The Way of Wisdom
(No. 2862)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1903.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH
28, 1872.
"There is a path which no fowl knows, and which the vulture's eyes have
not seen; the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion
passed by it." Job 28:7,8.
IN this chapter Job is speaking of the hidden treasures that are to be
found deep down in the bowels of the earth. The keen eyes of the
vultures, though they see their prey afar off, have never seen the
gold, silver and other precious metals which lie in the dark places of
the earth. And the lions, especially the young lions hungering for
their prey, though they will lie in wait in their lairs in the dens and
caves of the earth, have never been able to descend into places as deep
as those that are opened up by men who seek after gold and silver.
Yet further on in the chapter we notice that Job refers to the search
after wisdom and that he seems to say that though men should explore
the deep places of the earth with all the diligence of miners seeking
gold and silver, though they should exert all their mental force as
miners use all their muscular vigor–and though they should employ all
the machinery within their reach, as men do who pierce through the
rocks in search of precious treasure–yet it is not within the range of
human labor and skill to attain unto wisdom. That can only be found by
another and a higher method. It must come to us by Revelation from God,
for we cannot find it by our own efforts. I believe, therefore, that I
am justified in using the expressions which are found in my text in a
spiritual sense, for I think that Job meant to teach us not only what
is true of the treasures hidden in the earth, but also something
concerning the path of wisdom which is altogether beyond the
understanding of the most piercing eyes of reason or imagination.
I shall use the language of our text, first, in reference to the way of
Godwhch is, in the highest sense, the way of wisdom. And then,
secondly, in reference to the path of the truly wise which is also,
secondarily, the path of wisdom as far as mortal man can be wise–as
far as he who is born of a woman can walk in the way of wisdom.
I. First, then, IN REFERENCE TO THE WAY OF GOD. His way in dealing with
men is past our power to find
out.
Think, first of all, of the way of God in relation to predestination
and free agency. Many have failed to understand how everything, from
the smallest event to the greatest, can be ordained and fixed–and yet
how it can be equally true that man is a responsible being and that he
acts freely, choosing the evil and rejecting the good. Many have tried
to reconcile these two things and various schemes of theology have been
formulated with the objective of bringing them into harmony. I do not
believe that they are two parallel lines which can never meet, but I do
believe that for all practical purposes, they are so nearly parallel
that we might regard them as being so. They do meet, but only in the
Infinite mind of God is there a converging point where they melt into
one! As a matter of practical, everyday experience with each one of us,
they continually melt into one, but, as far as all finite understanding
goes, I do not believe that any created intellect can find where they
meet! Only the Uncreated as yet knows this.
It would be a very simple thing to understand the predestination of God
if men were clay in the hands of the potter and nothing more. That
figure is rightly used in the Scriptures because it reveals one side of
the Truth of God–if it contained the whole Truth, the difficulty that
puzzles so many would entirely cease. But man is not only clay, he is a
great deal more than that, for God has made him an intelligent being
and given him understanding and judgment and, above
all, will. Fallen and depraved, but still not destroyed, are our
judgment, our understanding and our power to will. They are all under
bondage, but they are still within us. If we were simply blocks of
wood, like the beams and timbers in this building, it would be easy to
understand how God could prearrange where we should be put and what
purpose we should serve. But it is not easy. No, it is difficult! I
venture to say that it is impossible for us to understand how
predestination should come true in every jot and tittle, fix everything
and yet that there should never be in the whole history of mankind a
single violation of the will or a single use of constraint–other than
fit and proper constraint–upon man so that he acts according to his
own will, just as if there were no predestination whatever and yet, at
the same time, the will of God is, in all respects, being carried out!
In order to get rid of this difficulty, there are some who deny either
the one Truth or the other. Some seem to believe in a kind of free
agency which virtually dethrones God, while others run to the opposite
extreme by believing in a sort of fatalism which practically exonerates
man from all blame. Both of these views are utterly false and I
scarcely know which of the two is the more to be deprecated. We are
bound to believe both sides of the Truth revealed in the Scriptures, so
I admit that when a Calvinist says that all things happen according to
the predestination of God, he speaks the Truth of God–and I am willing
to be called a Calvinist. But when an Arminian says that when a man
sins, the sin is his own, and that if he continues in sin and perishes,
his eternal damnation will lie entirely at his own door, I believe that
he, also, speaks the Truth of God–though I am not willing to be called
an Arminian! The fact is, there is some Truth in both these systems of
theology–the mischief is that, in order to make a human system appear
to be complete, men ignore a certain Truth, which they do not know how
to put into the scheme which they have formed and, very often, that
very Truth, which they ignore, proves to be like the stone which the
builders rejected–one of the headstones of the corner– and their
building suffers serious damage through its omission.
