The Voice of God Almighty
The darkness rolled away –
“Let there be light! And there was light!”
Dividing night from day:
The swelling seas, the snow-capped peaks,
The far-flung stars of space,
The tiniest weevil, rarest flower
And then the human race.
What is this God? – So vast, supreme,
Commanding sun and stars,
Who watches aeons of time pass by
‘Yond Jupiter and Mars?
Why spoke He all this into being,
Then let the centuries flow,
A Silent River none can stem,
Just where did this God go?
“His eye is on the sparrow,”
But to Him it cannot fly,
The most intelligent of men
Can’t reach Him through the sky,
He “sits in heaven” and laughs to scorn
The futile ways of men,
With telescopes and microscopes,
This God they’ll never ken.
Each generation “makes discoveries,”
Finding out what’s there,
Proudly claiming copyright
For each “invention rare,”
But all too soon “what’s new” is old
As fashions fade and fly,
Today’s thrills soon are yesterday’s,
The stream of time goes by.
God releases knowledge slowly,
A little here and there,
Who is this King of Glory
Who’ll never glory share?
God’s silence makes a mockery
Of man’s excessive claims,
But when God speaks, man’s mouth is stopped!
At God’s demands ashamed:
“Who’s this that darkeneth counsel
With foolish words of men?
Gird up thy loins, Job, like a man
And answer thou Me then!
Where wast thou when I the earth‘s
foundations carefully laid?
When the morning stars sang together
At all that I had made?”
“Who shut up the sea with doors?
Commanded proud waves stayed?
Hitherto shalt thou come! No further!”
God once said,
“Hast thou entered the springs of the sea
Or searched the secret depths?
Hast thou perceived the breadths of the earth,
Or been through the gates of death?”
“Hast thou entered the treasures of snow
Or seen the wonder of hail?
Who causes rain to fall on the earth
Where man can never assail?
Canst thou lift thy voice to the clouds,
Send lightnings over the earth?
Canst thou feed the lion or raven
Know the time of the wild goat’s birth?”
“Who gave wings to the peacock, feathers the ostrich,
Strength to the horse as thunder?
Doth the eagle mount up at thy command
To the crag of the rock to seek plunder?
Shall he that contends with Almighty God
Instruct and reprove Him at length?
Gird up thy loins now like a man
And stand in My excellence!”
“Behold the hippopotamus! – Drinking up a river!
Canst thou tame the crocodile
Or cause his skin to shiver?
Then who can stand before Me? –
All under heaven is Mine!
Who first gave Me? – that I repay? –
Let all the earth decline!”
“Who dares stir up this crocodile? –
He fears not high or low,
Thou canst not draw him with a hook
Or bid him come and go,
His teeth his terror, his scales his pride,
His eyes a piercing stare,
His mouth is fire, his nostrils smoke,
His breath a kindling flare.”
“His neck his strength, his heart a stone,
The mighty fear and quake,
The sword of steel, the spear and dart
Of iron, like straw he’ll break,
He laughs at arrows, stones and slings
And makes the deep to boil,
A king! – There’s not his like on earth!
All children of pride he’ll spoil!”
“And who hath measured the waters
In the hollow of his hand
And comprehended the dust of the earth
In a measure, and heaven spanned?
Who took the mountains and weighed them in scales
And then the hills in a balance?
Who hath directed the Spirit of God
And made Him understand?”
“The nations are as a drop in a bucket! –
As nothing! As less than nought!
God sits on the circle of the earth,
Have ye not known or been taught?
There is no searching of His understanding,
Hast thou not known or heard?
The Creator of the ends of the earth!
The Almighty God is Lord!”
But why all this? Why man at all?
Just what has God produced?
He fashions heaven and earth, then man! –
Whom devils have seduced.
“For dust thou art and unto dust
Shalt thou return!” I say –
“The ground is cursed! In sweat and sorrow
Shalt thou eat each day!”
But God! O why? O why? O why?
Is man just formed to die?
You breathed “the breath of life” in him,
A living soul! – But why?
You made him in Your image –
In Your likeness fashioned him
To have dominion o’er the earth
And every creeping thing!
You made no other creature
In Your image quite like man,
You gave him beasts and birds and fish
Within Your higher plan,
You saw it good – yes! Very good! –
The hosts of heaven and earth,
But what went wrong? O what went wrong
So soon just after birth?
Before the mountains were brought forth
Or ever You formed the earth,
From everlasting to everlasting,
Thou art God! – Before man’s birth,
No being in heaven or earth or hell
Can claim any might of his own,
We spend our years as a tale that is told,
But God is still on His Throne.
Men may fail and devils deceive
But God thunders forth from the Mount:
“I am the Lord! The Lord, thy God,
Who from Egypt have brought thee out!
No other gods shalt thou have before Me
And Me above all others thou shalt love
With all thy soul and mind and might
And Me alone shalt thou prove!”
The same yesterday and today and for ever,
Our God unchanging remains,
He knows no shadow of turning though men
And angels may curse or praise,
When Lucifer said, “I’ll ascend into heaven,
I’ll exalt my throne above God!
I’ll ascend above the heights of the clouds –
Be like the Most High!” His word –
God answered, “Thou shalt be brought down to hell,
In the sides of the pit thou shalt dwell!
As I have thought, it shall come to pass!
I purposed! My word is the last!
As I have thought” – God never has changed –
“And as I purposed!” This Ancient of Days!
His dominion everlasting shall ne’er be made void,
His Kingdom eternal never destroyed!
Within this mighty river
Of God’s Silence there’s a flow
Of purpose vast and wide that’s lost
As centuries come and go,
From man’s minutest vantage point,
A speck on the shores of time,
He cannot possibly comprehend
His Maker’s plan sublime.
Like the lap of a wave at his feet his life
Is passed as a moment of time,
A tiny droplet in this river
He cannot advance or decline,
He scans the horizon across the swell
But beyond he cannot be,
He cannot plummet the depths beneath
Or fathom this bottomless sea.
He cannot journey upstream against
The flow to find the source,
Nor can he skip down-stream to seek
The furthest end of its course,
He cannot dictate the time of his birth
Nor withstand the time of his death,
He cannot find out from beginning to end
The work that God made by a breath.
O the depths of the riches of wisdom!
And knowledge of God in His might!
How unsearchable are His judgments
And His ways past finding out!
The Ancient of Days created all things,
And who hath known the mind of the Lord?
“For of Him and through Him and to Him
Are all things!” Praise God for evermore!
Peter Burt
GOSPEL CRUMBS 
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