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EVERYWHERE AND YET FORGOTTEN
NO. 326
DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, JULY 29, 1860,
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.
“Who knows not in all these that the hand of the Lord has worked this? In whose hand is
the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”
Job_12:9, Job_12:10.
THESE verses occur in Job’s answer to Zophar the Naamathite. Job had his failings but certainly he appears less
faulty in this dialogue than those three men who sought to reprove him and convict him of error. Zophar the Naamathite
had the very highest opinion of his own personal wisdom. He addressed Job as though he had been an inferior And all in
the eleventh chapter he used language which though extremely beautiful, must have been very grating upon the ear of
such a sufferer as Job. For it is a lecture full of high-flown language, abounding in poetry and noble images, but
containing little solid sense and less sympathy.
Job being exceedingly irritated both with the style and with the matter of Zophar’s speech, begins at once to pluck
off his plumes and to pull to pieces his fine language. In biting irony Job cries from his dunghill—“No doubt but you are
the people, and wisdom shall die with you. But I have understanding as well as you. I am not inferior to you; yes, who
knows not such things as these?” You have put into flowery language things which an ordinary observer might discover.
You have pointed to the Heaven above and to the depth beneath, to prove a truth which the creeping insect of the earth
could tell you, and which the fishes of the sea might proclaim. Ask now the beasts and they shall teach you and the fowls
of the air and they shall tell you—or speak to the earth and it shall teach you—and the fishes of the sea shall declare
unto you. Who knows not in all these that the hand of the Lord has worked this?”
There is much temper here, but there is very much of good common sense. I would we had another Job to chastise the
high-sounding language of modern theologians. There are starting up in our midst, men, who if they are not heretics in
doctrine, are aliens in speech. They are men described by the old preachers who say, “Mark!” and there is nothing to
mark and who shout, “Observe!” and there is nothing to observe, except the want of everything that is worth observing.
We know ministers who cannot speak in the common language of mankind, but must needs adopt the jargon of Carlyle,
who sets language on its head and puts the last word first.
These men must make the English language a slave to the German—the glorious grand old Saxon must buckle to
their heresies and conceal the depths of their falsehoods. I pray God the time may come when some man may unmask
them, when all these wind-bags may be rent and all these bladders may be pricked. When if teachers have anything to tell
us they will deliver themselves so that all can understand. If they cannot use plain language let their tongues go to school
till they have learned it. There is something so enticing and yet so flimsy in the modern theological school that I feel
constrained to warn you constantly against it—its mystery is absurdity and its depth is pompous ignorance.
There is no theology in it. It is a futile device to conceal the want of theological knowledge. A man with an education
that may be complete in every department except that in which he should excel, stands up and would teach Christians
that all they have learned at the feet of Paul has been a mistake. That a new theology has been discovered—that the old
phrases which we have used are out of date—the old creeds broken up. Well, what shall we do to this wiseacre and his
fellow sages? Serve them? Wherever you meet them or their disciples, as Job did Zophar—laugh at them, dash their
language to pieces and remind them that the best things they tell us are only what the fishes of the sea, or the fowls of the
air knew before them. And that their grandest discoveries are but platitudes which every child has known before, or else
they are heresies that ought to be scouted from the earth.
The doctrine upon which Job spoke was this—he wished to show that the fact of the presence of God in all things
was so clearly discernible that men need not borrow the eagle’s wing to mount to Heaven. Nor need they enter into the
heart of the Leviathan to find a chariot wherein to enter the depths of the sea. “No,” said he, “no. The present Deity the
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beasts proclaim.” The actual existence and the constant working of the Eternal God is sung by the very fowls of Heaven
and the mute fishes of the sea leap up and in their joyous reaping, seem to say, “The sea is His and He made it.” This
doctrine I wish to bring out this morning. Or, rather, thus would I speak of it. First, the present hand of God everywhere
in the universe. Secondly, our present and complete dependence upon that hand of God. And then let us learn some useful
lessons from the whole subject of Divine Providence.