Now, Brothers and Sisters, if I could fully understand these two Truths
of God and could clearly expound them to you. If I could prove to you
that they are perfectly consistent with one another, I would be glad to
do so and to escape the censures which some people constantly pour upon
those who are trying to preach the whole of revealed Truth. But it is
more than my soul is worth for me to attempt to alter and trim God's
Truth so as to make it pleasing to men! I preach it as I find it in
God's Word. I am not responsible for what is in the Book–I am only
responsible for telling out what I find there, as it is taught to me by
the Holy Spirit. But mark this–to the mind of God there is no
difficulty concerning these two Truths, though there is, to us, so much
mystery and perplexity! It is all simple enough to Him. He is
Omnipotent in the world of mind as well as in the world of matter and
He is Omniscient–He knows everything, He foresees everything–so that
there are no difficulties to Him. I suppose that if it will add to our
happiness in Heaven for us to understand this way of God, which as yet
the vulture's eyes have never seen, He will reveal it to us. Yet it may
be that even there it will be of no practical use for us to understand
it, but it will be better for us, even throughout eternity, to still
continue as little children at our Heavenly Father's feet, believing a
great deal which, even there, we cannot comprehend.
Even in this life I am as pleased not to know what God does not tell me
as I am to know what He reveals to me! At least, if I am not, I ought
to be, for that is the condition of a true disciple of Christ–to be
inquisitive up to the point in which His Lord is communicative, but to
stop there and say–"If, my Master, You have anything to say to me,
yet, in Your wisdom, You know that I cannot bear it now, my ears are
closed while Your tongue is still, and my heart asks for no more when
You tell me that You have revealed enough." Believe me, Brothers and
Sisters, there is a path which God takes which you cannot yet
understand. You may look and look, and look as with eagle's eyes, but
you may blind those eyes by glaring at the sun. You may force your way,
as with a lion's heart, into the deep mysteries of God, but you must
beware lest you perish in the pit of controversy, or be taken, as in a
net, in difficulties which you cannot break through doubting and
enquiring man! Be satisfied that God is infinitely above you and that
you can no more comprehend Him than your hand can hold the ocean, or
your fingers grip the sun! If there were no mysteries in our holy
faith, we might well believe that it was devised by men like ourselves,
for, if men could fully understand it, men might have invented it. But
as it is far beyond the comprehension of the mightiest human intellect,
we recognize that it is the work of the Infinite God. Infinite must His
Gospel and His Truth be because He is, Himself, Infinite! And dark and
mysterious must His pathway sometimes be, though He, Himself, dwells in
light that is insufferable to mortal eyes. Finely does John Milton put
this thought in his apostrophe to God–
"Dark with excessive bright Your skirts appear."
Passing on to another illustration of the same great Truth, I remind
you that God is equally beyond our understanding in the accomplishment
of the designs of His Providence. There are ways of God, in dealing
with the human race, which are very perplexing to the judgment of such
poor mortals as we are. We try to study a piece of history and
especially if it is a short piece of history, it appears to us all
tangled and confused. A further research, over a longer period, will
often explain what could not be understood in the shorter range of
vision. But even history as a whole, from the Creation and the Fall
until now, contains many strange puzzles to a man who believes that God
is, through it all, working out His own Glory and that a part of His
Glory will consist in producing the highest amount of good to the
greatest number of His creatures.
What a mass of mysteries meets us on the very threshold of human
history! The serpent in the Garden–how and why came it to be there?
And the devil in the serpent, why was there a devil at all? And the
evil that made the angel into a devil, why was that permitted? And all
the evil that has been since then–why has it not been destroyed? We
cannot answer any of these queries. The Negro's question to the
missionary, "If God is stronger than Satan, why does not He kill him,"
is another enquiry which we cannot answer. Depend upon it, if it were,
on the whole, best that the devil should be killed, he would be killed.
And if it had been, after all, most for God's Glory that there should
be no evil, there would have been none. We do not know how and why
certain things have happened and we must be content not to know unless
God reveals it to us.
