The Manifold Works of God
“O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches” (Psalms 104:24).
Matthew Poole commented on Psalm 104 about the year 1676, saying, “This psalm declares and celebrates the wonderful and gracious works of God to all mankind in the creation of this visible world, and in the wise and powerful disposition of all things therein to man’s use and comfort.” In other words, this psalm shows how God is using all of the natural creation for the benefit of man.
God spares no amount of time, material, effort, personnel, or attention to detail, to bring about his intelligent creation and then give them full opportunity to receive the maximum possible blessings. But mankind’s appreciation of these blessings is sorely limited. Most are like small children as they encounter the “miracles” of Christmas morning.
The children awaken to the smell of wonderful food and treats, to a tree with lights and ornaments, to presents under the tree, a new sled, a bicycle, a new doll house. They have no understanding of how these wonders came to be. Dad worked to earn the money; Mom did the shopping, wrapping and cooking. Both stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to put the bicycle and doll house together and all for the joy of seeing their children’s happy faces on Christmas morning. And then, after all this work, these miracles are attributed to “Santa Claus!”
The miracle of earth is similar. Recall the Apollo mission photo of the “earth rise” as the astronauts orbited the moon. They were living the harsh reality of a lifeless solar system, and were then overwhelmed by the “jewel of life,” their home, the good earth, rising above the lunar surface. Our earthly home is a miracle in every sense of the word. For every parameter necessary for life, earth is in the “Goldilocks” zone where everything happens to be “just right.” But most people attribute this multitude of miracles to the “Santa Claus” of Mother Nature — with no acknowledgment to the one true God Who planned it all and made it happen through His manifold works.
CREATION OF THE ELEMENTS
If we go back to the time when there were no works of God, when the earth was not full, when there were no riches, we see from Isaiah 46:10 that God had planned all things, declaring the end from the beginning. Where did it all begin? It began with the creation of the Logos, who in turn created all things — Lucifer, the angelic host, and then the universe.
Psalm 19:1 speaks to the wise. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” As suggested in Psalm 8:3, let us “consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.” To make all these things, God needed to first create the building blocks for what we see today. This means the creation of all the 92 elements in the periodic table. But how was this done from the beginning?
Over 13 billion years ago God was the Great First Cause which brought forth unthinkable amounts energy in what science terms the “big bang.” After a few seconds, this energy coalesced into atomic particles of protons, neutrons and electrons, which then formed the simple elements hydrogen and helium. But this was not adequate for building planets and eventually all the things needed for life. To make the other elements God planned for the helium and hydrogen to be concentrated into stars which become the factories to produce the heavier elements over the course of billions of years.
This happens through nuclear fusion in the core of stars, where tremendous heat and pressure fuse lighter elements together to form heavier elements, while producing even more energy. In the core of giant stars, heavy elements continue to fuse, until the star begins to form iron. At this point the entire star collapses in a colossal implosion, followed by a super-nova explosion, which frees more energy than during the entire previous life of the star. The next few seconds witness the creation of all the heavy elements, which are blown out into space to form a nebula. The nebula then becomes a nursery for future stars and planets. This is how elements such as copper, silver, and gold were made for later use in the Tabernacle. They were forged in the hearts of exploding stars!
About 4.6 billion years ago the nebular remnants of a super nova began to coalesce and spin, forming the star we call the sun. Rocky masses that continued to orbit the sun became the inner planets, while gasses and dust far from the sun formed the outer gas giants. Meteors and comets rained down on the planets increasing their mass and size.
TILTING OF THE EARTH
The early earth was smaller than what we know today, until a rogue planet, about the size of Mars, collided with the early earth in a stupendous collision. This event tilted earth’s axis and ripped material from the inner earth which then rained down on the surface to deposit heavy elements in locations where man could easily reach them in due time. This included elements such as iron, copper, and nickel, which man would need, especially in the times of restitution. The tilt of the earth’s axis was necessary to produce earth seasons, demonstrated by the sun’s noonday position being higher in summer than in winter. This happens because earth’s tilted axis points toward the sun in summer and away from the sun in winter. After all, if God was going to give man time prophecies, he must also give man a way to tell time. So, God made the entire earth into a giant clock which counts years!
PREPARING THE EARTH
Everything discussed thus far is contained in the simple statement of Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” The next steps in the creative process were to prepare earth for man. Opaque layers of gas and dust covered the earth for long periods of time. With the first two seven-thousand-year creative days (Genesis 1:2-8), God designed that the layers which blocked sunlight would fall and an atmosphere would form above the earth. The next two creative days (Genesis 1:9-19) prepared the oceans and cleared the atmosphere so that the sun and moon would be visible and bright.
Tremendous growth of shellfish and vegetation laid down the deposits of limestone and coal to be stored for man’s later use for energy, concrete, steel production, and other future needs, especially in the times of restitution. During this carboniferous period of lush plant growth, insects, many times the size of modern day insects, were common. The fossil evidence supports the Vailian theory of a canopy above the atmosphere, which caused higher air and oxygen pressure than we have today. This permitted the growth of much larger insects than today, as found in the fossil record.