I. The first doctrine is THE PRESENT HAND OF GOD.
1. That there is a God you need not that I should prove—that God is here and there and everywhere, you also firmly
believe. But, alas, it is one thing to believe this truth and quite another thing to hold it in perpetual remembrance. We
may write it down far more easily upon the tables of our creed than upon the tablets of our memory. In fact, this is one of
the doctrines which all men are constantly forgetting. And even the righteous may often check themselves because they
begin to degenerate into the fools who say in their hearts, “There is no God here.” Strange is it that the name of the Lord
should be written everywhere so clearly that even the blind might see it. And yet man is so doubly dark that he does not
observe his God even where God is most manifest and visible. Methinks, my Brethren, this forgetfulness of God is
growing upon this perverse generation.
Time was, in the old Puritan days when every shower of rain was seen to come from Heaven, when every ray of
sunshine was blessed and God was thanked for having given fair weather to ingather the fruits of the harvest. Then, men
talked of God as doing everything. But in our days where is our God? We have the laws of matter. Alas, alas, that names
with little meaning should have destroyed our memory of the Eternal One. We talk now of phenomena and of the chain
of event, as if all things happened by machinery—as if the world were a huge clock which had been wound up in eternity
and continued to work without a present God. No, not only our philosophers, but even our poets rant in the same way.
They sing of the works of Nature. But who is that fair goddess, Nature? Is she a heathen deity, or what? Do we not act as
if we were ashamed of our God, or as if His name had become obsolete?
Go abroad wherever you may, you hear but little said concerning Him who made the heavens and who formed the
earth and the sea. But everything is “nature,” and the “laws of motion” and of “matter.” And do not Christians often
use words which would lead you to suppose that they believed in the old goddess, Luck, or rested in that equally false
deity, Fortune, or trembled before the demon of Misfortune? Oh for the day when God shall be seen and little else beside!
Better, my Brethren, that philosophical discoveries were lost, than that God should be concealed behind them. Better
that our poets had ceased to write and that all their flaming words were buried with their ashes, than that they should
serve as a cloud before the face of the Eternal Creator.
We must go back again to the remembrance of our God and especially must the true Believer make the worldling feel
that the Christian has a God with him, a God about him and a God within him, one who is his constant companion and
his Fiend. So act, my Brethren, that men may be compelled to say of you, “That man has a God whom he observes in all
the events of his family, ascribing to His Divine hand every sickness that falls upon his child and every loss that occurs to
him in his business.” My Brethren, it is a doleful truth that there is nothing more easy to forget than the grand doctrine
that God is everywhere at work in the midst of us all.
2. Now, let me proceed to say that though this is a truth so frequently forgotten, it is a fact of universal force. God
works ever and everywhere. There is no place where God is not. You may traverse the silent valleys where the rocks
enclose you on either side till you can see but a strip of the blue sky. You may be the only traveler that has passed through
that glen. The bird may start up frightened and the moss may tremble beneath the first tread of man. But God was there
of old, upholding yon rocky barriers, filling the flower cups with their perfume and refreshing the lonely pines with the
breath of His mouth.
Or, descend if you will into the lowest depths of the sea where undisturbed the water sleeps. The very sand is
motionless in eternal quiet, but the footsteps of the Lord are there, reigning within the silent palace of the sea. You may
borrow the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, but God is there. Mount to the highest Heaven
or dive into the deepest Hell and God is in both—hymned in everlasting song, or howled in eternal tortures. Everywhere
and in every place, God dwells and is manifestly at work.
And not merely, my Friends, in every place, but in every time the Lord is present. From the beginning of the year
even to the end thereof, there is God. His eyes never sleep, His hands never rest. In the silent watches of midnight when
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the city sleeps, God is the Watchman and when the sun wakes up and draws aside the curtains of the night, the Lord is
abroad before him—on the waters and on the snow-white summits of the mountains. And when again high noon is
gained and all the world is busy with its toil and God forgotten, He is there amid the throng of men as well as in the
deserts’ wilds. Every place feels His footstep and every time trembles at His Presence. From everlasting to everlasting, O
God, You are sensibly felt in every passing moment. The pulsing of the eternal sea of time are caused by You and there
never is an instant when You have fled and left us to ourselves.
And as in every place and every time, so in every event there is God. Is the earth shaken by inward convulsions? It is
God that heaves the mountains to and fro. Or, do the valleys laugh in the sunshine and do the rejoicing husbandmen
carry home their harvests? God is there right manifest in the lavish bounty of His hand. The greatest political disasters
are predestinated, guided and overruled by God. When an Attila scourges the earth and reddens her soil with blood, his
steps are ordered, arranged and foreordained, as much as the flight of the eternal angel who shall blow the trumpet of the
Gospel and proclaim the year of jubilee.
