04.003. The Great Starting Point
The Great Starting Point In the Beginning, God-- Genesis 1:1.
I. What four words are these to begin the Inspired Revelation! Of all Holy Scripture He is the Beginning. From Him it proceeds as waters from a fountain, or thoughts from a living Intelligence. Whoever may be the human speaker, He alone is the Revealer, Legislator, and Inspirer. Whoever may be the human writer, He alone is the Divine Author.
II. What four words are these to begin the Story of Creation! There was a beginning to all but God alone. He had no beginning because He was to all else the beginning, the starting point of matter, form, force and life. Here is a denial of Pantheism and Polytheism, materialism and atheism, and every other false system of Religion.
III. What four words are these to begin the disclosure of God’s Nature! “He is before all things and by Him all things consist”; (Colossians 1:17) He is in all things and by Him all things subsist. He is after all things, and to Him all things move as final end and goal, Himself alike without end as without beginning, source from which, sea into which, all being pours!
IV. What four words are these to begin a Consecrated Life! In Him the new creation has its beginning. He, as the Spirit of Life, brooding over our moral chaos, brings order out of confusion, light out of darkness, and life out of death. A Holy Walk begins with Him; it has no other starting point, and each step forward and upward is a fresh beginning with Him.
V. What four words are these to begin a New Year, nay, each new day! “I have set the Lord always before me,” said the devout David. (Psalms 16:8) If He is before us as the object of Faith, we shall endure as seeing Him who is invisible; if as the center of Love, the carnal will cease to control; if as the End of Hope, Eternity will set the measure to Time, not Time to Eternity.
VI. What four words are these to begin every new enterprise and endeavor! Performance and purpose starting with Him. If He is first in thought, love, choice, that is piety. If first in reverence and homage, that is worship. If first in activity and obedience, that is service. When He is first in supremacy and glory, that will be Heaven.
Well may Jacobi say: “My watchword, and that of my reason, is not I, but one who is more and better than I: One who is entirely different from what I am: I mean God! I neither am nor care to be, if He is not!”
“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to whom be glory, for ever. Amen!” (Romans 11:36)