So exclaimed David by the Spirit, and so must every man feel who is enlightened to apprehend and love the God of David. On every hand we are confronted with the manifest products of divine wisdom. Our own bodies, in every part and fibre and movement; the million vegetable structures, from the tiniest fungus to the oak of the forest; the teeming world of animate life in land and ocean; the glorious arch of heaven with its azure depths, and the stupendous and shining machinery of the starry host-let the mind reflect on them, and there is but one deliverance at all adequate, and that is the exclamation of David. In wisdom-perfect wisdom and measureless power, they have all been, and are continually sustained.

We listen with impatience to the man who thinks he can deliver us from all sense of mystery in the case by some or ant theory of self-evolution. We tell him the facts are against him, because self-evolution implies a beginning point at which evolution had not taken place; and it is a mathematical necessity that there must at that point have existed a power capable of initiating the evolution, else there is no explanation why the evolution did no take place countless ages before it began. And when he asks us, “But who made God?” we answer, As something must never have been made, we must on any theory accept an inscrutable fact; and it is more according to reason to accept an inscrutability that was equal to the evolution than an inscrutability which-having no wisdom or power of initiative-could not be equal to it.

And while we are discussing with him-unfortunately the need for discussing it is forced upon us every day-we turn to the Bible and say, “Man, while you and I are discussing matters alike beyond the grasp and settlement of human intellect on one side or other of the question, the question is settled for us by a book. This book cannot be got rid of. It is not a question of discrepancies or questionable authenticities-which by the way do not exist in the case, but are only alleged by the unscrupulous malice which in its turn deceives honesty in many cases. It is a question of the whole character of a book which is a library, extending over thirty centuries in its composition. Study this character: read this book: read it daily and diligently, as the transcendent importance of the subject demands, and you will find that it is its own evidence. It cannot be accounted for on any theory of human composition. It defies explication in all its narratives and all its prophecies, on such a principle. It is intelligible only on one principle; it will answer to no other; it is a book of divine inception-it is a book of divine narrative-it is a record of divine doings, divine sayings, divine prophecies, divine purposes. Every one who reads it with discrimination-who brings to it any knowledge of human nature and human books, and any capability of discerning between things that differ-realises in the mere reading of it, apart from all extraneous questions, subjects and investigations whatever, that the question of the Creator is settled for ever by the existence of the Bible and the Bible alone.”

The Bible is distinct from all books and systems in this, that its main aim is to make man acquainted with God. It is not a book of philosophy; it is not a book of morals; it is not a book of poetry; it is a stately, majestic, pure record of what God has done among men, with the object He has plainly declared throughout-the object of making Himself known, and of bringing men into adoration and subjection. It makes nothing of man: it makes everything of God. This is according to reason; for man is but a transient form of eternal power; eternal power alone is intrinsically great and worthy. And of this eternal power, it tells us what we could not know, but what is also according to true reason. It tells us this eternal power is a unit filling heaven and earth with a simultaneous presence, as a light fills a room, yet having a located radiant focus as light in a gas-lit room has focus and source in the gas-jet that illumines it.

It tells us that this universal power with glorious kernel and invisible extension is the Father, filling immensity by the plenitude of His inextinguishable and undiminishable presence-the One person in whom and of whom are all things-the seat and source of the wisdom which has contrived all things-the Creator, possessor and dreadful Majesty of heaven and earth, before whom the highest angels bow in awful reverence.

Having told us this much-and oh, how much this is when we contrast it with the contracted and withering notions of the natural man, whose speculations are little better than the gibberings of an idiot-it proceeds to tell us most glorious and comforting facts concerning his character. Moses heard the proclamation of His name, and that proclamation has been written for our learning: -

There are several things in this proclamation that strike and challenge attention. The first is very manifest: “merciful, gracious, long-suffering.” The meaning of this is practically exemplified in the history of Israel, who though now scattered because of their sins, were borne with for many generations before God’s anger reached a point at which He would no longer spare. The Psalmist gives concise and beautiful expression to it:

“He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again” (78:38).