There is no event, however base and vile, however grand and good, which is not within the management of the dread
Supreme. His dominion has no limit. Even the dark gulf of evil is spanned by the bridge of His wisdom. Journey onward
till you seem to go where goodness is not found and grace is all eclipsed—in the thick darkness there He dwells. He
makes the clouds His chariot and yokes the whirlwinds to His cart. Be of good cheer, Beloved, in every event you may
behold your God. If invasion should ravage this fair island, if tyrants should set their foot on the neck of your liberties, if
the streets should run with blood—God were even there supreme—His people still secure.
And if it is so, that God is in every event, permit me to remind you that God is where there is no event. When there is
a lull upon the waters and all is stagnant. When political affairs are quiet, when in the lesser world of your own house
and your own soul there is a dead calm, perhaps the woeful prelude of a tempest, God is there. Great God, You stand in
the midst of the silent desert, where not even the hum of the bee disturbs the dread solemnity of stillness! You are far
down in the cleft of the rock where creature could not live! No, in the heart of the solid adamant You have Your palace
and beneath the surging of the ever-tossing sea You have a tabernacle.
In the unknown ravine, the untraversed gorge, the Lord Jehovah has His dwelling-place. He keeps yon rocks from
tottering to their fall. He swells those rivers till they roll along. Let Him but remove His hand and earth’s pillars totter
to their fallen creation reels and the universe expires. As dies the spark struck from the steel, so dies creation if God ceases
to be present there. Oh, learn then evermore, that not only in His doings but in His testing. Not only in His acting but in
His standing still, God is most manifest to you if you will but see Him—if your eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve are
but open to behold your Father and your King. This, I may well say, is a Truth of God which though much forgotten is
of universal force.
3. Let me proceed a little further and remind you that this is a Truth of God worthy of perpetual remembrance. Do
not look at it as a mere speculation. I beseech you, do not think of a present God as a fact in which you have no interest.
There is scarcely a Truth in the compass of revelation which is more instructive, profitable and consoling to the people of
God than this—a present God in everything. Come, let me show you how worthy a remembrance it is. You have many
mercies. Your God is in them all. Does not that thought sweeten the bread you eat? Will it not give a relish to the water
that you drink?
The air you breathe, the clothes that are on your back—God is in each of them. Go to your home, where your best
pleasures dwell—your own sweet home. Be it ever so homely and when you look on your mercies say, “I see my gracious
God here.” Cast your eye upon the prattlers that climb your knee and remember that they are a heritage from the Lord.
Look at her who is the partner of your bosom and see God’s love and kindness in so good a gift. Look on all the
prosperity that attends your business. Look on your growing crops and your verdant fields and see God in every mercy
you receive.
I would not have the worldling’s wealth, for it is a wealth that came not from God. At least so far as he is concerned
it came not from a father’s hand. But oh to have benefits every one of which smells of the treasury out of which it came.
To look on your gold and on your silver, no, on your very pence—and see the impress of your God stamped there more
clearly than the image of Caesar’s own self. To sit down to your table and eat and drink and feel that every meal is a
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sacrament, that every robe you wear is a vestment sent from Heaven, that in all these mercies there is the hand of a
covenant, promise-keeping God—why it will make you live a noble life.
It was thought by the old heathens to be the grandest thing they could say of a man that he should one day eat at the
tables of the gods. My Brethren, we eat at these tables every day. At the table of my God I feast and from His cup I drink.
I have nothing which I have not received from Him. The Lord has given me all that I have.
But if it is very sweet to see God in our mercies, it is most consoling to discern Him in all our trials. Say not these are
evil times. No times are evil where God is, for His presence scatters all that is ill. Say not that you dwell in an evil place.
There is no evil place to the man who dwells with God. Think not that evil circumstances have happened unto you. They
seem to be big with evil, but those clouds shall break in blessings on your head.
Oh, if you can but look at your troubles as sent from God, it will take the sharpness from them and turn them from
wasps that sting into bees that gather honey. Say, now, when your family is sick, “The Lord has placed His hand upon
my wife and on my children.” When your treasure vanishes away, say, “The Lord has put His hands into my coffers and
emptied them.” And when the ship is wrecked, say, “The Lord has my vessel on the rocks.” And when the corn is spoiled
and the harvest is not gathered, say, “The Lord has sent the rain from Heaven. He has done it.” Join with Job the author
of our text and exclaim, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away and blessed be the name of the Lord.” Regard not
the second causes but the first cause, not the trying creature but the supporting Creator.
