's forgiving love. You cannot
build out the heavens. He will not be sent away; you cannot measure,
you cannot conceive, you cannot exhaust, His pardoning love. No storms
disturb that serene sky. It is always there, blazing down upon us
unclouded with all its orbs. Trust Christ; and then as years roll on,
you will find that infinite love growing ever greater to your loving
eyes, and through eternity will move onwards in the happy atmosphere
and boundless heaven of the inexhaustible, deep heart and changeless
love of God.