Sky god

“ But only God and the angels saw its beauty.
Afterward God placed the sun in the sky, and bade it shine all day, and go from one end of the world to the other. God made the moon to shine at night, and he covered the sky with stars.
You never saw anything so bright as the sun. It is very large indeed, only it looks small, because it is a great way off. It cannot fall, for God holds it up. God makes it move across the sky. ”

“ Then let us till the sky until we learn that He who planned the high-arched blue, and marked orbits for stars and planets, is also the Designer of our own lives, and has set for us a divine purpose somewhat like the vastness of the sky. Yielding ourselves to God as the heavenly constellations yield themselves to their controlling powers, each one has a greater life to live, and a more sublime destiny to attain, than his fondest dreams. ”

“ Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD.
1802 ”

“ But it is not only over the spirits of the underground world that he holds sway; he reigns also in heaven, in the close vicinity of the ecliptic, and “the seven great gods” who were his sons were stars in the sky. His attributes, therefore, closely resemble those of the moon-god of Ur: like the moon-god, he is at once lord of the sky and of the underworld, a father of the stars of night who makes the green herb grow in the earth below. ”

“ The presence of clouds upon your sky, and trials in your path, is the very best evidence that you are following the pillar of cloud, and walking in the presence of God. They had to enter the cloud before they could behold the glory of the transfiguration, and a little later that same cloud became the chariot to receive the ascending Lord, and it is still waiting as the chariot that will bring His glorious appearing.
Still it is true that white “clouds and darkness are round about His throne, mercy and truth” are ever in their midst, and “shall go before His face.” ”

“ Therefore, the ancients came to look upon the sun as a great and powerful god to be worshipped and propitiated by men. And if the sun was such a power, it was natural to believe that all the other bright orbs of the sky were lesser [Pg 52] divinities who exercised more limited powers on the earth. From this beginning, based, as we have seen, on a germ of fact, by the power of his imagination and credulity, man extended more and more the powers of these sidereal divinities, attributing to their volition and influence all the most insignificant as well as the most important terrestrial events. ”

“ Thus in the Vedic hymns, the sun, the sky, and the earth are severally considered, sometimes as natural objects governed by particular gods, and sometimes as themselves gods who generate and control other beings." Our own poets are not a whit disturbed by such inconsistencies. In 'Paradise Lost' the Sun is apostrophized in one place as the "God of this new world," while in another passage of the same poem we have a "Uriel, Regent of the Sun." ”

“ The thought that each new day, beginning with a new outburst of light, was, in its degree, a kind of new creation, an emblem of the original act by which the world was brought into being, renders appropriate and beautiful the ascription of the term "morning stars" to those "sons of God," the angels. As the stars in the eastern sky are poetically thought of as "singing together" to herald the creation of each new day, so in the verses already quoted from the Book of Job, the angels of God are represented as shouting for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid. ”

“ The early anthropomorphic figures of sun and moon appear to be on the verge of becoming true gods. It is, however, often difficult to decide whether in the widespread veneration of the sun it is to be regarded as a living thing (it is frequently represented as a man, a great chief,614 dwelling in the sky) , or a physical object inhabited by a spirit, or a fully developed god.615 The transition to the higher conception is gradual, and will be discussed below,616 along with the representations of the moon and the stars. ”

“ 14Do not fear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still—that up above, beyond the cloud, is still sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky. Believe in God’s covenant. Believe that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth will conquer cold, calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, light will conquer darkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer destruction and the devouring floods; ”

“ When we rise up, or sit down, or go out, he is always with us.—He created heaven and earth; therefore every thing in heaven—sun, moon, and stars. Therefore how should the sun be God, or the moon be God? ”

“ But when He declared that He had come from Heaven, it is clear that He did not mean the blue firmament but that He spoke of the Heaven of the Kingdom of God, and that from this Heaven He descended upon the clouds. As clouds are obstacles to the shining of the sun, so the clouds of the world of humanity hid from the eyes of men the radiance of the Divinity of Christ. ”

“ They believe that there is in the heavens a cloud upon which He will be seated and by which He will descend; while, in reality, the clouds are vapors which rise from the earth and which do not descend from the heavens. The cloud mentioned in the Holy Scriptures is the human body, because it is a veil for them, like a cloud, which prevents them from seeing the Sun of Truth which is shining in the horizon of Christ.
SALVATION You ask if, through the appearance of the kingdom of God, every soul hath been saved. The Sun of Reality hath appeared to all the world. ”

“ The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, was the most ancient, most general, and most plausible idolatry. They made to themselves the star of their God, some particular star which they took to be their god, or the name of which they gave to their god. ”

“ By the terms “sun” and “moon,” mentioned in the writings of the Prophets of God, is not meant solely the sun and moon of the visible universe. Nay rather, manifold are the meanings they have intended for these terms. In every instance they have attached to them a particular significance. Thus, by the “sun” in one sense is meant those Suns of Truth Who rise from the dayspring of ancient glory, and fill the world with a liberal effusion of grace from on high. These Suns of Truth are the universal Manifestations of God in the worlds of His attributes and names. ”

“ It is evident, that the Celestial Light of the Sun is of a fiery Quality and Essence, given unto it by a Celestial, fixt and permanent sulphurous Spirit, by the most High God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, to preserve its substance, form, and body; which Creature, by its swift motion and course, is enflamed and kindled by the Air through that swiftness in a continued manifestation of it ”

