“Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth” (Isa. 40:26).

Mankind is told in this passage to look up and to direct our eyes toward the heavens to contemplate the stars because they teach us something: “behold Who hath created these things.” The number, order, glory, and harmony of the heavenly bodies demonstrate the infinite greatness and wisdom of the incomparable Creator.

“That bringeth out their host by number” has a military meaning, that God marches out the army of stars upon the plane of heaven as a general leads out his army upon the field of battle. The number of the stars surpasses man’s powers of computation, and God leads them all forth as a vast army under a mighty Leader. They are arrayed for us to see. The stars “declare the glory of God” (Psa. 19:1), and are evidence of “His eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20), and are meant to lead us to give God praise (Rom. 11:36; Rev. 4:11).

God knows His stars. Though they are innumerable, yet in His perfect wisdom He knows each one individually. He has given them their own unique attributes, and He fully knows each star in all its individual characteristics. From that knowledge and because they belong to Him, the Creator has given each star a unique name “He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might.” I don’t know about you, but I have trouble remembering people’s names from one day to the next, but our omniscient God knows the names of trillions upon trillions of stars ( Job 38:31-32). And it is solely God’s unassisted power that conducts and sustains them all, “for that He is strong in power; not one faileth.”

If you ever wonder if God cares about you personally, then look up at a clear night sky and remember that He knows the name and every detail of each star in the universe. Then remember that He knows your name and everything about you, every single detail of your life. You are of more worth and value to Him than all the stars put together. We know that because Jesus Christ, this Almighty God Who created the stars, died for you personally.

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“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5)

A couple of verses earlier, the Lord Jesus Christ told the Pharisee, Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3). The words “born again” literally mean born anew from above. Thus, Christ told Nicodemus that, in order to enter the kingdom of God, a person must receive a spiritual birth, a rebirth, a new life from above.

However, Nicodemus was taken aback and perplexed by Christ’s words about being born again, and he did not grasp their spiritual meaning. Understandably, he then asked the Lord absurd questions, expecting a negative answer, because surely Christ did not mean something as impossible as a second physical birth. Nicodemus asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (3:4). The Lord answered that “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit” (3:5), he can’t enter the kingdom of God.

Answering Nicodemus’s protest about being born after being fully grown or entering the mother’s womb a second time, the Lord pointed out to Nicodemus that there are two kinds of birth, of water and of the Spirit, meaning the natural and the spiritual. I believe that being born of water speaks of being born of the flesh, or physical birth. The breaking of the water in natural birth is what makes sense of the expression “of water and of the Spirit.” Being born of the Spirit (vv. 5-6) refers to the Holy Spirit’s work of renewal and spiritual rebirth. Thus, the Lord is describing birth and rebirth, being born and born again. He was saying that, unless one is born of a woman (“of water”) and born from above (“of the Spirit”), he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Referring to the two births, the Lord said in the next verse, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (3:6).

The old Christian adage, attributed to Martin Luther, is true: “Born once, die twice [Rev. 20:14-15]; born twice, die once.”

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“Do the work of an evangelist.” Paul’s Spirit-inspired injunction in 2 Timothy 4:5 applies indirectly to every believer in Christ. Are not our pastors simply leaders in the work of the Lord? Shall the congregation sit idly by as the pastor alone does “the work of an evangelist?” God forbid! The pastor is rather to be an example to his flock to go and do likewise.

How well this writer recalls the days of the so-called Darby-Scofield movement when multitudes all over the country thronged to hear Bible teachers like Gaebelein, Gray, Gregg, Ottman, Chafer, and Newell. These able men of God expounded the Word as the “blessed hope” of the Lord’s return was being recovered. But these Bible teachers were evangelists too, in the truest sense of the word, and their evangelism was contagious.

In those days almost all premillenarians, including the young people, carried New Testaments in their pockets wherever they went. Why? They hoped and prayed for opportunities to testify to others about God’s plan of salvation through Christ, and they wanted to show them the way from Scripture. In those days, if a Christian failed to have a New Testament with him, he was apt to be reproved with the words: “What! a soldier without a sword?” By contrast, few believers carry New Testaments about with them today, and they certainly don’t carry Bibles!

Some are telling us today that this brand of fundamentalism is out of date and ineffective in these fast-changing times. We reply that all of us ought to get back to this brand of fundamentalism, this earnest effort to personally win souls to Christ by showing them God’s plan of salvation from the Scriptures.

God help his people in general and each spiritual leader in particular to “do the work of an evangelist.”

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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