“Stormy wind fulfilling His word.”―Ps. 148:8.
THERE is strength and power in the inanimate creature, before which the wisdom and strength of man are alike futile. But God has measured the strength and power of every creature, not only by His omnipotence, but by His love also. “I am persuaded,” says the apostle, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” Blessed thought! every creature may try to effeet this separation, but none shall prevail. But is not the thought, while equally blessed, yet more wonderful to conceive that every creature has its distinct mission, either in judgment or mercy, or in mercy on the one side and judgments on the other? “For thus saith the Lord God, How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence;” all these creatures have their distinct mission from the Lord to fulfill His word. So also the stormy wind, the most uncontrollable element, has its mission from the Lord to fulfill His word. Does Jonah fly from the presence of the Lord? God knows how to arrest him, and to get glory to His own name; and in the result to show mercy even to Jonah. “The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.” (Jonah 1:4.) But it was not broken; that was not the mission of the great wind; it had respect to Jonah, and to him alone, and it fulfilled the word of the Lord. But God had other creatures at His command in reference to Jonah. “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.” (vs. 17.) And again after Jonah’s disappointment, because that mercy rejoiced against judgment, and that the Ninevites were spared on their repentance, “the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief.” (Jonah 4:6.) Then again “God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted.” (vss. 7, 8.) “The great wind,” “the fish,” “the gourd,” “the worm,” “the vehement east wind,” had each of them a distinct mission from God, and fulfilled His word.
Does Jehoshaphat, after his signal deliverance, join himself with Ahaziah, king of Israel, who did very wickedly, and do they make ships in Ezion-gaber? “Then Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish.” (2 Chron. 20) The stormy wind fulfilled His word.
If “Euroclydon” rages in the Mediterranean, it fulfills its mission in bringing honor to the Lord’s prisoner, the only one calm and collected in the midst of danger, and for whose sake all that sailed with him in the ship were spared. (Acts 27:24.)
But if God “commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which Meth up the waves of the deep” (Pa. 107:26), “He also stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people” (Psa. 65:7): and intelligent creatures, in their passions and interests as uncontrollable by human power as the waves of the sea, have their mission. And God can say to the one or the other, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” (Job 38:11.)
If it be marvelous in our eyes that things unintelligent and inanimate have not only their mission, but are made subservient to God’s purpose of blessing His people, for “not even a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father,” our admiration becomes deeper when we find the opposition of human passions, and complication of human interests, made to serve a definite end, and to go straightforward to that end. Such appears to be the instruction to be drawn from the symbol of the Cherubim, as seen by the prophet Ezekiel. Such controlling and directing power is also presented to us in “the Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Rev. 5:6)-full power of order and control under universal superintendence.
That God effectuates His purpose by means of moral and intelligent, and therefore responsible agents, who have nevertheless not the least conception of what they are thus doing, or the purpose they are subserving, is almost an overwhelming thought; yet it must be received as an axiom by those who bow to the authority or Scripture. The Lord sends the proud “Assyrian against an hypocritical nation; against the people of His wrath He gives him a charge. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so. It is in his heart to destroy and out of nations not a few.” (Ise. 6-7.) Oaesar Augustus issues his decree for taking the census of the empire, for wise political reasons; little did he mean, neither did his heart think, thus to bring about the accomplishment of a remarkable prophecy concerning Him who is Lord of lords, and King of kings. The wisest men, the ablest politicians, the most renowned conquerors, whilst they are pursuing heartily and intelligently the object they have proposed to themselves, are ignorantly subserving another purpose which is not in their hearts. Religion prejudice and ignorance have their mission, as well as the stormy wind, or proud Assyrian. “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers: but those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled.” (Acts 3:17, 18.)
But the most interesting as well as the most wonderful power of order and control is found within the Church itself. Regarding the Church in its actual condition, it appears to us in hopeless disorder and confusion; yet, notwithstanding this appearance, the only-wise Master-builder is rearing a building of perfect symmetry and beauty, in due time to be manifested, without a single stone either wanting or out of place. (Rev. 21:9-27.)
In the rearing of this building He is now employing various workmen; yet these workmen are working by different plans of their own, often pulling down each other’s building, because it is not wording to their fashion, and sometimes building again what they themselves have destroyed. In appearance the several workmen have no common plan, no rule, no compass, no plummet; rearing several detached buildings, and each one glorying in the work of his hands, as if they were destroying the Temple instead of building it. This must doubtless be to the damage of all. But under the superintendence of Him whose servants they are, they are all working for His end, although their passions, vanity, self-seeking, and littleness, may have an end of their own, or make them think that the Lord’s end can only be attained by their way. It is truly blessed when the Lord. Himself is honored in His way as well as in His end. But notwithstanding the follies and bye-ways of His servants, He is working for His end through them; and we are able in some measure to understand how He is doing this.
“And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.” (Mark 16:20.) Now it is only just so far as the Lord is working with His servants that they are working with and for Him. (2 Cor 6:1.) He will set aside and burn up “the wood, hay, and stubble;” that for which their energy, it may be, has been spent, and in which their chief interest has been occupied. But that for which He hath wrought mightily in them (and His very might to calm and patient, compared with human energy), “the gold, silver, and precious stones,” He will preserve.
The point here is, not which of the servants is acting most according to the Lord’s plan, or how much loss many of the Lord’s servants will have to suffer; but how it is, that with such a miserable set of tools, the great Master-worker produces such exquisite workmanship, in due time to be manifested as that city which has the glory of God.
But if all the Lord’s workmen are under Him working for a definite end exactly in proportion as He works with them, it necessarily follows, that in that in which the Lord works with His servants, they are co-workers one with another, they are really working for one end; howbeit in their hearts they may repudiate the thought of being associated in common labor. That for which they are working in their own hearts is one object; that for which the Lord is using them, and working with them, is another. Humbling indeed it is that it should be so; and that regard for Him, whose servants we are, should have so little power in setting self aside. Great was the comfort to the apostle to have a true yoke-fellow in Timothy or Titus; but although he had few likeminded with him in his singleness of eye to the service of the Lord, he nevertheless acknowledges others as his fellow-helpers unto the kingdom of God. “These only,” says he, “are my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort to me.” (Col. 4:11.) Many of the servants of Christ might be wayward and self-seeking; some entangled in Jewish traditions, others in Gentile philosophy; they were no comfort to the apostle, and instead of strengthening were by their ways apparently weakening his hands; nevertheless, the apostle acknowledges them as servants of Christ, and his fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God. They must stand or fall to their own Master; but in fidelity to that Master, he must acknowledge them in whatever way the Master working with them was accrediting their work. If they really were ministers of Christ, they must, under the Master-worker’s hand, be helping on His work.
Had not the apostle been able to take, fellowship in labor on another and higher ground, than that of ostensible co-operation, he had so few “like-minded” that he might almost have been driven to express himself, as the prophet, in felt desolation― “And I only am left;” or to adopt the ready human way of party making which he so strongly repudiates, “Who is Paul, or who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?”
“And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not; for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:49, 50.)
PATIENCE―Our trials may sometimes appear both long and sharp. God tries our patience as well as faith. He exhorts us to “let patience have her perfect work,” as well as to “cast not away our confidence which hath great recompence of reward.” (James 1:4; Heb. 10:35.) We may well wait upon the Lord, and be of good courage, for He is faithful that promised.
‘He will not always chide,
But when the hope seems least,
If now thy faith abide,
Then shalt thou be releas’d.’