Mother Nature's Father Series

The Bible consistently represents God as male. This is true for all 3 Persons of the Trinity.

When the Son became flesh He became a man. The Holy Spirit is always called He. The

male was also the first to be created. All of this in no way means that the Bible depreciates

the female, for we will see that woman was the crown of creation. She put the finishing touch

on it all, and history reveals that the Bible has done more to advance the status of women

than any other force. The Bible is not anti-female, but it is anti-goddess. All through the

ages men have worshipped mother goddesses. Archaeologists are constantly digging up

figures of these goddesses from ancient civilizations. It even crept into Christianity when

Mary was proclaimed the Mother of God, and many in ignorance began to worship her.

Many worship Mother Nature, and for all practical purposes they consider nature as God

Goethe in his Hymn To Nature says, "She placed me in it; she will also lead me forth. I

trust myself to her." The advantages of this commitment to Mother Nature are that you can

be extremely religious, for your goddess is everywhere. At the same time you have no

obligation to do anything but what comes naturally. In other words, you combine pantheism,

which says all is God, and atheism, which says nothing is God. You get, as a result, religious

atheism. This permits you to have a sensible explanation of the world, for all that happens is

according to the laws of Mother Nature.

The Bible, however, says that the laws of nature are not eternal, but that they began in

time, and they were put into operation by the Word of God. God is the Father of all nature,

and He is the Father of all the wisdom and order that men attribute to nature. Those who

think they can explain anything by reference to the laws of nature fail because they can find

no source for the energy of these laws. None would be so foolish as to think that it is the

laws of architecture that builds buildings, or that the laws of navigation sail our ships. They

recognize that these laws must be put into operation by persons. Persons must supply the

energy. You can have a law on the books that will find you for breaking a parking meter, but

a man can break one and drive away with nothing happening. The law is powerless without

persons to enforce it. Laws do not punish or protect anyone. It is only as persons give them

energy that they operate.

The Bible says that this is true also of the laws of nature. It is not the laws that keep

order, but it is the energy behind them, and that energy has its source in God. The laws of

nature are the impersonal means put into operation by a personal God to accomplish His

goals. We who believe this reserve our praise for the wonders of the universe for God, and

not for impersonal laws. With Alfred Tennyson we say, "Hallowed be thy name-Hallelujah,

Infinite Identity, Immeasurable Reality, Infinite Personality! Hallowed be thy

name-Hallelujah!"

As we continue our study of creation we see how God gives birth to all that men attribute

to the wisdom of Mother Nature. God began with the raw materials of land and water, and

on the first day He called forth light. This, of course, is another basic factor needed to

produce and sustain life. But as we continue into the second day we see that God has much

to do yet to prepare this planet for life. Walking into you attic and turning on the light does

not change the mess. It is only as you exert energy that you can put it in order. So God by

His Word begins on the second day to bring order into the chaos. In verses 6 through 8 we

have the creation of the atmosphere.

In verse 6 God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters to separate

them." The word firmament comes from the Latin word, which carries the idea of firmness.

A better word might be expanse since firmament has led critics of the Bible to say that the

Hebrews thought that heaven was hard and had holes in it through which the rain came

down. This is completely unfair to judge Moses by the meaning of a Latin word when the

original Hebrew doesn't mean any such thing. Critics also say that they probably thought

the sky was blue because there was an ocean up there. All of the ignorance that men try to

impose on the Bible is the result of their own ignorance. The Hebrews were not so foolish as