All through history God seems to be aiming at a certain mark, yet His
arrow does not hit the target as far as you and I can judge. Often He
appears to do as the rifleman does, who knows that if he sent the ball
in a direct line to the target, he would miss it, so he makes allowance
for certain deflections which will be caused by the force of
attraction, by the wind and various other opposing influences, and aims
accordingly. God often proves that the nearest way to attain His end is
to go round about–so, when He means to cleanse a man, He sometimes
allows Him to first get more foul! When He intends to clothe him, He
first strips him naked. When He resolves to enrich him, He first makes
him as poor as Lazarus at the rich man's gate! And, strange to say,
when He means to make him alive, He kills him. God's modes of
procedure, then, allow for deflection and every other kind of
influence–and are not to be understood by us. If you take the whole
range of history and look at it carefully, you will be obliged to feel
that if God has been working there, as we are quite sure He has,
ordering all things with consummate Wisdom, then His pathway through
the world is one which no vulture's eyes have ever seen and which no
lion or lion's whelp has ever traveled.
It may be that some of you are, at the present moment, complaining of a
certain Providential dealing of God with regard to you and that you are
thinking and saying that it must be an evil Providence. Yet it is, all
the while, one of the best things that has ever happened to you. That
over which you are now mourning will give you good cause for singing in
a little while. Probably that tribulation which fetches most tears from
our eyes here, will be among the subjects of our choicest song in the
eternal realms of joy! We need not know and we cannot know what God is
doing, but we may be quite sure that He does all things well.
Very much is this also the Truth in another respect, namely, in the
methods of His Grace. God will certainly save His chosen people. He
will bring Home all His lost children, but how strangely does He deal
with some of them! His pathway in Grace no vulture's eyes have ever
seen and no lion or lion's whelp has ever trodden. I have known Him
allow a child of His to go into sin after sin before He has saved him.
A godly mother has anxiously prayed that her boy might be converted,
but he has not been. He has grown up to manhood and there has been much
tender solicitude for him and many prayers on his behalf. Yet he has
passed twenty, thirty, or 40 years in sin and has grown worse and
worse. It did not seem as if all this could be according to God's
Grace, yet it was, for, in the mysterious Providence of God, this man
was brought low by sin, humbled by the iniquity which carried him into
the far country and led him to waste his substance in riotous living,
and then–and not till then–did he come to God!
His mother had gone to Heaven, doubting whether her prayers for him
would ever be heard. Others who were anxious about him slept amidst the
gods of the valley, not knowing, except by faith, that their
supplications for him would be heard. And that man, because he had gone
so far in sin, became the greater monument of the power of Sovereign
Grace, was the better able to tell others what God had done, was the
more firmly bound to Christ, was the more ardent in Christ's service
through the gratitude he felt and became, for God's purposes, a better
instrument than he would have been if he had been brought in sooner!
John Bunyan, if he had not been among the chief of sinners, might never
have been among the chief of saints. Had he never been what he was–one
of the worst men in the village–he might never have preached as he did
about "Jerusalem Sinners Saved," and might never have so boldly
declared that the biggest sinners should receive the greatest mercy,
and that God should be most glorified in their salvation!
I know that some people have turned this great Truth to an evil
purpose, for he who looks at God's way and sees the greatness of His
Grace, may, if he is wicked enough, draw the inference that he may
continue in sin that Grace may abound. Paul tells us plainly what the
doom of such men will be–"whose damnation is just." A child of God
draws no such evil inference as that from God's mercy, but he says,
"After such love as that, how can I sin against the Lord?" So, in
saving men, God traverses a path which no fowl knows, which the
vulture's eyes have not seen, and the lion or the lion's whelp has not
trodden. God knows best how to time His gift of Grace or His
postponement of Grace–He knows why He chooses this man at this time
and that man at that time–so let Him do as seems good in His sight,
for He always does right and unto His name be praise forever and ever!
