THE GOD OF HEAVEN

The gods of earth are always changing. Their number can be increased or decreased as circumstances, superstition or popular demand require. Not so the God of heaven. Heaven is His dwelling place. There He sits supreme. All the inhabitants of that world obey His command.

This was the God whom Abraham obeyed. When it was a question of the marriage of his son Isaac, it was not compatible that such a son of promise should be united in marriage to a daughter of the idolatrous Canaanites. As the honourable patriarch despatched his servant on the search for a suitable bride, he made him solemnly swear by no less a greatness than the ‘God of heaven’, Gen. 24. 3. Such a great God is not above being interested in the marriage arrangements of his servants.

It was this same God before whom Nehemiah sat and wept and prayed. Affairs on earth, especially at the city of God, were distressing. Few seemed to care about Jerusalem, the place of God’s testimony on earth. What could Nehemiah do? Did he sink into helpless despair? Did he give in to a cynical bitterness? Did he become a victim of negativity and defeatism? No, he prayed to the ‘God of heaven’. Such a God heard and cared.

Even heathen potentates, on occasion, were brought to acknowledge the supremacy of the God of heaven. Cyrus, the conquering king of Persia, acknowledged ‘the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth’, Ezra 1. 2.

Now it is the turn of the runaway prophet. Jonah’s theology was good. He was an old time creationist for he affirmed that the God of heaven also ‘made the sea and the dry land’, Jonah 1. 9. However, it was ironic that he was trying to get away to hide somewhere on the planet which he averred to have been made by the God whom he confessed and professed to fear! How often our theology is contradicted by our practice. The message was not lost on the heathen sailors for before long they were praying to and praising this same God.

May we represent him faithfully this day so that like the Hebrew poet we may ‘give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever’, Ps. 136. 26.