"this is from the Lord." And, in general, when things go well with us it is easy to say, "Surely God is with us." Yet if we took a truer view of Providence, if our eyes were opened like Jacob's, we should be able to say, even of the level plain of ordinary experience, aye, even of the thorny wilderness of trouble and desolation, "Surely the Lord is in this place also. This, too, is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven." Is it not irrational to think of God's providence as intermittent—now active, now at rest? Is it not an altogether unworthy conception of God to imagine Him stepping in at particular epochs of our personal history as though He suddenly bethought Himself— "Now I must do something for this child of Mine and now for that? Must we not conceive of Him as working always (no doubt in a way beyond our comprehension) controlling the entire current of human events, making all things work together for good, present in the least as well as in the greatest, in the darkness as well as in the light. If the course of our lives be for a long period uneventful, and as regards worldly advantage stationary, is it not because He sees it is best for us it should be so, and therefore has made it so? To His unerring eye it may be plain, though not to ours, that at this particular stage of our development the excitement of new affections as of rapid advance in outward prosperity would be injurious to our spiritual health ? God is in this place, the long monotonous stretch of our personal history. Or if life's pathway be chequered with reverses, furrowed by deep ravines of sorrow, is it not because such a discipline Therefore" Himself hath was needful for us? done it." I know it is not easy to acknowledge His hand in such crises. It is more natural for us to say, "An enemy hath done this." We have often to wait in the darkness like Jacob for the moment of celestial vision ere we can find God in this wilderness. As a modern preacher1 has well put it, "We must sleep to see," close our eyes altogether to this outer world with its black frowning precipices, its gaping chasms and bare dry sands where once water flowed, let our hands cease from fighting and our feet from running, let the mind fall in upon itself, lie quiescent for higher powers to work on us and sleep to see. Then comes the dream-the ladder between earth and heaven, angels ascending and descending, and the Lord above the ladder. The eyes of our spiritual understanding are opened, and we see that it was He who allured us into the wilderness that He might speak comfortably to us and give us our vineyards from thence and the valley of Achor for a door of hope. God was in it all, the sickness, the catastrophe, the frustration of our plans, the so-called false step with all its attendant circumstances and bitter consequences. He was in it all, working out a wise and gracious purpose towards us. We needed humbling and He humbled us. Our faith wanted proving and He proved it. We lacked that tenderness of sympathy which can only be acquired in the school of suffering, and He sent us to that school. Even that fierce temptation, that humiliating fall with its subsequent anguish of remorse was needed. 1 S. A. Tipple, "Echoes of Spoken Words." God permitted it in order to prevent the greater evil of a permanent self-righteousness and self-complacency. God was in it all. We see it unmistakably in those moments when the eye of sense is closed and the eye of the soul opened with clear celestial vision. True, we waken from slumber like Jacob. The vision departs, but the things seen in it are abiding verities—a heaven open above us, God and His ministering angels. Like Jacob, we must resume our journey through the wilderness, return to the galling task and the unsympathizing world, but with an altered spirit, saying, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." IV. IN THE HUMAN HEART. Of all the unlikely places to find God, perhaps the most unlikely is the human heart. What is that Christ says of it? "From within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within." Is God there too? Yes. He is there in the sting of conscience with which the drunkard wakens from last night's debauch. He is there in the rueful pity with which the murderer, when his passion is past, looks upon his victim. He is there in the tender affection with which the fraudulent bankrupt, who has robbed other men's children, embraces his own. He is there in the bitter condemnation which the hypocritical time-server passes upon himself in his moments of reflection. He is there in the weak, half-despairing aspiration which the fallen creature C feels after a higher life. Man's heart is a garden of the Lord, all overgrown, it may be, with poisonous plants and ugly weeds; but still there, as once in a fairer spot, may be heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden and still asking the same question—" Adam, where art thou? Man whom I made in My image, child begotten of My eternal spirit, where art thou? Where dost thou vainly strive to hide thyself from Me? Where is the spirit that I inbreathed? Beneath what fleshly lust or greed of gain hast thou buried it, that spirit which is thy true self? Come forth.” Yes, God is there. If the inner life of all could be laid bare, I believe we should find in the hardest and most abandoned, moments of compunction, of relenting, of longing to be something better than they are. Did they but know that God was in that longing they would not stifle it in the anguish of despair. Probably none of us know it as we ought to know. We do not realize that every pure desire, every benevolent affection, every aspiration towards holiness is God Himself working in our heart. If we did, it would give greater strength to our lives. Had we known and felt that that faint misgiving which haunted us as we drew near the scene of temptation was the voice of God, we should not have made so light of the warning. Had we known and felt that that impulse to haste to the rescue of the ignorant and the falling was the touch of God's finger on our souls, we should not so easily have brushed it aside and settled down in idleness. Had we known and felt when we stood irresolute between forgiveness and revenge that it was God and the devil at war within our souls we should not have taken sides with the latter. Let us know it then, and feel it henceforward, and it shall be at once a safeguard and an inspiration. And if, perchance, I speak to some who have been, as they would say, seeking Christ" for years in vain, listening to this preacher and to that, going from one revival service to another, let me ask, have you not been going too far afield to find him? reading books, attending meetings, consulting friends, looking for him outside when he was all the while within. If your conscience is painfully sensitive to sin; if the deepest longing of your heart is for holiness; if, weary in the strife, you are looking upwards for divine grace to do for you what you cannot do for yourselves-you have Christ. This sensitiveness to sin is his work, this longing for holiness, his, this earnest striving, his. Whose else should it be? You can lay your hand upon your heart and say, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." You are not the first who has sought the world over to find Christ when he was all the while within. You may find your experience described in the quaint, tender words of old Francis Quarles, which may fittingly conclude this discourse. "I searched this glorious city: He's not here, I sought the Country: She stands empty-handed. I searched the Court: He is a stranger there. I asked the Land: 'He's shipped;' the Sea: I moved the Merchant's ear: alas, but he I asked the Lawyer: he demands a fee |