God Is In Control

“Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

Both the sun and light are creations of God and need to be thought of separately. Why? Notice in the telling of creation that light was created immediately after the Spirit of God moved across the waters?

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:1-3)

But it wasn’t until later, after the creation of light, that God created the sun and the moon.

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:14-18)

God’s light came first. The sun and the moon afterwards.

Jeremiah goes on to point out that God gave the “ordinances” or the function and movement for the moon and the stars. God not only creates materially giving form and substance. God is also the cause and originator of motion and movement, which enables the materially created its function and purpose.

“The Lord of hosts is His name”. In the original Hebrew Lord isn’t used but rather His name, Jehovah.  The word “hosts” comes from the Hebrew, “tsaba”. It means “that which goes forth, army, war, warfare” (Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon)

Jehovah is nothing but a forward motion. He has His angels above, and His elect below.

What message is Jeremiah giving us?

Nothing is random or by chance. We tend to think of creation strictly in a physical sense. We think that motion, “happens” and purpose, “happens”, and that we are all left to our own devices. The belief is that God may intercede at times, but other than that we are on our own. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The creation is of God and the ordinances are of God. God is in control of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth. God is the first cause of everything, and everything is in accordance to God. If this were not so, if God’s hand was removed from all of His creations physically, metaphysically, and spiritually, then His hand would also be removed from His chosen. Everything would collapse and perish.

Bill Hitchcock