| HIGHLIGHTS OF DAWN | July 1997 |
The Eyes of the LORD
“The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” —II Chronicles 16:9
ABOUT A YEAR ago it was announced in “The Wall Street Journal” that several aerospace companies are planning to invest one billion dollars in private corporate Earth-imaging systems. These corporate systems will be using optical and digital technology made available by the U.S. Government for private use in March 1994. This technology was employed for the advanced spy satellites used by the U.S.A. and Communist Russia in the cold war, as each nation spied on the other. Although the commercial systems will not provide quite the detail that the best U.S. intelligence-gathering systems are believed to offer, yet they will offer days-old digital images of unprecedented clarity.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
The article said: “‘This is a technology that carries you to a new plateau’, says John Neer, chief executive of Space Imaging, Inc., of Denver. This $500 million venture, involving Lockheed Martin, E-Systems, Mitsubishi Corp. and Eastman Kodak Co., plans the most elaborate system, which is to begin down-loading images from an advanced satellite after a 1997 launch.
“Zipping along at 16,000 miles an hour, the one-ton satellite will orbit over the poles. Passing over the same point every two to three days, the satellite can be adjusted for custom assignments. Otherwise, it will gather images like a photographic vacuum cleaner, sending them to Earth in a digital-data stream so voluminous that the images could fill eleven TV channels running simultaneously around the clock.
“The essence of the new commercial system is ‘one-meter’ black-and-white imaging technology, so named because objects of that size—about three feet across—can be distinguished. The new technology will make for publicly accessible pictures at least ten times clearer than those from today’s best-resolution private system, the French Spot satellites.”
GOD’S SURVEILLANCE IMITATED
By combining the capability of launching satellites through the space program and advanced computer technology, it is possible for man to start approaching a power that God has employed for many millenniums in his surveillance of Earth. But how will man use this technology? Will it be for good or for evil? Some concerns were expressed in the article:
“Open access to high-resolution surveillance of most of the Earth has some privacy advocates and space-policy analysts shuddering. Problems today in controlling the spread of ballistic missiles or plutonium are ‘going to be trivial compared with the problems you’re going to have controlling the proliferation of pictures’, warns John Pike of the American Federation of Scientists, a watchdog group in Washington.
“Under current U.S. policy, top officials in the Commerce, State and Defense departments have reserved the right to limit imaging when security issues are at stake, and they can impose restraints on certain large-volume purchases of images. But Mr. Pike says those limits are ill-defined and meaningless, since any image drawn from an archive is suitable for weapons targeting ‘as long as the vintage is months and not decades. By the time the war starts, the cat’s out of the bag’.”
Before this technology becomes available commercially about one year from now, much debate is going on in Congress and elsewhere on its threat to privacy. Some say that society should welcome this new technology, that it is a technology of freedom. Some think otherwise. Some of the benefits foreseen are in forestry, land use, mining, and environmental management.
‘SMART AUTOMOBILES’
Also foreseen is the production of ‘smart automobiles’, where cars with ‘brains’ should take some hassle and worry out of driving when far from home or in bad weather conditions. For example: you are driving down an unfamiliar highway in a snowstorm when your engine dies. Do not panic. Instead you press a dashboard button that will automatically transmit your car’s exact location via a voice-activated cellular phone to a central emergency center, which immediately sends help. Your car’s location is determined with the help of radar and global positioning satellites (GPS), which are positioned uniformly high in the atmosphere around the Earth.
Or, let us say that you are heading home in a downpour and cannot see the traffic dividing lines because of the deluge. Not to worry! A sensor system built into your car detects the location of the lane markers and projects facsimiles of them onto your windshield so you can see where you are going.
These new applications of technology are about to be introduced or are being developed by sectors of the automotive industry. Little wonder that the automotive industry should say, “Smart cars and smart highways are on their way.”
GOD’S REMARKABLE OBSERVATION OF EARTH
As remarkable as these new developments may appear, they cannot compare with the observation of God over Earth’s affairs and Earth’s inhabitants—especially his people. In II Chronicles 16:9, the Prophet Hanani reminded Asa, King of Judah, ‘The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth’. This capability is beyond our comprehension, but in order to help us understand it, the human eye is employed as an illustration. The human eye is an extraordinary organ. We do not appreciate the wonderful capability we have in this manner until something happens to affect our eyesight, such as temporary or permanent blindness, or even clarity of vision.
When God is described as having eyes, we are not to think of him as having physical eyes as we have. No one can make a likeness or image of God. This is impossible. Such is the motivation in the second commandment given to Israel in Exodus 20:4: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” However, since man invented the camera and learned how to take pictures or images of objects surrounding him, we have come to appreciate more and more how our eyes take pictures—see images—continuously. God’s sight in this respect is phenomenal. He sees and notes everything that is happening, causing David to say: “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down. … For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.” (Ps. 139:1-4) So David exclaims: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.”—vs. 6
HIS EYES ARE OVER THE RIGHTEOUS
We can only ‘scratch the surface’ in our understanding of this great and mighty power of God.
The people of earth are unaware of God’s power and his tremendous capability of surveillance. One reason is that this observation is being used especially on behalf of the ‘righteous’. The Apostle Peter affirms this when he says, “The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers” (I Pet. 3:12), which is a quotation from Psalm 34:15. Who are these righteous? The Scriptures say, in Romans 3:10, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Ps. 14:1-3), which is a true statement—there is no just or righteous person from Adam’s progeny. But God has been drawing certain ones to Jesus, and they have accepted Jesus as their personal Redeemer, and have consecrated themselves to follow in his steps. This is the class being selected as a “people for his [God’s] name” (Acts 15:14), and these have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them. Hence, they are called ‘righteous’.