If it is pleasant to see God in our trials, I add it is very seasonable to remember Him in our dangers. To be at sea
when every timber creaks in the ship and when the mast is strained and then to feel, “He holds the waves in the hollow of
His hand.” To stand in places where the danger is present and terrific, and then to say, “My Father’s shield is over me.”
To walk through the midst of plague and pestilence, through the valleys that are steaming with miasma and malaria and
to feel that God holds our breath and that all the arrows that Death ever stored within his quiver can never find a place
in our heart until Jehovah bids them—oh, these things are sweet and pleasant! A man is never in danger when he feels
this.
At God’s command, through Death’s dominions and through Hell’s domains, a man might march securely trusting
in the voice which cries, “Fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God.” A present God! My Brethren, I
cannot suggest a theme that may make you more full of courage in times of danger and trouble. I think I need not enlarge
upon this point further than to add you will find it exceedingly helpful and consoling if you can discover God in your
trifles. Our life is made up of trifles and if we had a God only for the great things and not for the little things, we should
be miserable, indeed. If we had a God of the temple and not a God of the tents of Jacob, where were we?
But blessed be our heavenly Father, He that wings an angel, guides a sparrow. He that rolls a world along, molds a
star and marks its orbit when it trickles from its source. There is a God in the motion of a grain of dust blown by the
summer’s wind, as much as in the revolutions of the stupendous planet. There is a God in the sparkling of a fire-fly, as
truly as in the flaming comet. Carry home, I beseech you, to your houses the thought that God is there—at your table, in
your bed-chamber, in your workroom and at your counter. Recognize the doing and being of God in every little thing.
Think for a moment and you will find that there are many promises of Scripture giving the sweetest consolation in
trivial matters. “He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their
hands.” Why? Lest you fall from a precipice? Lest you dash yourself from a pinnacle? No, “Lest you dash your foot
against a stone.” A little danger, but a great Providence to ward us from it. And what says the Scripture also? Does it
say, “The very days of your life are numbered?” It says not so, though that were true. But it says, “the very hairs of your
head are all numbered.”
And what says the Scripture, yet again? Does it say, “The Lord knows the eagles and not an eagle falls to the ground
without your Father?” No. But, “are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground
without your Father.” A great God in little things, I am sure, will spare you a world of vexation if you will but
remember this, for it is Hence our vexations come. We often get into a bad temper about a trifle, when a great trial does
not agitate us. We are angry because we have scalded ourselves with a little water or have lost a button from our clothes
and yet the greatest calamity can scarcely disturb us. You smile, because it is true with all of you.
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Job himself, who said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away,” might have grown angry, because of some
rough edge in his potsherd. Take care that you see God in little things, that your mind may be always calms and
composed and that you be not foolish enough to suffer a trifle to overcome a saint of God.
II. Now, my dear Friends, having thus brought forward the doctrine of a God present everywhere, let me remind you
of the second head—OUR ABSOLUTE DEPENDENCE UPON A PRESENT GOD AT THIS VERY MOMENT. We
are absolutely dependent upon the will and pleasure of God for our life, our comforts, our means to enjoy our comforts
and especially for all spiritual blessings.
First, then, our life is entirely dependent upon God. One sees strange sights in journeying—scenes which will never
be erased from the memory. It was but a few days ago, just under a tremendous rock, I saw a vast mass of broken stones
and earth tossed about in wild confusion and raised in huge hillocks. My driver said to me, “That is the grave of a
village.” Some years ago, there lived upon that spot a joyful and happy people. They went forth to their daily work.
They ate. They drank—as men do to this day. One time they saw a great crack in the mountain that hung overhead. They
heard alarming noises, but they had heard such sounds before and the old men said, “There might be something
coming,” but they did not know.
Suddenly, however, without further notice, the whole side of the hill was in motion and before the villager could
escape from his hut, the village was buried beneath the fallen rocks. And there it lies. And neither bone of man, nor piece
of the habitation of man has ever been discovered in the wreck. So thoroughly was everything crushed and buried, that
nothing by the most diligent search could ever be discovered. There are many villages standing in a like position at this
day.
