Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: September 28th

I have seen his ways, and will heal him." - Isaiah 57:18.

The greater part of mankind pass through the earthly stage of their existence without anything that can appropriately be termed the knowledge of God. To others, however, it is given in some most solemn moment to find themselves suddenly in the presence of God and to be overwhelmed with the perception of his holiness, power, sovereignty, and omniscience. The scales fall from their eyes, and they behold that sublime and offended Majesty in whose august presence they, in willing unconsciousness, have been for many a long year committing their abominable transgressions. Then they exclaim with amazement and profoundest humiliation: " Thou hast searched me and known me; thou art acquainted with all my ways." The relations of that hour are very partial, very imperfect; were they otherwise it would be impossible to sustain them. Man has become so naturalized in the domain of falsehood, that to strip him at once of all his falsehood would be to rend his body and soul asunder and consign the immortal part of him to everlasting despair. There is reason to believe that such a day will dawn for the world at large; a day when the Lord shall be revealed in his glory, and every eye shall see him; and multitudes shall call upon the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne. But now we have as it were only adumbrations of the judgment that is to come.

Is there not something very humiliating and condemning in the thought that you are so bound up in falsehood, it has become such a part of your life, that it is necessary to proceed with great caution in removing from you the many folds of it? - Yet even the partial revelations of that hour when God enabled you to perceive him present in his holiness and majesty, filled your soul with terror, and you could not at all comprehend how peace and joy could ever consist with the discoveries then made. But perhaps this reflection then arose in your mind: that if God had intended you to have experience of his wrath alone, he would probably have still deferred the hour of manifestation, until you had passed the bourne of hope, the bourne of life.

" I have seen his ways, saith the Lord," and what terrible sentence may we not look for, as a sequence to this announcement? But lo, the most gracious of all words issue from his lips: " I will heal him." The knowledge which God has of our corruption and deep depravity, soon becomes to us a ground of confidence; he knows what we need; perfectly aware of what we are, he has undertaken to restore us, and he will certainly accomplish what he has taken in hand.

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