How good to know, that whatsoever way He has recourse to, to make my way perfect, His way is perfect in wisdom, grace, faithfulness, love unbounded. Sometimes, in the perfection of His way, He “gently leads;” sometimes “He speaks out of the whirlwind” but it is He who speaks; it is He who leads; and whether in storm or calm, He leads, He speaks whose “way is perfect.”
How perfect “His way” in our salvation! Could we have bettered it? We had nothing to do with it, and we know it is well we had not. We have nothing to do with the means of making our “way” perfect, save to wait on God for increase of faith and grace. We might, very probably, have mercy on our ways, when God, having mercy on us, has no mercy on our inventions. Were it not for the trials which God in His grace sends, who can tell what trials we should bring on ourselves?
I am a crooked one; and, to fit me for the Master’s use, I need crooked circumstances. They come, and He who makes my way perfect completes the dove-tail work, and He will plane and polish for His own glory. Ah, beloved! we hear it said, “How deeply the Lord is trying my faith.” A little self-searching before God’s all-searching eye would end in our saying, “How deeply I have been trying my Heavenly Father’s love.” What we all need is to wait on God for grace to look more to Jesus THROUGH THE WORD, to Jesus our blessed Lord and Exemplar whose way was perfect indeed, and yet who was dealt with as if He were the sinner. How He bore “the contradiction of sinners against Himself,” and the wrath of God! Let us dwell in the sunshine of “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and mark the manner of His submission to His heavenly Father’s will. Let us prayerfully meditate on Him as He is revealed in the WORD or LIFE, from the page which records His power in the creation of all things (see Gen. 1, John 1, Heb. 1,) through the records of the sorrows of His cross, and the glory of His resurrection and ascension; remembering His intercession until He come with clouds, according to His word, “Surely I come quickly!” (Rev. 22:2020He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20).)
Thus dealing with the Word, we may humbly and adoringly expect that THE COMFORTER, who is the Holy Ghost, will instruct our souls in the blessed truth, that all things work together for our good—that “tribulation worketh patience,” that “the God of patience and consolation” is our God, that patience is to “have its perfect work, that we may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” He will make our deepest, most enduring affliction “light affliction,” and show us that it is but “for a moment”—that it “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
The Lord needed not our help before time dawned, to settle His decrees concerning us; and He needs not our help now as to means to bring His decrees about. His means may be, to our eye, crooked, or they may be straight; to our taste, bitter or sweet; His way to our feet may be rough or smooth;—but “His way is perfect;” and He says, “Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.” Happy he who by the Spirit of God has been taught, through the Word, not to strive against God, for that “God is greater than man” (Job 33:12, 1312Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. 13Why dost thou strive against him? for he giveth not account of any of his matters. (Job 33:12‑13)), that “God can do everything” (Job 42:22I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. (Job 42:2)), that “without Him we can do nothing” (John 15:55I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. (John 15:5)); but that we “can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us.”
Let us, as the redeemed of the Lord—redeemed with “precious blood”—serve the Lord with gladness. Let our business be to walk before God. In His grace He will show us His way; He will make us to rejoice in it; He will teach us what grace through Jesus we have found in His sight, and we shall know something of the greatness of His power which worketh in us (Eph. 1:1919And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, (Ephesians 1:19), &c.; 3:20, 21; 6:10), both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Oh! may we then come to God as those who “believe that HE IS;” seek to please God, not ourselves; and get the testimony that Enoch got! (Heb. 11:55By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5).)
Whatever be God’s way with us, our wisdom is to “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;” to “delight” ourselves “in the Lord;” to “commit our way” and “works” to Him (Ps. 37:5; Prov. 16:2, 32All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits. 3Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. (Proverbs 16:2‑3)); to “trust in the Lord,” who “undertakes” for us—and in His own perfect way “performs” and “perfects” that which concerneth “those who trust in Him, and who desire to know and do His will.” “Teach me Thy way, O Lord!”
If by the Spirit of God we are given to meditate on Jesus in the “evening, morning, and at noonday;” and if we consider that Jesus Christ the Son of God—the Living and True God—is the Living Way to the Father, the gift of the Father to and for the Church, and that the Church is the gift of the Father to Jesus, shall we not also be assured that God will with Jesus freely give us all things? Things present are His gift, whatsoever be their form or color—painful or pleasant—as well as things to come. Whatever the “present things” may be in the way of circumstances from our heavenly Father to us-ward, for His glory and our blessing, if we are as well assured (well indeed we may be) of His infinite wisdom in the means He employs, as of the infinite wisdom of His eternal counsels, the word which it is impossible for flesh to utter, “Thy will be done,” will flow from the soul without effort, by the mighty operation of the Holy Ghost; who comforts us, while He proves to us that the will of God is “good, and acceptable, and perfect;” teaching our souls that it is impossible for God to err because “His way is perfect.” He is bold and strong in faith who says, “Thy will be done.”
Drink of the Wine of the Kingdom, “drink abundantly, O beloved,” saith the Lord; eat of the Living Bread, and God will give us, through the Bread and the Wine, all needful boldness and strength. It is true “His way is in the sea, and His path in the deep waters, and His footsteps are not known;” still, He leads His people “by the right way,” like a flock, with a shepherd’s hand and heart; and His sheep, who have redemption before their eyes, and the price thereof in their hearts, know that “His way is in the sanctuary;” and viewing the sea from the sanctuary, through, the rent veil, they know that waters that affright those who are on the wave without God, tend to the cleansing of those who are with Him in the sanctuary. They sing the song of adoration, “The waters saw Thee, O God, the waters saw Thee; they were afraid, the depths also were troubled;” but “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” The deep sea of our troubles (to the praise of the glory of His grace let it be said) becomes very shallow, when, by the Spirit, we contemplate the way of Jehovah with Jesus “in the sea;” the path which Jesus had to take “in the great waters,” in the “darkness,” “in the deeps;” when the “fierce wrath” of the Lord God of His salvation went over Him (Ps. 88); when He said, “Thou art holy”.... “I am a worm” (Ps. 22:3, 6); when His strong cry was, “Save Me, O God; for the waters are come in unto My soul....1 am come into deep waters where the floods overflow Me” (Ps. 69:1, 2).
When we drink of the cup which Wisdom has thus mingled, we are as giants refreshed with new wine (God makes us so)— “as a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.” If we eat and drink more abundantly, shall we not be stronger in faith; able to subdue our inward corruptions, as well as wax valiant in the wrestle against the principalities, and powers, and wicked spirits in heavenly places? Shall we not escape the “edge of the sword,” and stand against their wiles, which deepen, greatly deepen, as “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh?” The song of praise on our journey to our heavenly city— “To Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood” turns to flight armies of aliens, who in their own land oppose us. “By Thee I have run through a troop, by my God I have leaped over a wall. As for God, His WAY IS PERFECT. (In the sea and in the sanctuary, His way is perfect!) THE WORD OF THE LORD Is TRIED (REFINED, see margin), He is a buckler to all them that trust in Him. For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God? It is God that girdeth me with strength, and MAKETH MY WAY PERFECT.” May the God of Peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make us perfect in every good work to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.