HIS EARS ARE OPEN TO THEIR PRAYERS
The great and mighty power of God has been employed since our Lord’s First Advent, for almost 2,000 years, to watch over these righteous. Not only have their movements been monitored, but God also has been attentive to their cries for assistance. Again, when we read that God’s ‘ears are open unto their prayers’, we are not to think that God has ears as man has, even though man’s ear is another most unique organ.
The human ear is capable of receiving sound and transmitting it to the brain, where it is interpreted by the receiver. Scientists tell us that all sound is in the form of waves, and these sound waves strike the ear drum and cause it to vibrate in harmony with the characteristics of the sound wave. Sound waves can be everywhere, but they could not be interpreted unless first they caused the ear drum to vibrate and the human nerve system transmitted these vibrations to the brain where approval or disapproval, or interpretation was given. How could any human conversation be conducted unless there were ears to receive the spoken words? Would beautiful music have any meaning if there were no appreciative ears to hear? How would we be made aware of warning sounds without the ear?
If all this be true of the human ear, how much more it is so of God’s capability to receive sounds and the cries and prayers of his people? Thus, we read in Psalm 94:9, “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?” just as it is also said, “He that formed the eye, shall he not see?” What led the psalmist to make this statement are the words of the preceding verses. There the cry is raised for the Lord God to arise against the tyranny and evil of the proud and wicked, and to remove affliction from his heritage, and the poor downtrodden people of Earth. It is suggested that the wicked believe that God does not see what they are doing. How foolish this concept is. God not only sees and hears, but cares, and will arise in vengeance against the wicked.
THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS
During Old Testament times, there are recorded numerous pleas from the prophets and patriarchs of old who called upon the Lord ‘to incline his ear’ to their cry for help. David said, ‘Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name; they called upon the Lord, and he answered them” (Ps. 99:6), indicating that God heard them. We have a prayer of one afflicted when overwhelmed and pouring out his complaint before the Lord. Its record begins: “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.” (Ps. 102:1,2) These are prophetic words of our Lord Jesus when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Apostle Paul speaks of our Lord’s experience on that occasion in Hebrews 5:7, saying, “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.”
Jesus has become our example in every way. It is he who brought life and immortality to light, as Paul tells us. Speaking of Jesus he said, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.”—II Tim. 1:9,10
He also taught his disciples many things which might be called revolutionary in the light of what their forefathers knew. Addressing his disciples and the people he would say, ‘It was said by them of olden time … but I say unto you …’ proceeding to introduce great heartsearching spiritual truths intended to be taught by the Heavenly Father in the giving of the Law of Israel.
When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray he said, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” (Matt. 6:9) Heretofore, Israel knew God as the powerful and fearsome Jehovah, and would address him accordingly. Now they were to address him as ‘Our Father’. This was a new relationship because they were going to be sons of God.
When Philip asked Jesus, “Show us the Father” (John 14:8), Jesus immediately answered, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?” (John 14:9) Jesus was a likeness of the Heavenly Father in the flesh. If it were possible for the Father to be made flesh he would be like Jesus. Thus, Jesus was well acquainted with the powers of his Father, and reminded the disciples of these. This is brought out so well in the incident involving the raising of Lazarus from the dead. When Jesus was about to perform this great miracle, he said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.”—John 11:41,42
Jesus knew that his Father’s ears were always—without fail—open to his prayers, and he taught his disciples to have the same dependence upon him. Peter was one of those who learned this lesson and that is why he writes as he does in I Peter 3:12, making certain that we, too, learn that God’s ears are open to our prayers. There never is an inopportune time for us to pray to the Father, whether walking on a busy city street, driving a car, or in the quiet of our homes. He always stands ready to hear. We can “pray without ceasing” (I Thess. 5:17); that is, we should always be in an attitude of prayer, or cease not to pray. We can be confident that the Lord hears our prayer, for Paul says, “Let us therefore come boldly [confidently] unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”—Heb. 4:16
THE BLESSINGS OF GOD’S KINGDOM
If we are to emulate our Father in heaven, we will be ‘swift to hear’. As the Apostle James tells us, “Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” (James 1:19) God is so swift to hear, that the scripture says, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isa. 65:24) Although the words of Isaiah 65 are a Millennial Age prophecy, yet in principle they apply now, as well.
God has always been swift to hear, and is all-seeing as well. How wonderful it is to know from this prophecy in Isaiah 65 that God will provide the same surveillance to all mankind that he has provided for his people during the Christian era. Just as today, so then, ‘the eyes of the Lord’ will be over ‘the righteous [all who will be obedient to his laws] and his ears will be open to their prayers’. ‘He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’
Moses told Israel that the land that they were about to inherit was “a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.” (Deut. 11:12) Even so shall it be in God’s wonderful kingdom upon the earth. “The Earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” (Ps. 24:1) God has never relinquished his ownership of earth. He permitted the Adversary to usurp authority over it for a while. But God’s purpose has been plainly stated in the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:9-13) Once again will complete and total surveillance be restored over earth by God, as his eyes will be upon all of earth and his ears will be open to the prayers of its inhabitants.
Praise the Lord for his wonderful plan, and his loving care and kindness!