07.06. Promises Perpetuity
PROMISES PERPETUITY The third demand of man is for perpetuity. That also is secured by those who dwell wholly within the Will of God. The argument may be simply stated thus:
God’s Will is perfect, because He is, and the Eternal alone can make laws which include the past, present, and future, so as to secure perpetuity.
Nothing is more restful to the heart of man than the sense of the eternity of God. The thought is utterly beyond our perfect comprehension, for the mind of man cannot grasp the thought of eternity. The very fact, however, of our inability to do so is the reason of the security we feel when we remember that God is Himself eternal. The secrets of the past, all unknown to us, are ever present to His omniscient mind. Upon the mystery of the future the light of His perfect knowledge rests; and the problems of to-day that fret and trouble us are seen by Him in their relation to the past and to the future, and for that reason cease to be to Him perplexing, as they are to us. In the eternity of God, time has but one significance, it is perpetually and unceasingly “Now.” The name by which He revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush is full of significance. He is the “I AM.” Combining this fact with those considered in previous chapters, of His Creatorship and His love, we argue at once that the laws He makes for the creatures of His hand and the children of His love, are laws that will take in the sum of things, and so condition the present, that it shall hold within it the power and the promise of the future.
Every present law of God for man is based upon the fact of the past, and moves towards the purpose of the future. What He wills for each person to-day takes into account all the forces and facts of the past. Previous failings in the individual life; tendencies inherited from the generations that have gone; the accumulated forces that propel men from the dead centuries-are all present to the mind of God, when He arranges the programme of individual lives. So also the future is known to Him. The true line of life’s development with all the lines that cross and thwart it. Words that we often have to make use of are never required in the vocabulary of God. We speak of contingency, exigency, accident. He cannot be surprised. Nothing happens, in the sense in which we use that word. He marks the approach of every foe, knows whence it comes, sets the limit of its opposition; saying ever to Satan, as He said in the case of Job, “So far mayest thou go; only here and there thou shalt stay thy hand.”
It follows, necessarily, that where life is governed only within the Will of God, every date and every event become links in the chain of a perfect whole. All contribute to a finality. It is impossible here and now for us to discover the relation of the present moment either to past or to future. But that relation is always present to the mind of God. We are permitted occasional gleams of light upon this truth as the years of our life pass on. The light falls in the act of retrospection. Looking back to-day to the events of years that have passed, we begin to discover their meaning. They are seen to be part of the Divine mosaic. The keen disappointment, the whelming sorrow, came after all as a necessity out of the past, and hold within themselves the elements that make the present, and colour all the future. The present place of service and of blessing could not have been but for the events that seemed to create confusion. From this distance we see how God was moving in the infinite order of His ceaseless love, and what we thought confusion was but the sign of His progress. What light is flung upon the pathway of each day if once this fact is understood. The day is not done with when its sun sets. The deeds of any given hour are not fully comprehended in the passing of its sixty minutes. If the deeds of the days have been those planned by God, then they are days, the full blossoming of which will be found in the perfect light of the everlasting day. It has been said that every flower that decks the sod has its root far back in eternity. So also every human life, in the Will and purpose of God, is linked to the past and to the future, and His laws for it forget no fact of all the ages.
Need anything further be written to prove the wisdom of abandoning life to His Will? See how all other laws fail when placed in comparison with this. The best-loved friend I have cannot compass within the facts of certain knowledge the events of the next hour. They may advise, but their advice is necessarily tentative. They would go this way if-and how much depends upon the if. A thousand chances may prove the folly of their wisdom, the shortsightedness of their policy. This is never so with the soul that has no law save that of the Divine Will.
“He always wins who sides with God, To him no chance is lost.” The same criticism will apply to selfmade programmes. One might, perchance, make a programme for one’s own life for a week if one knew all that could possibly happen within that week. Seeing, however, that that knowledge does not extend to the next minute, the folly of a self-governed life becomes apparent. Of course it is necessary that we should have our programme and our plan and our arrangement, but the more necessary thing is that all such should be prefaced by the old-fashioned and almost obsolete letters D.V. “If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. . . . To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Thus James states the true attitude of man towards his future and his God. If our plans are made with this reservation, how often we shall have to thank God for their spoiling; how perpetually has He broken up our programme in order that His Will should be done, and how true we have found it to be that- “God’s Will is sweetest to us when It triumphs at our cost.” The restfulness and peace of this attitude of surrender to the Divine Will lies in the fact that the Eternal God, Who in infinite love has created us, has done so for eternal comradeship with Himself; and if He govern the life, He will bring it, notwithstanding all the forces that seem to be against it, to the place of full and undying existence. There is no other law of life that will secure this. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the Will of God abideth for ever.” From the centre of that Will man may look out upon change and decay, upon death and destruction, and know that he is perfectly safe from them all; yea, master of every one.
“Things that once were wild alarms Cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms, Pillowed on the loving breast.
Oh to lie for ever here, Doubt and care and self resign, While He whispers in my ear I am His, and He is mine!
“His for ever, only His, Who the Lord and me shall part;
Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart!
Heaven and earth may fade and flee, First-born light in gloom decline, But while God and I shall be, I am His and He is mine.!”