"For ever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness is unto all generations: You have established the earth, and it abides. They abide this day according to your ordinances: for all thingsare your servants." (Psalm 119:89-91)
Everything that God has made is His servant, and does His will. Every created thing, except fallen man, shows forth the praise of God.
"All your works shall praise You, O Lord; and your saints shall bless You." (Psalm 145:10)
It is from the inanimate creation that God's saints are to learn how the truest service of praise is given to Him. They are to be, like the heavens, the rain, the hail, and the snow, the bearers of God's word, allowing it to have perfect freedom of action in them, to use them as it will. Thus they praise Him; for we read again: "Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the heights. Praise Him, all His angels: praise Him all His hosts. Praise Him, sun and moon: praise Him all you stars of light. Praise Him you heavens of heavens, and you waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for He commands, and they were created. He has also made a decree for ever and ever: He has made a decree which none shall transgress. Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps: Fire and hail, snow and vapor; stormy wind, fulfilling His word: Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; Beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl; Kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of theearth; Both young men and maidens; old men and children; Let them praise the name of the Lord; for His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and heaven." (Psalm 148:1-13)
From these passages, together with the familiar one in the 19th Psalm, which says that: "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1) and that: "Their line is gone out throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world," (Psalm 19:4) we learn that true praise to God consists in being just what He has made us to be; and that when the Word which made us, and which dwells in us to uphold us, is not in any way transgressed, that Word is proclaimed. We learn also that God's servants, whether animate or inanimate, abide only as they conform to His Word. "The Word of our God shall stand for ever." (Isaiah 40:8)
And therefore it is that, "he that does the will of God abides for ever." (1 John 2:17)
If there were a star in the heavens that insisted, like man, in having its own way, and that should start off in a path of its own, different from that which God has appointed for it, all can readily see that its perverseness would lead to its speedy destruction; and its ruin would involve others as well.
So rebellious men, who at the last come to nothing, so that they "be as though they had not been," (Obadiah 1:16) are destroyed by their own way,--by their refusal to be guided and controlled by the Word of the Lord. "For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof: Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the backsliding [turning back] of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell securely, and shall be quiet without fear of evil." (Proverbs 1:29-33)
People often tell us that they are sure they could not live if they did exactly what the Bible says. The Judgment will reveal the fact that they cannot live if they do not do as it says. A merchant was asked, on his beginning to keep the Sabbath of the Lord when the light came to him: "How can you afford to close your place of business on the seventh day?"
His simple reply was, "I cannot afford not to."
What a blessed thing it would be if all men would see that since they have life only by God's Word, their only hope of continued existence is conformity to that Word.
Read again the extract from Psalm 148, and note that it is not alone the "stormy wind" that fulfills God's Word, but the "fire and hail, snow and vapors." "Fire, and hail; snow, and vapor; stormy wind fulfilling His word." (Psalm 148:8) "He sends forth His commandment upon earth; His Word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the hoar frost like ashes." (Psalm 147:15-16)
The snow and rain and hail on the earth do but bring the word of God to the earth. They come laden with God's blessing,--His word of truth,--and when they return they carry back the earth's response,--the fruits of the Word. "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and returns not thither, but [except it] waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isaiah 55:10-11)
The budding flowers at springtime and the ripened fruit of autumn are but new forms of the Word which the snow of winter brought to the earth. They are some of "the treasures of the snow." (Job 38:22)
But God's mercy, that endures for ever, is manifested sometimes in wrath, in the destruction of the haters of His law; and the limitless treasures of snow and hail in His storehouses are to be drawn upon in the execution of judgment.
Among the plagues by which He convinced Pharaoh and the people in Egypt that He was God, were "hail, and fire mingled with the hail." "And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field." (Exodus 9:23-25)
The fire and hail and stormy wind fulfilled His word then, and so they will at the last day. He has reserved them "against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war." (Job 38:23)
So we see that the same word and the same agents that make the earth fruitful like Eden, can also, if not received, accomplish its overthrow.
We have the choice either of bearing the precious fruits of the word, or of being consumed by it. Which shall it be?--Present Truth, January 29, 1903--Psalm 119:89-91.