Now, Beloved, I am persuaded that this Truth may also be applied to the
great things of God which are yet to come, in the latter days, and in
the eternity of Glory. I do not often preach upon the Book of
Revelation, nor upon the marvels that are to occur during the
millennial period, or at the time of the ingathering of the Jews and so
on. I will tell you the reason why I do not and I think it is a
sufficient one, namely, that I do not understand these things. If I do
not have clear views about these things, I will leave them alone until
I have. I have often studied them and I have never found anything as
easy as the refuting of every view I have heard or read about the
future–nor anything so difficult as to invent a view which somebody
else could not refute! There are some great Truths of God about the
future that are clearly revealed, such as the Second Coming of Christ,
the flooding of the world with the Gospel so that all flesh shall see
the salvation of God, the ingathering of the Jews to Christ, if not to
their own land, and so on. But as to the order of the various events
and the putting together of the various pieces of the puzzle, I believe
that my text is true that "there is a path which no fowl knows, and
which the vulture's eyes have not seen; the lion's whelps have not
trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it."
It is not easy to tell what Paul means in that wonderful passage, "Then
comes the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even
the Father…that God may be all in all." What new worlds may yet be
created, what revolts there may be among fresh orders of creatures, how
many orders of creatures there may yet be in the universe and how great
and comprehensive the vast dominions of Jehovah may be, we do not, at
present, know–but we shall know all that we need to know in due time!
It is enough for us to now know that our Bible is true, that Jesus
Christ is our Savior and that we shall be with Him where He is and
behold His Glory forever and ever!
Why is there all this mystery? Is it not because God is so great? We
can never gauge His greatness by our measuring line or plummet. We get
utterly lost whenever we begin to estimate God's unsearchable
greatness! Some of you have, perhaps, studied a little astronomy. You
have begun to hear or read about the millions and millions of miles
which some of the fixed stars are away from us and yet, far beyond
those, there may be others from which we are so distant that we are,
comparatively speaking, quite near to those that now seem so far away!
In trying to realize these wonders in the heavens, one feels as though
the brain needed fresh faculties to enable it to grasp even that which
the telescope reveals, yet all the starry worlds which human eyes have
gazed upon through the most powerful glass yet made, may only be like
some tiny cove or bay upon the seashore of a universe which to us must
be utterly boundless. Yet that universe, which we conceive to be
boundless, is all known to the God who created and sustains it! We are
utterly lost in the contemplation of the greatness of God's works–then
how can we imagine that we can ever understand God who is infinitely
greater than the greatest of the works of His hands?
Then, next, are not all these things mysteries to us because we are so
little? I do not merely mean those of us who are feeble and poor, and
ignorant–but I mean the great divines, the doctors of the Sorbonne,
the members of our Royal Societies, our D.D.'s, LL.D.'s, and all our
most learned men! All are fools compared with the wisdom of the
Omniscient! All are feeble compared with the Almighty. I do not know
how much a gnat understands, but I feel sure that a gnat understands a
far larger proportion of what I know, than I can comprehend of what God
knows. A fly on the dome of St. Paul's has a very imperfect idea of the
greatness and glories of the cathedral, a still more incomplete idea of
London and a far more inadequate idea of England. Even if the fly knew
England thoroughly, he would need to learn much more to
enable him to understand the world! And then there would be the sun and
the sun itself is only like a tiny point of light compared with the
greater worlds in God's universe. If the fly could comprehend all those
worlds, he would still be no appreciable way towards understanding God!
If you knew all that was to be known about a number of marbles that I
had given to my sons to play with, that would not prove that you knew
all about me–so, if we could understand everything about all the
worlds that God has made, it would not prove that we could understand
God Himself! He is infinitely above our loftiest conception and we are
just nothing at all in comparison with Him. You talk very loudly about
your opinion, your thoughts and your conclusions. Ah, poor Souls, the
chattering of sparrows in the street is as much worthy to be called
wisdom as the predilections of the most learned men among you apart
from anything that they have been taught by God the Holy Spirit! All
the wisdom that they have which they have learned by themselves is but
varnished folly and nothing more!
Moreover, dear Friends, the powers we possess are absolutely
insignificant compared with God's. In trying to comprehend the
Almighty, we are like a child with a thimble, seeking to tell the size
of the sea. We cannot, at our utmost, hold more than a thimbleful and,
besides that, our thimble leaks! The powers that we have are warped and
spoiled by sin and sinful influence. When we come into this world, our
powers are very far from being fully developed and, as they are being
developed, somebody or other comes along and warps us with prejudice in
our early youth. And as we grow older, we make other prejudices of our
own so that what we might know, we sometimes do not care to know. Also,
our scales in which we try to weigh God are not accurate. Instead of
being true, they are all out of gear and utterly unreliable as well as
inadequate to such a task! Our faculties are so disordered and
disarranged by all manner of surrounding circumstances that we cannot
comprehend much about Him who is incomprehensible even to the loftiest
created intelligence. And, besides this, we have such a little time in
which to learn about God. A child, going to school for five minutes,
knows as much about Greek as we do about God in 70 years, apart from
what He pleases to teach us by His Spirit!
