The Voice Upon the Waters
A little while ago we told you about the birth of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. We told you that the word “Genesis” means “the birth,” and that this book tells of “the generation” or birth of all things when they were brought forth by the great Creator. “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.”
It was His word, His mighty Voice, that produced the great world of water. “When He uttereth His voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens.” And that which produced it still controls and rules it. “The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters; yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.”
“The Voice of the Lord is upon the waters.” His Spirit is still moving upon the face of the deep, and the power of His life, that fills all things, works in it His own will. He holds the waters in the hollow of His hand, so no depth can separate us from Him.
“If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even then shall Thy hand lead me.
And Thy right hand shall hold me.”
You remember how Jonah once took ship and tried to hide from God upon His waters of the great deep. But the Lord let him be out right into the midst of the angry waters, and carried down into the depths. He said:
“The deep was round about me;
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottom of the mountains.”
This was to teach him that even there the Lord was right with him, and that it was impossible to flee from His presence.
In the beginning the mighty Voice of God upon the waters gathered them all together, and “shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth.” There are many most beautiful and majestic passages of Scriptures referring to this. Find out as many of them as you can while you are at the seaside this year, and in sight of the mighty waters they will have now power and meaning to you.
This Voice not only was, but still is upon this waters. If it should cease to speak to them, we should be swallowed up like the hosts of Egypt when the Voice of God let go the waters of the Red Sea, after all His own people had safely reached the shore.
So our experience every day is really just as wonderful as that of the Israelites when they walked through the waters on dry land. It is the Voice of God to-day just as much as then, that keeps the people from being overwhelmed by the waters of the great deep.
Jesus showed the power of His voice over the waters, when He spoke to the angry Sea of Galilee, and
“The wild winds hushed, the angry deep
Sank like a little child to sleep;
The sullen billows ceased to leap.”
There is another way in which this mighty Voice is still working in the waters. For after gathering them together and calling them “Seas,” God spoke to the waters, saying: “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.” And in obedience to His Voice, “the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind,” “great whales, and every living creature that moveth.”
The Psalmist tells us that in “the great and wide sea” are “things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.” There is not a drop of the waters of the sea that is not filled with life,—with living creatures so small that they can be seen by us only with the microscope, and many that cannot be seen at all. These are all brought forth by the power of the abiding Word, the Voice that is upon the waters, filling them to-day with life, as in the beginning.
Everything in the sea is brought forth from the waters themselves, and there is in the water all that they need to sustain their life. Some time we hope to tell you more about the things in the sea, and then you will see more clearly how this is.
Once more the Voice of God will speak to the waters, when He shall come to gather His children. For the seas contain something that is very precious to Him,—their cruel waters have swallowed up many of His loved ones. But not one of these will be lost, for the sea shall give up the dead which are in it.
He who caused the great fish that had swallowed Jonah to cast him forth upon the dry land, will make the hungry waters restore all that they have swallowed, and
“The million that sleep in the mighty deep
Shall live on the earth once more.”
The Present Truth – August 9, 1900
E. J. Waggoner