WE are told that one of the most exquisite tortures to which a criminal can be subjected, is to place him in a room, in the ceiling of which is a small aperture, just large enough to allow a sentinel always to watch him. He cannot stir without being followed by that omnipresent eye, and the sensation is said to be beyond endurance. He has the painful consciousness that his every movement is noted, his every action regarded. He cannot, for one single moment, escape from observation; and the longer he is exposed to this uninterrupted course of detection, the more intolerable it becomes. Relief from the fixity of that all-pursuing glance is impossible, so that the position of the offender is worse than death itself.
This is quite conceivable.
But, my reader, there is an Eye that is ever fixed on you―one that does not sleep nor grow weary.
From morning to night, and from night to morning―during your hours of activity or of slumber―throughout the performance of your business, your pleasure, or your sin, that Eye is faithfully, diligently, taking note of your every movement.
It is the Eye of God!
That Eye is omnipresent. It is unaided by the light; it is unhindered by the dark. “Darkness and light are both alike to God.”
Never did shadow follow more untiringly than does that Eye trace your footsteps; for “the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good” (Prov. 15:33The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3)).
“In every place.” At once in palace and hovel; in mansion and prison; in the mart and at home; in the crowd, and on the individual; on the saint and on the sinner.
Now, dear reader, are you happy beneath the gaze of the eye of God?
You remember that when Adam sinned, he hid himself from God. Ah! he could not then bear the rays of God’s eye.
The thief quails beneath the eye of the detective. The guilty conscience dreads, above all things, the inspection of God’s eye!
Adam’s effort at self-concealment was of short duration; for ere long, he heard the voice of God―a voice that every ear must hear―calling to him by name, and saying, ― “Adam, where art thou?” His retreat, behind the trees of the garden, being no longer safe, he had to come out perforce, and own that he was naked. It was the sense of his degradation, his fearful fall, that had made him ashamed of himself, and led him to avoid exposure.
This was useless.
It is utterly useless to attempt to hide from God. Think of Adam appearing in the light of God’s presence, and standing consciously under His eye. What a moment!
Then God sifted, with gracious patience, the whole matter of the Fall to its source. He passed sentence first on the serpent, then on the woman who had been beguiled, and last on the man who had hearkened to the voice of his wife.
And then God clothed them. His government demanded their expulsion from His presence, but His grace considered their need, and covered them. Thus did God deal with the first sinner.
After the lapse of many centuries, there lay, on his face, in a chamber of a house in Damascus, a sinner―the chief―the foremost and most bitter opponent of Christianity. It was Saul of Tarsus!
He had gone thither to break in pieces the witnesses of Jesus. But now he is himself broken in pieces. The foe is conquered, the enemy is crushed. The light he had hated has pierced his own soul, and revealed to him his error. He is converted! He feels his guilt. He is in an agony. Now, list to the words, “Behold,” says God, “he prayeth!”
Yes, the Eye of God penetrated the walls of that Damascene chamber, and saw this penitent persecutor, prostrate in the dust, and pouring forth prayers for pardon―a lovely sight of a truth. What could be more grateful? Do not the angels rejoice when one sinner repents? And here we have the true and deep repentance of the greatest sinner that ever lived.
Behold, “behold, he prayeth!”
Charming fact! God beholds the tears and the sighs and the anguish of the repentant sinner. If His eye beholds the evil, it also sees the anxious, and an “Ananias” (meaning, “a gracious gift of God”) is assuredly sent to comfort the troubled one, telling of Jesus the Saviour of such as he, and of a gift of God, surpassing all human conception.
Thank God that His eye fails not to see the bowed and burdened soul, nor His ear to hear his cry. If God be quick to detect evil, He is as quick to acknowledge repentance. The seraph flies with pardon. The truly anxious soul need not fear the gaze of that eye. Self-judgment anticipates and averts the judgment of God, and takes the criminal, morally speaking, out of condemnation.
How important is true repentance! It turns that all-seeing eye from being a constant cause of terror, into a guide, a friend, and a protector!
Thus we read in the history of God’s people, whose necks were galled by the yoke of Egypt; of the double activity of His eye in the wonderful statement, “I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them” (Acts 7:3434I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt. (Acts 7:34)). God intensifies, as it were, His regard for His people when they are called on to suffer affliction. He sees and hears, and in due time, delivers them.
Now, then we rejoice in that eye; we invite its unintermittent gaze; we would, above all things, have its rays fastened upon us.
“I will guide thee with mine eye,” said God to David. “Thou seest me,” said poor, thirsty Hagar, whose thirst was seen by God, and, her need supplied.
Hezekiah spread the letter of Sennacherib before the Lord, asking Him graciously to read its contents. He did so, and rebuked the bold blasphemy of Assyria’s proud monarch. A poor widow was seen casting her all into the treasury, and was remembered of the Lord.
Ah! reader, are His eyes thus upon you, or is His face thus against you? I can conceive nothing more awful than the avoided face of God Almighty, or His countenance withdrawn! It means more than hopeless despair; it is largely the punishment of hell.
I know nothing more blessed than the light of His countenance. His smile, His encouragement, oh, it is better than life! Once I dreaded that face, and shrank away from that eye; sin made me avoid it. But, unable longer to feign concealment, I came from my foolish retreat, confessed my sins to His gracious ear; received His frank forgiveness, was placed inside His banqueting house, fed on the fatted calf, learned the fullness of His love, and found myself at home in His presence.
Mighty change wide difference! glorious salvation! And the eye that now looks upon me is the eye of my Father.
In closing, let me once more remind you, dear reader, that you cannot hide yourself from Him. It is a deeply solemn truth, happy for the faithful soul, but full of discomfort and misery to him who goes on in sin, that, at all times, without intermission, his ways are the object of the close, careful, accurate inspection of THE EYE OF GOD.
J. W. S.