Even with regard to God's dealings with His people, what mistakes they
make in their judgments! No doubt, Protestantism in England was, upon
the whole, greatly strengthened and more deeply rooted by the
persecutions under cruel Queen Mary. Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," (which
could not have been written had not the martyrs suffered and died), is
still, next to the Bible, the great master-gun of Protestantism. Yet
many of the Protestants who lived in Mary's day must have felt that God
had made an awful mistake in allowing that woman to sit upon the throne
and to do so much towards putting down the Gospel of Christ by fire,
sword and imprisonment! Yet they made a great mistake in judging by the
few years of Mary's reign. God was judging more justly by the whole
history of the land for hundreds of years to come! There is not much
more wisdom in man's judgment of God than in the flies' fabled judgment
of an elephant. It is said that a senate of flies once determined to
form a judgment concerning an elephant, so one of them settled on the
great creature's ear and walked all round it and then said that an
elephant was a long flabby mass of flesh of a certain shape. Another
fly had settled on one of the huge legs of the animal and he said that
an elephant was a tall column, something like the trunk of a cedar. One
lit somewhere on the back and he said that an elephant was a great
moving plain, a sort of animal tableland.
The flies could not agree upon any theory of what the creature was
like. The fact was that none of them had any clear idea of the whole
elephant, but only a partial notion concerning the portion that they
could manage to see. So, all that we can do, if we have 50 years in
which to study the Scriptures, is to get some imperfect idea of a part
of the great Truth of God. Yet some talk as if they knew all about
it–like a man who says that he knows all about the Continent because
he once landed at Boulogne for a few minutes and then crossed the
Channel again! Suppose that we have landed on the shores of knowledge
and that we have been there for 50 years–what is that compared with
eternity?
What shall I further say before I leave this point? First, let none of
us despond because we do not know everything. Let no one say, "I am not
God's child because my knowledge is so limited." A grain of Divine
Grace is worth more than a ton of knowledge! If you have but a spark of
true faith in Jesus Christ, it is better than a whole volcano full of
worldly wisdom! Do not say, "I cannot be saved because I cannot
understand all mysteries." Who but God can understand them? Be thankful
that the way of salvation is not a mystery! It is this–"As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up: that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life." Are you puzzled about the Doctrine of Election? Do
not ever fall into the mistake of imagining that nobody goes to Heaven
but those who understand that great Truth! There are many there who
disbelieved it while they were here below, though I
think they rejoice in it now. It is not essential to salvation that you
should understand that or any other difficult Doctrine of the
Scriptures. Do you believe in Jesus as your Savior? Then go your way
and rest assured that you will, in due time, find yourself in Heaven!
Again, let us never arraign God before our bar. It is a horrible thing
for any man ever to say, "Well, if God acts like that, I do not see the
justice of it." How dare you even hintthat the Judge of all the earth
is not just? He has said, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion," so do not
you say, "It cannot be so." Is it so written in God's Word? Then it is
so just because it is there! If God has said anything, it is not right
for you to ask for an explanation of His reason for saying it, or to
summon Him to your judgment seat. What impertinence this is! He must
always do right–He cannotdo wrong!
Some have staggered over the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment because
they could not see how that could be consistent with God's goodness. I
have only one question to ask concerning that or any other Doctrine.
Does God reveal it in the Scriptures? Then I believe it and leave to
Him the vindication of His own consistency! I am sure that He will not
inflict a pain upon any creature which that creature does not deserve,
that He will never cause any sorrow or misery which is not absolutely
necessary and that He will glorify Himself by doing the right, the
loving, the kind thing in the end. If we do not see it to be so, it
will be none the less so because we are blind! The finger on the lips
is the right attitude for us in the presence of things revealed by God,
or worked by God! As David said, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth
because You did it." If You did it, O Lord, there is no question about
the rightness of it, for You are supreme and You ought to be supreme!
