Isaiah 54:5 For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel… If God is the God of the whole earth, He must be the God of the whole earth just as it is; and I remark that while believers in the true God were tribal and national, the natural mistake which was made, and which should put us on our guard lest we fall into it again in substance, was that of supposing that God was in a special manner the God of a particular class. So let us not forget that if He is the God of the whole earth He is the God of all those physical conditions under which men are born. He is the God of those laws of descent which make the character of the parent go down to the children through many generations. He is the God of those decrees by which the drunkard's children inherit the drunkard's proclivities; by which deceit propagates deceit; by which honour breeds honour; by which motives brought to bear upon parents have an effect on the welfare of their children reaching down to the depths of futurity. He is the God of the climate in which every person lives — of that climate which drives the Esquimaux under ground during most of the months of the year, and that climate which brings the swarthy African all the year into the open air, without clothes and without a swelling. If He is the God of all the earth, then He is the God that establishes those laws which determine the occupations of men, and their characters, in a large degree. He is the God of the physical globe, in this sense: that whatever affects men by its nature, by its unconscious and continuous influence upon them, is of His ordination. Being the God of the whole earth, He is the God of the mountains and of the valleys; of the winter and of the summer; of industry and of commerce; of all the arrangements of life by which men are influenced. Men's places of abode, and their nature, are largely determined by their circumstances; and these circumstances are God's decrees. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. |