Job 26:7

And hangeth the earth upon nothing.

The basis of the great realities

That is the startling and sublime conception of the sacred poet, that the earth is sustained by impalpable and spiritual energies. But if you go to the mythology of the Hindoo, you find that the earth rests on the back of an elephant, and that the elephant stands on a tortoise! Now these two ways of looking upon the stability of the earth penetrate the whole world of thought. One great school of men finds that the basis of all things is spiritual; another school finds that the basis of all things is material. Says one, the life of the universe is supernatural; says the other, we can only trust a tangible and material foundation. There in nature, as Job says, “He hangeth the earth upon nothing.” He says that the basis of the world is invisible and metaphysical; in a word we say in this place that the ultimate factor in nature is spiritual; that out of the spiritual arose the visible; that the spiritual holds the visible together; that the spiritual governs the visible and directs it to some intelligent and noble goal. We say, not the sensational, not the material, but the visible universe, hangs on nothing--on the unseen power of the spiritual God. You go to some sceptical men today and ask them, What holds this earth up? Why the imponderables, the ethers, the electricities, the galvanisms, the gravitations--the elephant and tortoise! Go and ask them where all the flowers came from. There was a time when there was not a single plant on the planet. Where did they all come from? Well, they say, if you go back far enough, you go back to a meteor stone which brought from other planets the germs of vegetable life and beauty. If you go far enough back! Only you see, it is not far enough back, it is the tortoise again! You go to the physiologist and ask him where physical life, animal life comes from? He says, if you want to explain animal life you must go back to--what? Odic forces, nervous energy! Oh no, no, no, it is not far enough back; it is stopping once more at the elephant and tortoise. And that is exactly what we in the Church refuse to do. We won’t stay here, but we will go with the sublime philosophy of the text, to the living God. And we believe that at last the things that are seen rest upon the wise and eternal will of God, over all blessed forever. When these men say that everything is to be explained by natural laws, natural causes, natural sequences, we believe in natural laws, natural causes, natural sequences. But before all changes, all states, all stages, we must find the Prime Mover, and, as to all the rest, all the secondary causes, the will of God works through them all, to His high and wonderful purpose. Go to the sceptical biologist today, and he says, if you want to explain organisation you must go back, and you will find that the organisation of today is based upon simple organisation in the primitive epoch. In other words, you are to go back and to find the microscopical tortoise in the primitive mud. You go to a sceptical astronomer and ask what keeps the universe up. “Oh,” he says, “one star hangs upon another.” Very good. And they all hang upon the topmost star. Everything is dependent upon the central sun. In other words, your central sun is the transfigured tortoise. Go to the sceptical geologist and say, “What do things rest upon?” He says, “The earth you walk upon rests upon the carboniferous epoch.” “Yes, and what does that rest upon? That rests upon the Devonian.” “Very good; and what does that rest on?” He says, “That rests on the Silurian.” “And what does that rest on?” “That rests on the cosmical dust.” A lively tortoise! We hold the tortoise and the elephant are very good as far as they go; but they do not go far enough. And you have never gone far enough, whilst you keep to secondary causes, whilst you keep to intermediary forces. You can never find rest for the intelligent soul, until at the back of the physical universe, with its interdependencies and its evolutions, you find the God who made and ruled it, and is bringing it through the ages to some wise and magnificent consummation. I say, let us, in these days of materialism, keep well this before the world--“In the beginning God,” the first cause, God in whom all things are held together; God who directs everything to a noble and adequate consummation. You know, where I live, the speculative builder has turned up, and he has built a row of houses opposite to my modest cottage. I had a grand time when I went to live there. I had the sky, and the sunrise, and the sunset, and the procession of the clouds, and the colours of the spring, and the glory of the summer. I never dared to speak of it, lest my landlord should put up my rent! If he had made me pay for all that, he would have wanted a fine fee. But in comes the speculative builder, and puts up this row of horrid bricks and mortar. And now the only glimpse I get of the violet sky is in a puddle in the street. I never see the splendour of the sunset, except a stray gleam in a window pane. As for the growths of the summer, the only relics I how see are two smutty, smutty growths in a little plot that they poetically call my garden! They call it London Pride that grows there. But if London is proud of it, it shows the humility of the metropolis! Now what I want yon to see is this: that just as the bricks and mortar have shut out nature, so nature herself may become so much dead brick and mortar to shut out the greater world that is back of it. Men stop with the visible, and they forget the unseen and eternal universe, of which this world is but a theatre of images and shadows. Now find another illustration of the text in society. If God is the ultimate factor in nature, God is once more the ultimate factor in society. “He hangeth the earth upon nothing.” He hangeth civilisation upon nothing. Now there, again, you find the objector comes in. He says, Oh, you believe everything rests in society upon a spiritual basis. Yes. Well, I don’t; I believe that society is built upon instincts, upon utilities, upon governments. The elephant and tortoise again! What are the three great words in the world today touching civilisation? “Liberty, equality, fraternity?” Let us drop that legend and take up these which come nearer co the point--sympathy, righteousness, hope. Society is held together, it advances by the power of these three words. If you come to look at them, they are all metaphysical. Sympathy--What a power sympathy is in civilisation! The home, society are held together by it. Go to the materialist, and he says, Society is held together by hooks of steel. What are they? The policeman’s handcuffs, that is it. How is society held together? By the hangman’s noose. Coercion, penalties, punishments--society rests there! Society does not rest there. One of the great factors is that wonderful thing you call love that has been working obscurely in the world from the beginning to this hour. Forbearance, unselfishness, disinterestedness, gratitude, love. Oh, says the utilitarian, hang the earth upon the thick cart rope of coercion. He hangeth civilisation upon the fine silken thread we call love. And today in society, love plays the same part that gravitation plays in the physical universe. Righteousness. What is righteousness? Oh, says the utilitarian, righteousness is a coarse fibre,--self-interest. That is the sustaining force of righteousness. What is the force which sustains righteousness? It is spiritual. “God hangs the heavens upon the finest wires,” say the ancients; and morality depends upon faith and love. If you want a guarantee for morality, what is the great guarantee which the New Testament gives? That the love you feel to the world’s Saviour will prompt your obedience to the world’s Lawgiver. Hope. There is another great word that moves and sanctifies society. If it were not for hope, the nation would wither, civilisation would wither. And the hope of the world is at last the confidence of men in an unseen but a faithful God. And so, in civilisation as in science, the great forces that mould, and sustain, and inspire, and perfect, are not gross materialism and mean utilities, but they are in fine threads, noble feelings, and these threads sustain the whole fabric of civilisation. And therefore in the Church, you know, we seem really nobody. If you get a statesman, he has got an army at his back. If you get a magistrate, he has got a lot of policemen at his back. If you get a merchant, you get the Bank of England at his back--more or less! But we in the Church have no political mastery. When we lay down a law, we cannot call in the policeman. We have none of the forces of bread and gold. What have we got in the Church? Well, I say this, the Church is the master of the forces that mould society, that is all. The Church is the master of those great emotions of sympathy, of sentiment, of righteousness, of hope. Never you be troubled because you think the Church has a somewhat isolated and spiritualised and apparently uninfluential situation. It is the spiritual that governs society. I must show you how the text is illustrated in the Church. “He hangeth the earth upon nothing.” Religion--what is religion? Religion means a bond, a spiritual bond, between my soul and my Maker, and my salvation hangs where the earth hangeth and where salvation hangs, on the Word of God in Jesus Christ; there and only there. You are wrong again, says the objector, and he begins to call in the elephant and the tortoise. Says he, What about the Church? Your salvation rests on the Church, its services, sacraments, its spiritualities. Don’t you see it is resting (and I speak with great respectfulness) our salvation upon the elephant and the tortoise, instead of going back to the spiritual God and His truth, love, and grace, and these only? My salvation depends upon my personal fellowship with my living Lord. He hangeth the earth, not upon the coarse thread of historic continuity, but upon the fine thread of the spiritual past. My salvation does not hang upon a connection with the ceremonial Church. There they fix me up with the visible, mechanical, ceremonial Church. It is like a man who believes the earth wants shoring up. Not a bit of it. I can do with certain of these things and I can do without them. I am not bound to the visible ceremonial Church. Hangs my salvation on the simple Word in Jesus Christ, and there is the vital truth for you and for me. “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, for He seeketh such to worship Him.” “He hangeth the earth upon nothing,” and it hangs well. Fasten yourself to the same thread and you shall not find that you will be confounded. (W. L. Watkinson.)