There is none like You for goodness, for love, for wisdom. Your will
ought to be, so let it be done on earth, as it is Heaven, let it be
done everywhere, for what You do is always best!
II. I have not much time left for the second part of my discourse which
is IN REFERENCE TO THE TRULY WISE, that is, to those who are wise
according to Job's declaration in the 28th verse of this
Chapter–"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart
from evil is understanding." Concerning their path, we may truly say
that no fowl knows it, no vulture's eyes have seen it, no lion or
lion's whelp has trodden it.
First, the entrance of the Christian into that path is beyond human
knowledge. Who can explain what it is to be born-again? The very figure
used by our Savior implies a mystery. Our introduction into this world
is shrouded in mys-tery–so is our introduction into the spiritual
world, the world of Divine Grace. You will never be able to explain,
even though you have experienced it, how the Spirit of God creates a
living soul, as it were, within the ribs of death. How He breathes into
our soul the breath of spiritual life so that we who were enemies to
God, become the new-born children in His family. This secret cannot be
told by mortal man, for he does not know it–it is known only to God.
And, next, the walk of the Christian along that path as equally beyond
human understanding. How shall I tell you what it is to walk by faith?
I have sometimes had, before my mind's eye, as it were, a vision. I
thought I saw a great staircase made of light. There appeared to be
nothing solid or earthly about it. I was called to ascend this
staircase. Beneath my feet there seemed to be nothing. Each step I
stood upon appeared to be the last, yet I went on, on, on–up, up, up,
till I was at a dizzy height and I thought that a voice said to me,
"Look up." I could see no other step, but, as fast as I ascended one
tier, I was told to go on–and fresh steps of light revealed themselves
beneath my ascending feet. I trod upon the clouds and found them to be
granite. It seemed to be thin air and mist–to mortal men it was
nothing. They laughed at me for trusting to it, but, each time my foot
went down upon the stair, I found it to be like the eternal hills that
are never to be moved. When, in my vision, I had climbed, and climbed,
and climbed till I seemed to look down upon the stars, I still climbed
on and I understood that this is walking by faith–going ever upward,
seeing Him who is invisible, depending upon Him whom no mortal eye can
see, but who is clearly recognized by our spiritual senses–grasped by
the hand of faith, seen by the eye of faith, heard by the ear of
faith–walking through a desert where there is no corn growing, yet
daily gathering full supplies of heavenly manna–standing by a rock in
which there is no water, yet seeing the living floods leap forth to
refresh the weary soul. This is walking by faith and it is a great
mystery.
I have known some, with eyes like a vulture's, who have said that they
could live by reason. They always did that which they perceived to be
best. They would never venture a step beyond where logic would lead
them. Ah, Sirs, your bleared eyes which you think to be so keen, can
never see the path of the Christian! Others have fancied that to work
themselves up into a high state of excitement and enthusiasm is to lead
a Christian life. Believe me, Sirs, your vulture eyes have not seen
this God-made path! Faith is reasonable, in the highest sense, for it
reasons upon the real Truth of God,
whereas mere human reason only reasons upon the semblance of truth.
Some, who have no more spiritual knowledge than a lion's whelps, have
said, "All you have to do is to persuade yourself that you are one of
God's elect and it is so." Ah, they know not the path of faith and they
who follow their lead will go down to destruction!
Another says, "I feel much that is good within myself and I believe
that I have strength enough and wisdom enough to find my way to
Heaven." Ah, you may be strong as a fierce lion, but you know not the
way of wisdom! That is the very opposite way to yours. We who walk by
faith have nothing in ourselves to lean upon! Our very weakness is our
strength because it drives us to the Almighty! We have nothing to rely
upon except this–that it is written that "Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners"–and we depend on Him and upon the oath and
Covenant of God, the Covenant that has been sealed with the precious
blood of Jesus–there we rest! There are many imitations of this faith,
but the genuine article is as different from all the imitations of it
as the true coin of the realm is from the counterfeit of the forger!
Once more, the Believer's trials are things which unrenewed men cannot
comprehend. If some of us were to begin to tell the ungodly all about
our spiritual conflicts, they would think us fools. If we were to
describe to them our despair and our hope, our rejoicing and our
depression, they would say, "You must be mad to have such experiences!"
