Job 37:15

God controls all power; he has made “a way for the lightning”; he has ordained the circuits of all energy. He has decreed the time and manner of the manifestation of all forms of energy-matter. And all these things are held forever in his everlasting grasp — in the gravitational control centering on nether Paradise. The light and energy of the eternal God thus swing on forever around his majestic circuit, the endless but orderly procession of the starry hosts composing the universe of universes. All creation circles eternally around the Paradise-Personality center of all things and beings.

“God knows all things.” The divine mind is conscious of, and conversant with, the thought of all creation. His knowledge of events is universal and perfect. The divine entities going out from him are a part of him; he who “balances the clouds” is also “perfect in knowledge.” “The eyes of the Lord are in every place.” Said your great teacher of the insignificant sparrow, “One of them shall not fall to the ground without my Father’s knowledge,” and also, “The very hairs of your head are numbered.” “He tells the number of the stars; he calls them all by their names.”

All the universes know that “the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” The affairs of this world and other worlds are divinely supervised. “He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” It is eternally true, “there is no power but of God.”

Clouds, rain, and hail have all been feared and worshiped by numerous primitive tribes and by many of the early nature cults. Windstorms with thunder and lightning overawed early man. He was so impressed with these elemental disturbances that thunder was regarded as the voice of an angry god. The worship of fire and the fear of lightning were linked together and were widespread among many early groups.

“All things come from, and belong to, the One God — all-wise, good, righteous, holy, resplendent, and glorious. This, our God, is the source of all luminosity. He is the Creator, the God of all good purposes, and the protector of the justice of the universe. The wise course in life is to act in consonance with the spirit of truth. God is all-seeing, and he beholds both the evil deeds of the wicked and the good works of the righteous; our God observes all things with a flashing eye. His touch is the touch of healing. The Lord is an all-powerful benefactor. God stretches out his beneficent hand to both the righteous and the wicked. God established the world and ordained the rewards for good and for evil. The all-wise God has promised immortality to the pious souls who think purely and act righteously. As you supremely desire, so shall you be. The light of the sun is as wisdom to those who discern God in the universe.

“To whom, then, will you liken God who sits upon the circle of the earth? Lift up your eyes and behold who has created all these worlds, who brings forth their host by number and calls them all by their names. He does all these things by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one fails. He gives power to the weak, and to those who are weary he increases strength. Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness, for I am the Lord your God. And I will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not, for I will help you.

“It is not strange that you ask such questions seeing that you are beginning to know the Father as I know him, and not as the early Hebrew prophets so dimly saw him. You well know how our forefathers were disposed to see God in almost everything that happened. They looked for the hand of God in all natural occurrences and in every unusual episode of human experience. They connected God with both good and evil. They thought he softened the heart of Moses and hardened the heart of Pharaoh. When man had a strong urge to do something, good or evil, he was in the habit of accounting for these unusual emotions by remarking: ‘The Lord spoke to me saying, do thus and so, or go here and there.’ Accordingly, since men so often and so violently ran into temptation, it became the habit of our forefathers to believe that God led them thither for testing, punishing, or strengthening. But you, indeed, now know better. You know that men are all too often led into temptation by the urge of their own selfishness and by the impulses of their animal natures. When you are in this way tempted, I admonish you that, while you recognize temptation honestly and sincerely for just what it is, you intelligently redirect the energies of spirit, mind, and body, which are seeking expression, into higher channels and toward more idealistic goals. In this way may you transform your temptations into the highest types of uplifting mortal ministry while you almost wholly avoid these wasteful and weakening conflicts between the animal and spiritual natures.

“The power of the Lord is great and his understanding infinite. Says the Lord: ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’ God reveals the deep and secret things because the light dwells with him. The Lord is merciful and gracious; he is long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. The Lord is good and upright; the meek will he guide in judgment. Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who trusts God. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

The people of Urantia continue to suffer from the influence of primitive concepts of God. The gods who go on a rampage in the storm; who shake the earth in their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who inflict their judgments of displeasure in times of famine and flood — these are the gods of primitive religion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the universes. Such concepts are a relic of the times when men supposed that the universe was under the guidance and domination of the whims of such imaginary gods. But mortal man is beginning to realize that he lives in a realm of comparative law and order as far as concerns the administrative policies and conduct of the Supreme Creators and the Supreme Controllers.

God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because he “dwells in a light which no material creature can approach.” The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals. He “measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, measures a universe with the span of his hand. It is he who sits on the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a universe to dwell in.” “Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has created all these things, who brings out their worlds by number and calls them all by their names”; and so it is true that “the invisible things of God are partially understood by the things which are made.” Today, and as you are, you must discern the invisible Maker through his manifold and diverse creation, as well as through the revelation and ministration of his Sons and their numerous subordinates.