to
non-Christian ways of thinking. God is distinct from His world; He is
never separated from it. Is this difficult? An illustration may help
if it is not pressed too far. An eagle is perched on the topmost bough
of a tall dead tree. A motor boat hurries by at some distance across
the water. The great bird takes flight. It is in the air. It
breathes the air and is upheld by it. The air is in the bird, in every
quill, I believe, of every feather. Yet the bird is not the air, and
the air is not the bird. They are distinct; separated they cannot be.
Without the air the bird could not exist. "In God we live and move and
have our being." We cannot for a moment imagine Him away. Without Him
we could not exist. Yet man is not God. We are close akin, He is very
near. But God is not man, nor man a part of God. We hear sometimes
that God is all and all is God. Christian truth cannot be expressed in
this way. Our faith in the Holiness of God declares that He is within
the world but distinct from it, above it, around it, controlling it,
making it the servant of His will, that He is the source of all, the
upholder of all, the Master of all.

GOD IS ALMIGHTY

God our Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, is Almighty. "The Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth." Here also are two words and two thoughts, not
one alone. God is Almighty in the sense that His power is supreme and
irresistible. This is wholly true but it is not the thought that
stands in the forefront either in Holy Scripture or in the creed. It
is there in the background, where sheer force must be and ought to be.

The prominent thought, however, when we profess our faith in God the
Father Almighty is the thought of His wise, holy sovereignty. He is
the Ruler of all, the Master of all, of Himself and of all persons and
things. Not by might but by persuasion He is content to exercise His
Dominion over men. So God governs the world and in His government we
find the model for the true government of men. Force has its use only
where freedom has failed. It is not God's power but His patience that
excites our wonder and at times our perplexity. We are puzzled because
He does not intervene more directly with His outstretched arm, but
waits on man's agency and allows such latitude to man's self-will and
blindness and cruelty. It is the price of our freedom. This we know
and more we do not know as yet. But we can trust our Father for what
Jesus Christ wa