Just so– "there is a path which no fowl knows"–and no fool knows and
no unsaved soul knows! Our desires, too, are beyond men's sight, and so
are our struggles with doubt and our temptations and trials. Many a
Believer has been another Hercules, slaying a dragon and cleansing the
Augean stables, yet it is all unrecognized except by God–and by those
who are themselves spiritual, for the path of Christian victory is one
that the lion's whelp treads not.
So is it also with the Christian's joys. O Brothers and Sisters, I wish
I had time to talk about them! I could not get to the end of that
theme, for there are joys that we have in which our spirit is as cool
and composed as at any other moment of our life, yet those joys fill us
with holy rapture and sacred ecstasy till we feel that, whether in the
body or out of the body, we cannot tell–only God knows! Then the head
leans on the bosom of the Savior and the lips of Christ are set to our
soul's lips and He kisses us with the kisses of His mouth and His love
is better than wine! I know that worldly men say, "Give us gold and
silver in abundance! Fill our barns and let our wine vats burst with
new wine! Give us all the good things of earth and we will be content."
It is so, I know, but as for the Christian, he says, "Whom have I in
Heaven but You and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."
When we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit who is given unto us, we get into a way of joy which is as far
above all human joy as the path of the eagle, soaring among the Alps is
above that of the mole burrowing in the ground!
There are many other equally high things about the way of a Christian
which I have not time to mention. I will just refer to two other
things. One is the path of communion with Christ We who believe in
Jesus know what it is to walk with God. Yes, to walk with God, though
He is a consuming fire! To walk with Christ though He is the Judge of
the quick and the dead. I have been as conscious of the Presence of God
as ever I have been of the presence of my child or of my friend. I have
been as sure that I spoke with Christ and emptied out my soul into His
soul, and then received His heart's love into my heart, as I have been
sure of any event in my whole history! I know what it is to receive
sympathy from Christian men, but I also know what it is to have the
sympathy of my Lord! I speak not now of things that are only occasional
and out of the ordinary course of our lives. To some of us, it has
become a blessed habit to speak with Christ–to speak, not merely into
His ear, but right down into His heart and to know that we have done
so! And to act in a certain way because we have done so and to have no
other motive for the action than the fact that we have put the case
before the Lord and asked whether it was our duty to do this–and when
we knew that it was, have risked everything because we were sure that
God had bid us take the step! Oh, the blessedness of living with God!
You cannot imitate it. You cannot get near it–it is unapproachable to
unrenewed men! It "is a path which no fowl knows, and which the
vulture's eyes have not seen."
And it is so, lastly, with regard to many a Christian's death. In this
matter, also, "there is a path which the vulture's eyes have not seen."
There are some of you who have heard with your ears, and seen with your
eyes, the wondrous manifestations at the deaths of some who were dear
to you in life and precious in death. Some of these have seen, in their
departing moments, what no unaided human eye could ever have seen. And
they have told us that they have heard words which it would not have
been lawful for them to utter. And that they have enjoyed what it was
impossible for human language ever to express. And while they have
spoken, we have known that they spoke the truth, for the flash of their
eye was supernatural and the calm of their spirit, amidst racking pain
which naturally would depress, has been something sublime.
We have felt, with regard to their deathbed, as Moses did with regard
to the burning bush–humble was the pallet and humble was the patient
who lay upon it–but, as the bush glowed with heavenly fire, that bed
seemed to be bright with the Presence of Deity, for God was there with
His children and Christ was there succoring the members of His mystical
body! And we have marvelled, been astonished and have felt that we
should take off our shoes, for the place whereon we stood was holy
ground!
Those of us whose calling makes us familiar with the departure of
Believers, have often felt that there was a path for dying saints which
biographers could not describe, which language could not picture and of
which memory has left but faint traces upon the tablets of our
soul–but which, in itself, was something indescribable, unutterable,
Divine! May God grant to all of us the Grace to know all this for
ourselves! We can only know it by the illumination of the Divine
Spirit, but that blessed Spirit illuminates all the souls that look to
Jesus! Indeed, their looking to Jesus is one effect of the Divine
Illumination which they have already in part received. Oh, that each
heart here may "lay hold on eternal life" by laying hold on the Savior
by faith, for then He will reveal to you the great mystery that the
unsaved cannot comprehend–and He will say to you, as He said to Peter,
"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood have not revealed
it unto you, but My Father which is in Heaven." The Lord bless you,
Beloved Friends! For Christ's sake! Amen.