Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: July 18th

The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. - Psalms 103:19.

HERE we have the doctrine of the all-disposing agency of God again asserted. But let us consider how it is to be improved? We observe that there are two uses to which it may be applied. First, In a way of conviction. It is desirable to have it settled firmly in our minds that we are not in a world ungoverned by Jehovah. There is a notion prevailing among some men, half philosophical, and more than half infidel, that God is attentive to the world as a grand and complete system, but that he disregards mankind individually. If this arises from a concern to relieve the Almighty from a good deal of perplexity and care, it is all needless, for “He fainteth not, neither is he weary: there is no searching of his understanding;” and “Nothing is too hard for the Lord.”

Then reason tells us that a universal providence necessarily implies a particular one, as the whole is made up of parts. Among men an attention to little things prevents an attention to great things; and an attention to great things prevents an attention to little things. But this is not the case with God: while he wings an angel, he hears the chirping of a grasshopper. He teaches the spider to weave his web: and what says the Great Teacher on this subject?-“A sparrow falleth not to the ground without your Father;” and “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” If there were no controlling agency of God in the concerns of the world, things would always operate immediately, if they operated at all, according to their own nature and tendency; but we see how often this is checked, so that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding; nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” That is, what men call chance; for there is no such god or goddess as chance in the Christian’s creed. But the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. “Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever.”

The second use is in a way of adoration. “There is none like unto thee,” says David, “among the gods, neither are there any works like unto thy works.” Then how finely he breaks forth!-“Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and power, the glory and majesty; for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” We may think much of managing a single family, of providing for it, of placing the members of it in order, and of doing every thing decently and becoming. A man may think much of managing an extensive and perplexed business, where he employs perhaps a thousand hands, and has the superintendence of machinery of wondrous power. We think highly of a man who governs well the concerns of a province, or a country. But here we are told of One whose kingdom ruleth over the whole world.

How many creatures are visible to us!-and how many more are invisible on earth and in the sea! He sustains them all, and feeds them all. What multitudinous, what differing and conflicting, interests are there among men! They act differently and feel differently, yet each subserves his own interest, and all subserve the interests of all. Thus we see “the heart of a king is in the hand of the Lord, and he turneth him whithersoever he will.” Events are made by him to run into channels along which, as they flow, they show forth his praise.

“Marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee and glorify thy name? for thou art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee.”

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven. - Romans 1:18.

LET us consider the revelation of this wrath. It is made known in various ways. First, It is revealed to our faith. And this is done by the sacred Scriptures; faith sees it plainly enough in this book; there “hell is naked before it, and destruction has no covering;” there faith beholds the outer darkness, where there is “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Those who believe this volume must admit the misery, and those who deny the misery must get rid of the volume, that is, get rid of the truth of it; before they can feel satisfaction, they must believe that this book is “a cunningly devised fable.” And who can believe that a scheme so harmonious in its parts, so sublime in its discoveries, so wise in its contrivances, so holy in its nature; breathing such a pure morality; so benevolent in its tendency, so conducive to the welfare of man individually and socially considered-a scheme preserved by Providence, established by miracles, in defence of which the best of men have died, and the wisest of men have lived-who, we repeat, can believe that all this is the offspring of a weak or wicked mind?

Secondly, It is revealed to the conscience. Thus it is revealed in those uneasinesses and apprehensions which attend the commission of sin. It is hard, if not impossible, for an individual to deliver himself from these. And why so? We are generally referred to the apprehension of human detection and human punishment; but what are we to do when we find these apprehensions where no human detection is expected, where no human punishment is reckoned upon? Whence is it that any unusual appearance or awful occurrence gives to the mind a kind of fearful perturbation? When Joseph’s brethren were in the prison, they said one to another. We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.” What was there here to remind them of Joseph? O there was enough.

Inhumanity deserves and demands punishment, and conscience knows it. And when Belshazzar was at his feast and saw the fingers inscribing some characters on the ceiling, his face and his heart were filled with terror, the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. Why? Since he does not understand the writing, how does he know but that it is an eulogium upon his character, or an announcement of the raising of the siege by Cyrus, or that it is a prediction of the extension of his reign? There was something within him foreboded of evil, and the interpreter, therefore, only came in to confirm the exposition of his own feelings.

It is commonly supposed that Herod was a Sadducee; and if so, he denied the existence of Spirits, and the resurrection of the dead; and yet, when he heard of the fame of Jesus, he said, “It is John the Baptist: he is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works are done by him.” His conscience was too strong for his creed.

Thirdly, It is revealed to our senses. This is conclusive; all nature abounds everywhere with tokens of God’s displeasure against sin. Proofs of the Deluge, for instance, are everywhere to be found. What diseases, famines, hurricanes, and earthquakes sometimes desolate our earth; sufferings of every kind have been inflicted upon individuals, upon families, and upon nations. These result by the appointment of him who has established a connection between sin and misery. And to a reflective mind there is enough to be seen to produce the conviction that there is such a tendency in sin to produce misery; and that, were the obstruction that now hinders the tendency in various particulars to be removed, it would work out and issue in all the dreadful things the Scriptures have made known.

Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, to our faith, to our conscience, and to our senses. And we observe that while the existence of this wrath shows the holiness and justice of God, the revelation of it displays his mercy and, his grace. He would not take sinners by surprise; he would not strike before he spoke. He has revealed his wrath-why? To inflict it? No, but that we may escape it: revealed it in order to make sin terrible, that sin may produce flight, and that flight may induce us to enter the refuge of hope set before us in the gospel.