The fifth and sixth creative days were marked by the creation of large land and sea animals. But God’s greatest design in this three-dimensional universe was the creation of perfect man — male and female — in the last two years of the sixth creative day. Here was a living, physical being made in the image of God, made from the dust of the earth and animated with the breath of life. This was God’s masterpiece of physical creation. “Studies in the Scriptures,” Volume 1, page 201, states: “The character of the mental operations of each [the divine mind and the human mind] are the same. With the same data for reasoning, and under similar conditions, these different natures are able to arrive at the same conclusions.” This ability to think and reason was absolutely necessary in man, otherwise there could be no higher relationship with the Creator, and God could not say, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18).
God’s greatest work was in the genius and simplicity of the ransom. Perfect man was first given God’s perfect law. All mankind were then condemned in the sin of the one man Adam. This would allow all mankind to be ransomed by the one “man Christ Jesus.”
In the 7th creative day, God rested from all the creative work which he had made. (This is why the Christ, head and body are referred to as the “New Creation” — they are entirely different from the creations of the first six creative days.) During God’s rest, most of mankind became corrupt and had to be destroyed in the flood.
THE GREAT PYRAMID
As the waters of the flood subsided, Noah and his family left the ark and mankind began to spread and repopulate the earth. Later, when the nation of Egypt was formed and monuments were erected, God arranged that the greatest monument of all time would be built — the Great Pyramid. Its purpose was to show the preeminence of God’s plan in all the universe. Looking at the outer dimensions of the pyramid, we find that the length of four sides is 365.242 pyramid cubits. This is exactly equal to the number of days in earth’s solar tropical year. Thus, the Pyramid is describing earth with great precision.
THE PRECESSIONAL CYCLE
Scientists have discovered that there is a very slow “wobble,” or precession, in the earth’s rotational axis. This causes the rotational axis of the earth to slowly change its position over about 26,000 years until it returns to return to its original orientation. This cycle is cleverly shown in the Great Pyramid. Taking the sum of the diagonals of the square base of the pyramid, we find the total to be 25,827 pyramid inches. This measurement is within 0.2% of the measured/calculated precessional cycle of the earth. Currently, the rotational axis of the earth is pointing to Polaris, the North Star, but in several thousand years the earth will precess away from the north star. After 25,770 years, earth’s axis will again point at Polaris, given that Polaris is still in its current position. The Great Pyramid is again describing earth by this amazingly close indication of this terrestrial parameter.
THE VALUE OF PI
Another amazing feature of the Great Pyramid is how its height is related to the length of its side. If the length of the square base perimeter is considered as the circumference of a circle, the height of the pyramid is exactly the radius of that circle. In other words, if the length of one side of the base is called (s), then the height (h) of the Pyramid is 2s/p, or p = 2s/h. This means that God put the value of pi into the Great Pyramid, and with this, linked the height of the Pyramid to the length of its side.
What can we conclude from these facts? The length of the side of the Great Pyramid determines three independent features of the earth; (1) the solar tropical year, (2) the precessional cycle, and (3) the earth-sun distance. If we found ourselves on another planet in another solar system, and were tasked to build a pyramid with the same features, would this even be possible? We would begin by (1) making a square base with the sides equal to the solar tropical year for that planet. We could easily make the height of the pyramid one billionth of the distance to the sun. But, putting the pi relationship would require an incredible coincidence where the resulting height of the pyramid would just happen to be the exact radius of a circle whose circumference is equal to the perimeter of the square base.
We would be stopped again when required to make the length of the base diagonals equal to the planet’s precessional cycle, because those diagonals would already be fixed. The Great Pyramid is what engineers refer to as an “over-determined” system, where one measurement, the length of the side, determines three completely independent planetary features. An over-determined system always indicates deliberate design. The Great Pyramid shows us that God specifically designed the earth and sun to fit His design in the Great Pyramid, and not vice versa. The scriptures tell us this in Psalms 121:2, “Our help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
DISTANCE TO THE SUN
If the height of the Pyramid (484.9 feet) is multiplied by one billion, it equals the earth-sun distance, between the aphelion (farthest distance) and the perihelion (closest distance). So again, the Pyramid is precisely describing earth.
THE PATH TO LIFE
The Great Pyramid also shows the only path to life. If we found ourselves shut inside the Pyramid with the entry hermetically sealed, we would have to climb to either the King’s Chamber or the Queen’s chamber to get to the air channels and life. The most immediate path to these chambers, through the First Ascending Passage, is blocked by the granite plug. But the well shaft is open and leads to both, showing that the ransom is the only path to life. The ransom is the center of God’s plan. God has made all of creation, all the universe, to center on the ransom sacrifice of His son. The ransom is the focal point of the “manifold works of God.”
We now return to the meaning of “manifold” in Psalm 104:24. The word manifold (Strong’s #7231) means “to multiply by the myriad,” and Professor Strong compares this to #7241 “a rain (as an accumulation of drops).” How beautifully descriptive this is of the scope of God’s creative work and blessings for mankind. The prophet Isaiah described the harmony of the earthly creation and God’s blessings for all mankind. “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10,11).
— Br. Harry Wildblood
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings to search out a matter.
(Proverbs 25:2).