The Spirit on the Waters

‎The earth, as it first rose out of the void at God’s command, was a small huddled mass, a chaos of atoms heaped confusedly together. It was wholly unlike the world which smiles about man to-day, fixed in form, clothed with verdure, and teeming with busy life. The confused mass must at first have rolled onward amid an unspeakable tumult. Holy Writ is here enforced by science, which suggests a terrific picture of the awful battle between opposing elements. Tremendous explosions, fiery rains of white-hot liquid metal, vast clouds of vapor, stifling poison gases, enveloped all.

‎Profoundly impressive is the thought that God’s creative power was still active throughout this monstrous pandemonium. Every Titanic outburst was guided and directed toward His purpose. Of this, we have divine assurance in the second beautiful verse of the Bible narrative. The earth was formless, it was empty of life; darkness, profound darkness, covered its black deeps. Yet the Spirit of God was there, the creative force moved upon those waters wherein the earliest life was to develop. The vaporous clouds began to lessen. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”