God the center, our strength and stability

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:11).

One website writes:

The mass of the solar system is 1.992 x 10³⁰kg

Wikipedia states:

The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86 percent of the system’s known mass and dominates it gravitationally.

The mass of our sun amounts to the lion’s share of the total sum; and it must be this way.

Why? Because otherwise, the gravitational forces of the planets would tear at the sun until it would fall apart. The sun is the anchor of our solar system. Without the sun we would cease to be a system of planets orderly making their rounds.

Without the sun, each planet would wander off into the freezing blackness of space and become a ball of ice, like Pluto. Even the planets with some self-generating heat would cool off. Certainly, this would mean the immediate end of life on earth.

So, the sun must necessarily own much greater weight than all of its constituent planets combined.

In the atomic dimension we see a similar arrangement as the solar system.  The nucleus of each atom contains much more mass than the combined electrons flying around the nucleus. Even in the molecules oxygen atoms attract hydrogen atoms; and even though there are more hydrogen atoms than oxygen atoms, the oxygen atoms are much heavier than the featherweight hydrogen atoms. Thus, the oxygen can be the proper stability for the molecule.

What is God trying to teach us about Himself? He, the great center of His creation, holds it all together. “Him…, who created heaven, and the things that therein are” must be stronger than all of His galaxies. (Rev. 10:6). Without Him, order would cease in the universe and incomprehensible pandemonium would result. Chaos on an order incalculable would ensue, ultimately in the destruction of it all. Weaker orbs, such as planets would wander off into the outer darkness. Stronger orbs, the stars, would gravitate to each other and tear each other apart. The forces we witness on earth in the hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, and earthquakes, are a drop in the bucket compared to the far and beyond greater forces of the cosmos. Only God can be our stability.

And He has proven Himself the great anchor in other ways.

The controversy of Satan and sin has created immense forces that pulled on the Ancient of Days. More than gravity and velocity or electricity and mass, form the basis of life. Existence means much more than mechanics. Love moves the One who from the beginning has been “upholding all things by the word of His power.” (Heb. 1:3).

Love and faith motivate the Designer of the grand design. The beauty of the physical universe is only skin deep; and the mechanics go a little deeper. But the love of God in making it all is deeper than the ocean and deeper than the deepest space.

That love was challenged by Lucifer and put to the test. Would God do right in dealing with rebellions against His empire? Is His love as empty of self as His creation advertises? Would He die in order than His most precious race could live? Would the power of sin be vanquished by His death? Or would the mighty general Lucifer out-general the King? In the end which would be still standing? Who would own the kingdom?

Would self-sacrificing love win over self-interested lust? Would self-effacing peace overcome self-indulgent bitterness? Would liberty overpower bondage? Would the forces motivating the creation and maintenance of the past and present order of the universe be the motivating force of the future?

God did win. When the Son of God said, “It is finished,” He finalized the victory over the adversary of the kingdom. (Jn. 19:30). He had assumed all the wrath of God on sinners. God beheld the perfect love and righteousness of His Son; He saw “the travail of His soul,” and was “satisfied.” (Isa. 53:11).

And in the presence of that perfect innocence and purity, the torture and wrath of Satan could do nothing else but find expression. Like the devils that, during the ministry of Christ, could not rest in the presence of Jesus, and like Cain filled with rage in the presence of Abel, Satan reacted to the self-sacrificing love of Christ with murderous passion that ripped the self-righteous mask off of his face.

God is the rock; He and His Son are the anchor of the intelligent creation and He is our rock. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1Cor. 3:11). All other cornerstones are sand.

Within the human families God has made the same structure as His government. The father, the man, is the husband, the “house-band”. He holds the home together. The male adult, made in God’s image, resembles the Father, more than the mother does. Lacking in all the emotion and outward expression of mercy that the mother has, the man lays down the law and, by nature, is the enforcer of the law of the home. He also has the physical advantage to accomplish law enforcement by deterrence or actual execution of punishment. This has ever been God’s role in His universe.

But the wife and mother has her own subordinate yet utterly essential place and role. A family cannot hold together by law and law enforcement alone. There must be affection and mercy; there must be warmth and softness. There must be comforts and decorations, beauty and charm. All of these essentials the adult female, the matriarch naturally brings to the home and complements the power and justice that the patriarch demands.

Can we garner a lesson from our solar system with regard to the family structure? The sun is the great center of attraction among the little planets. But the next largest is the giant Jupiter, fuming with its own forces, that creates its own attraction out in the middle of the junior members of the solar unit. The planets don’t gather around her, but she stands as the queen of our planetary home. She sits between the four junior planets and their three bigger siblings. Pluto, is still part of the family, but seems like the child that ran away from home.

What part Jupiter actually plays in influencing the other planets in their orbits, I don’t know; but I would like to find out. “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth” in the solar system and in the entire universe! (Psa. 8:9).