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Devotional: October 26th

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" The Lord is good to all" - Psalms 145:9.

The Lord is good; - this is an independent proposition. He is good to the good, to all the heavenly companies that do his bidding, and rejoice in his government. That he should be good to sinners of earth, habitually violating his precepts, is a statement that goes far beyond the other. To a few of them? To thousands of them? To all of them? He has so made mankind that it is impossible for the least of them to exist without countless specific acts of kindness shown by God. Even corporeal life, what does it involve? Processes of infinite number and variety. Was it an act of surprising kindness on the part of Christ to give sight to the blind, and is it nothing that God should this day continue to you this wonderful faculty? Is there any less wisdom, power or goodness displayed in the preservation of an organ than in the be stowing of it? Physiology will tell you there is not. Look then at your various faculties and members and susceptibilities and tastes; at your physical and mental endowments; and understand that the multitude of God’s thoughts towards you in a single hour are so many that they could not be expressed in the largest volume ever written. If you are affected by this consideration, then extend your gaze beyond yourself and see the lines of relationship by which God has brought all things to your door. In some far off field you see grain growing, so that in some future day that appetite of yours may be regaled. And that grain is waited upon by universal nature. The very stars have a commission to care for it.

God is thus good to all. Were it not that he opened his hand, the desire of no living creature would be satisfied. Well, therefore, may the Psalmist say, " Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." Mankind, however, are far from doing thus. Judging from the murmurs, loud complaints, deep curses, reproaches, expressions of surprise, repinings, sighs, groans, tears, looks of vexation and disappointment, from all the tokens of dissatisfaction that meet us on every side, we can only conclude that men look upon God as the very opposite of good to them. They have no mind for the eulogy of God. " Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord," says the Psalmist; but his exhortation is in vain. The hearts of men may glow with admiration sometimes; but God is not the object. And nothing is gained by the augmentation of benefits. Generally indeed the more marked the goodness of God to them, the less they are disposed to praise him. What then is to be done? Could the difficulty in their heart be removed, could they be recovered from the dominion of sin, then would they rejoice in him, and even the least mercy would fill them with rapture. This is what God in his goodness has done. He hath provided a Saviour, through whom men may escape from that horrid heart of theirs which swallows up the goodness of God like a mighty Maelstrom; he has commanded his gospel to be preached to every creature.

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