There is much in this for our personal consolation. We have been brought into relation with the God of Israel, in our subjection to the gospel of His Son. We have become His sons and daughters if our faith is one that is alive, working by love, in the obedience of His commandments. In this position how naturally-naturally to the spiritual man-we turn our thoughts towards “Him with whom we have to do.” If we could not find comfort in our contemplations of Him, how comfortless we should be. We are poor and weak ourselves in all senses. We have no mental resources of any account. In the flesh dwelleth no good thing. We delight in the law of God after the inner man: but we find a distressing impotence in the direction of spiritual accomplishment, which would bow us to earth with despair were it not for the encouragement we draw from “the God of all comfort” in our contemplations of Him as revealed. He is presented to us as our Father, compassionate of our weakness, and appreciative of our dependence. Jesus made this aspect of Him very prominent in his communications with the disciples.

“My Father and your Father”;

“The Father himself loveth you”;

“Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him”;

“Ye are of more value than many sparrows”;

“The Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly”.

We do well to avail ourselves of the full wealth of comfort there is in these words. Our weakness and our cloud are all our own. They are incidental to the weak nature we have. They no more interfere with His kindness than the mountain mist interferes with the brightness of the sun. Our weakness may incapacitate us for rejoicing in the Lord at all times: but the Lord is there all the same, to rejoice in. In the Lord Yahweh is everlasting strength, and in the mental sense, we can always draw upon Him for sustenance. We can always lean on the Rock that is higher than all. We learn at last to say with the Psalmist:

The second point, though involving an apparent contradiction, contains also much comfort and some wholesome instruction for the unthinking-“forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” The apparent contradiction may be manifested thus: if god by no means clears the guilty, how can He be said to forgive any, seeing it is only the guilty that need forgiveness? The answer is to be found in the sense attaching to the word “guilty” as used in this connection. It is not in the sense of having committed an offence merely, but in the sense of having done it with guile and without that acceptable repentance towards God, which is the basis of forgiveness and which secured the pardon of David in the most heinous of offences. Achan may be taken as a type of the guilty that will not be cleared. He deliberately disobeyed a divine injunction through avarice, and made no confession of his sin till found out. Then he admitted the offence that was known and read of all men, but being emphatically “guilty,” he was not cleared. So Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and the man who blasphemed, and the son of the Egyptian woman who presumptuously broke the Sabbath law, were all specimens of the “guilty” whom God will by no means “clear,” either under Moses or Christ. There is no provision for the remission of presumptuous sin. Even under the law, no sacrifice was to be accepted for such.

But for those who are not presumptuous, but who on the contrary are broken and contrite in heart, and tremble at Yahweh’s word, there is forgiveness. The Mosaic service was one long and perpetually recurring illustration of God’s desire to be approached in reconciliation of transgressors. For all classes of offence (except offences of presumption), forgiveness was stipulated on confession and sacrifice. The offering accepted at the hands of Abel is proof that this dispensation of the goodness of God has been in force from the beginning. Its latest illustration exists in the fact stated by Paul, concerning the appearing of Christ in the flesh, that-

To which he adds that-

This is one of the first features of the gospel as apostolically delivered:

It was the first thing proclaimed by Peter in connection with the gospel on the day of Pentecost.

We have therefore to realise this, as we assemble round the symbols of the Lord’s death, that from all our past sins we have been washed, justified and sanctified. We stand before God accepted in Christ, notwithstanding the grievous record of the days of our darkness. In this let us rejoice; let us give thanks to God, who of His own abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope. While we do so, however, let us remember what belongs to our position as saints, who have been washed from their past sins.

“Shall we continue in sin that grace (or the favour of God’s forgiveness) may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin continue any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:1).

Some have thought in past times, and many practically seem to think so now, that a continuance of transgression is permissible to the children of God, as calling for and securing a continuance of the favour of forgiveness. As to this, John is very pointed:

“Let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:7).

So also Paul:

This is on the negative side of the question. As to what forgiven men-the saints of God-the brethren of our Lord Jesus should be, Paul makes it very plain:

“Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness . . . Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers . . . Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:22-32).

Finally, it is no part of the spirit of our calling to glory over other men because of the privileged position in which the Gospel has placed us. Paul expressly exhorts us-

“To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men,” adding this as a reason, “for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”

A recollection of our own antecedents will, in the true exercise of reason, help us to be magnanimous towards those who are still where we were. It will help us in the same direction if we remember that our whole present probation is intended as a preparation for the mighty work of conferring blessedness on the family of man throughout the utmost bounds of the earth.

Taken from: - “Seasons of Comfort” Vol. 1

Pages 407-411

By Bro. Robert Roberts

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