IT is said of Lord Nelson that, when on one eventful occasion he did not wish to see a certain signal, he put the telescope to his blind eye, and then said he did not see it.
Now very much of the infidelity of the present day proceeds on the same lines. The infidel does not “see” certain facts in Scripture. He does not wish to see them, so turns his blind eye to them. They would sadly interfere with his boastful modern thought. He forgets, perhaps, that paganism in former days produced thinkers as great as ever lived, yet their highest thoughts were but contemptibly foolish in divine things. Thus the very effort of skepticism to reduce the word of God to the level of human thought and nullify its Divine authority is verified in these words, “As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22, 28). And no greater fool ever lived than the man who determines not to see the facts which God has been pleased to reveal; for underneath all his profession of a wisdom which gives him to bring every utterance of God to the bar of his human reason, his innate desire is to get rid of God and the revelation of His ways. But God has revealed Himself, for He would teach us not only what He does, but who He is and what He is. “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the forward is carried headlong” (Job 5:13). My one desire, dear reader, is to fasten upon your mind and conscience the facts contained and conveyed in the above two words, so oft repeated in the New Testament. To get right hold of them will make you wiser, as to God and yourself, than the wisest philosopher.
In the 12th chapter of Luke we have a man who was blessed with business-intelligence. He could think, but self was the center and circumference of his thoughts; moreover, he appeared to be as shrewd as he was thoughtful. “He thought within himself” and this produced activity, but it was all selfish activity. It was all “I―I―I―What shall I do?” Not only thoughtless of others, he was thoughtless of God and His goodness. Had his heart not been hardened by sin, his thoughts would have looked higher than himself and his barns, even to God, and produced thankfulness. But just as the earthly goal of his ambition seemed within his grasp, another thinker intervenes, and we read, “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke 12:20).
The One Who spake thus―the Lord Jesus Christ―knows all about us today. He not only knows all about man, but all about God. He knows your best and highest thought, but at the same time He reveals God. I know nothing more solemn and searching than this, that if you are unconverted, God is not in all your thoughts.
But I pass on to another scripture, Acts 13, where again we have man’s thoughts and God’s in solemn contrast. Man’s highest thought as seen here was to put to death the blessed One Whom God had sent into this world to be a Saviour. The Spirit brings before us twice that word “fulfilled.” God had written down in His blessed book the wickedness of man, even to the piercing of His hands and gambling over His clothes, and man had only fulfilled that which was written in the Scriptures. God knew their very worst, and proved it by recording it hundreds of years before. When man at last did his worst to Jesus, we read, “But God raised Him from the dead.” What immediately follows? Threatening’s of judgment? No. Glad tidings is declared. Oh, think of it! In spite of man’s badness, God, by this very act, shows out His goodness; and this ought to move and melt your heart. Again, we read in Romans 5. “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”―died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and was buried, “but God” ―oh, how I love these two words! ― “but God raised Him from the dead.” Blessed news!
John Wesley asked, more than a century ago now, What would St. Paul preach if he came to life again? We ask, What did he preach when he was here? We have his own account of it. “But we preach Christ crucified, into the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.... For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,” etc. (1 Cor. 1:23-27). Oh, what a God of all grace we have to do with! Man’s highest conception fails completely here, and could never understand in its simplicity the ways of God in saving sinful men. My reader, do you understand? Though the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite mind, yet the moment you take Christ as your Saviour and believe the gospel of your salvation, what could never be conceived by man, you will be able to say, as it is written, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9, 10).
One more scripture in Ephesians 2, where these two words are found (not that I have exhausted them: see Romans 6:1 Corinthians 15, and other texts). “But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved)” (v. 4, 5). Here again we have God’s wondrous thoughts and ways in contrast with man’s. It is a terrible picture of man; in his sins, morally dead, without one aspiration of life Godward. Such is the state, and the marks of it are found in verse 2. We walked according to the course of this world, according to the devil and the flesh. By nature we were the children of wrath, even as others. “But God”― “God, Who is rich in mercy.” Oh! what a blessed contrast! My friend, I do not ask, Do you fully understand it? Do you see it? Who can take it all in? I cannot understand the great love of God, which had His own heart and heaven for its origin and birthplace. But we can learn the great proof of it, in the gift of His own Son. Not only has He demonstrated His great love in not sparing His Son, but delivering Him up for us all, and with Him freely giving us all things, but He has further demonstrated His love in the gift of the Spirit, “that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” He would prove beyond the shadow of a doubt by an outside act that we have a place in His heart, but He would prove, too, that He has a place in ours, by pouring out His love into them by the Holy Ghost given to us. And whilst we would not for a moment substitute the Holy Spirit for the Scriptures, yet we must remember that it is the Spirit through the Scriptures that gives us the experimental knowledge and enjoyment of His love as seen in His beloved Son.
In closing, let me say that my sole right to address you consists in this blessed fact, that I have made the acquaintance of this blessed God, and am privileged to commend Him to you for your acquaintance also. W. N.