THAT which is a joy and comfort to the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (i.e., the fact that God sees him) is a terror to the unbeliever. One knows the love of God ― the love of God his Father; the other dreads the very thought of God. The former knows that the eye of God is upon him for good; the latter fears it, for his conscience convicts him that he is a sinner. The first invites God’s scrutiny. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me.” This is his language (see Psa. 139:23, 2423Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23‑24)). The second, on the contrary, seeks to hide away from God, as did our first parents in the garden when they had sinned (Gen. 3:88And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:8)). “Conscience makes cowards of us all,” as a great author truly said.
A well-known preacher of the gospel, personally known to the writer, in his last gospel address, told how his mother, when he was a little boy, had pointed to a large eye painted on a wall, and had said to him, “That is like the eye of God, which is ever upon you.” This had such a great influence upon him, that all through his life he had had the sense of living under the eye of God. He spoke of this on the Sunday evening. On the following Wednesday he came out of a shop; and after walking a few steps he was seen by a boy to suddenly look up, and then fall down dead! Well for him that the question of all that the eye of God detected in him as a sinner had been settled by God’s own Son, who bore the full penalty of his sins upon the cross. “For Christ hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). [See also Isaiah 53:5,65But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5‑6).] Many years before falling as he did, he had the joy of knowing that God’s eye was upon him for good, as Hagar the runaway slave discovered when she said, “Thou God seest me” (Gen. 16:1313And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? (Genesis 16:13)).
When I had just written this paper a solemn story was told me; and a serious contrast it is to the preacher’s case. A collier, in trying to get coal from the outcrop of a seam, during the strike, was buried beneath a fall from the roof, and suffocated. The very night before, an open-air gospel meeting was held outside his house; and a converted relative, in urging him to decide for Christ, said, “This may be your last chance!” But alas, as far as we know, he did not take it!
And now, my reader, how is it with you? With the knowledge that “God is light,” do you welcome the thought of the eye of God resting upon you? Or do you shrink from meeting His holy search, and seek to cover your guilty, lost condition under some fancied goodness or religiousness of your own? Remember what He has said, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Prov. 28:1313He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)). “If we confess our sills; He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:9-109If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:9‑10)). W. G. B.