“ For this is saying nothing more of the sun than what may be said of any of the other stars, and produces in us no exalted conception of the artificer of the universe. But to say that God dwells in the sun, gives us a magnificent idea both of that glorious luminary, and the deity who dwells enshrined, as it were, in dazzling splendor. ”

“ Eye hath not seen nor ear heard the glory of this paradise, kingdom, or new heaven: it has only been revealed as fully as frail and finite man can comprehend it. WHY HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE USED FIGURATIVELY In the natural world we have heaven and earth, sun, moon and stars. God created the sun to rule by day and the moon to rule by night. The Bible being a revelation to this planet, our range of view is limited to the relation of the heavens, sun, moon, and stars to this earth. Here is the earth beneath, or under the heaven, as we are compelled to speak of it ”

“ The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God. ”

“ When thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars - The worship of the heavenly bodies was the oldest species of idolatry. Those who had not the knowledge of the true God were led to consider the sun, moon, planets, and stars, as not only self-existing, but the authors of all the blessings possessed by mankind. ”

“ The beginning of the day served, by analogy, for the beginning of the world. Light comes before the sun, brings it forth, creates it, as it were. Hence the Light-God is not the Sun-God, but his Antecedent and Creator.
The light appears in the East, and thus defines that cardinal point, and by it the others are located. These points, as indispensable guides to the wandering hordes, became, from earliest times, personified as important deities, and were identified with the winds that blew from them, as wind and rain gods. ”

“ If the storm-clouds lour around you, you will be comforted by the sunshine of the Spirit of God; and however dark the clouds that may lour around, you will find that Spirit to be your companion; you will see the sunshine that opens to you the prospect of happiness, of glory, and of eternal life when the clouds shall pass away. ”

“ They had, therefore, no other alternative than to attribute all to the gods, who made everything go according to their will, and it was in the sky that they placed the seat and domain of the gods, because it is there that may be seen revolve the night and the noon, the day and the gloomy planets of the night; the nocturnal lights wandering in the sky, and the flying flames, the clouds, the sun, the rain, the snow, the winds, the thunderbolts, the hail, the sudden convulsions, and the great threatening rumblings. ”

“ As the sun is the greatest visible glory in the natural world, so it is selected by the pen of Divine inspiration as the brightest emblem of the Supreme Being—“The Lord God is a sun.” This great luminary has been considered by the Heathen as the representative of the Deity, and as such received religious adoration. ”

“ The magnificences and the harmonies of that great revelation of God in Jesus Christ, which transcends all human thought and all worldly wisdom, are but a point, in comparison with the continent of illumination which shall come to us hereafter. 'The moon that rules the night' is the revelation that we have to-day, the reflection and echo of the sun that will rule the unsetting day of the heavens. ”

“ The solar orb, like the nature of man, was divided by the ancient sages into three separate bodies. According to the mystics, there are three suns in each solar system, analogous to the three centers of life in each individual constitution. These are called three lights: the spiritual sun, the intellectual or soular sun, and the material sun (now symbolized in Freemasonry by three candles) . The spiritual sun manifests the power of God the Father; the soular sun radiates the life of God the Son; and the material sun is the vehicle of manifestation for God the Holy Spirit. ”

“ Hands of angels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes ”

“ On the contrary, the supreme wisdom of the Deity affords a fair presumption that this little planet of ours is but as a grain of sand among the worlds which have been created for the glory of God, and that each planet after its kind is fitted for the habitation of creatures whose office and purpose it is to thank and bless Him for their existence. ”

“ For since they observed that in what concerns the heavenly bodies there is no increase or diminution or mutability, and that they do not suffer any unregulated influence, but their movement is harmonious and their arrangement in concert; and that the illuminations of the moon are regulated, and that the risings and settings of the sun are regularly defined, and always at regularly defined seasons, they naturally conceived that the heaven is a god and the throne of a god. ”

“ Is it towards the sky; where the great lord of earthly light—type of that more Glorious Sun which should arise "with healing on its wings"—is diffusing the cheering effulgence of the dawn, calling forth the fresh and wholesome airs of the morning, and literally chasing away the noisome spirits of the night? ”

“ Mine was the violet of the outermost sphere, that of the "last of the Gods," the "Spirit of the Fear of the Lord," and therein of Reverence and Humility; for the Greeks Saturn, and for the Hebrews Satan, the "Angel unfallen of the outermost sphere." Only when man is built up of all the Gods, and bears upon him the seal of each God, having climbed the ladder of his regeneration from circumference to centre, from "Saturn" to the "Sun," is the "week" of his new and spiritual creation accomplished. ”

“ The clouds are the chariots of the angels and if you watch closely you may see them driving with reins of gold. Above the clouds, if you look hard and pray the while, you may see the face of God. The angels watch over us; and if we do something we should not they drop a tear to wipe out the deed. ”

“ After giving the inhabitants of the moon an account of our terrestrial race, of its fall and redemption, and of the unhappiness of those who neglect the great salvation, he says, "The secret is this, that nothing but an infinite God, revealing Himself by His Spirit to their minds, and enabling them to believe and trust in Him, can give perfect and lasting satisfaction." ”