I passed another spot, where there was a shelving mountain with its layers slanting towards the valley. A town which
had been built at the foot had been entirely covered and a lake filled up by one tremendous slide from the top of the hill.
Yet, there stand new houses still and men venture to live among the graves of their sires. We are apt to say, “How these
people ought to look up every morning and say, ‘O Lord, spare this village.’ ” Standing there where they might be
crushed in a moment, where the slightest motion of the earth within would bring down the hill upon them, they ought to
lift up their hearts to the Preserving One and say, “Oh keeper of Israel, keep us both day and night.”
Ah, but my Friends, you and I are in the same position. Though no crags overhang our homesteads, though no
mountain threatens to leap upon our city—yet are there a thousand gates to death. There are other agencies beside these
which can hurry mortals to their tombs. You are sitting today as near to the jaws of death, as those villagers who are
dwelling there. Oh that you felt it! One breath choked up and you are dead. Perhaps your life is a thousand times in
danger every moment. As many times as there are ebbing and flowing of the blood, as many times as there are breathing
from the lungs—so many times does your life hang in such jeopardy that it only needs your God to will it and you fall
dead in your seat and are carried out a pale lifeless corpse.
There are parts of the mountain passes of the Alps of such danger to the traveler that when you traverse them in
winter the muleteers muffle the bells of their beasts, lest the faintest sound should bring down an avalanche of snow and
sweep you into the bottomless precipice beneath. Then, one would think, the traveler must feel that he is in God’s hand.
Yes, but you are in the same position now, though you see it not. Open but the eyes of your spirit and you may see the
avalanche overhanging you today and the rock trembling to its fall at this very moment. Only let your soul behold the
latent lightning that God conceals within His hand and you may soon see that to crush a gnat with your finger is not so
easy for you, as for God to take away your life now, or whenever He pleases.
As it is with our life, my Brethren, so is it with the comforts of life. What would life be without its comfort? Much
more, what would it be without its necessities! And yet how absolutely dependent are we upon God for the bread which is
the staff of life! I never felt more truly the dependence of man upon his God than I did last Friday week. At the foot of the
Alpine pass of the Splugen, I saw in the distances the whole road black, as if it had been spread over with heaps of black
earth. As we neared it, we discovered it was a group of locusts in full march—tens of thousands of myriads of them.
As we drew nearer they divided as regularly as if they had been an army and made room for the carriage. No sooner
was it passed than the ranks were filled up again and they went on in their devouring march. On we went for several miles
and there was nothing to be seen except these creatures, literally covering the ground here and there in thick layers like a
shower of black snow. Then I realized the language of the Prophet—“Before them was like Eden. Behind them was a
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desert.” They had eaten up every green blade. There stood the Indian corn with just the dry stems, but every green
particle was gone. In the front of their march you saw the vines beginning to ripen and the fields of grain hastening to
perfection.
There stood the poor cottager at his door. The wheat that he had planted and the vines that he had tended, must all
be eaten and devoured before his own eyes. The pastures were literally alive with these fiery creatures. When they first
entered the field there was green pasture for the cows of the poor cottagers. Let them stop there an hour and you might
take up the dust by handfuls and nothing left besides. “Ah,” said my guide, “it is a sad thing for these poor people—in a
month’s time those creatures will be as big and as long as my finger and then they will eat up the trees. The mulberry
trees with which the poor men feed their silkworms and which furnish them with a little wealth—they will devour every
green thing until there is nothing left but the bare dry stem.”
In armies countless as the sands of the sea and fierce to look upon, well described by the Prophet Joel, in his terrible
picture of them, as “a great army of the Lord.” Ah, I thought within myself, if God can thus sweep this valley and make a
waste of it with these little creatures, what a mercy it is that He is a kind and gracious God, or else He might let loose the
like on all the people of the earth and then nothing would stare us in the face but famine, despair and death!
Perhaps you say to me, “Ah, but we do not expect the locusts here. We shall gather our harvest joyously.” Speak not
too quickly. God has been teaching us during the last two months our absolute and entire dependence upon Him. Let this
rain continue but a little longer, let it continue till the appointed weeks of harvest shall come and where are our people
then?
You may open your shops, you citizens of London and you may imagine that the harvest in the country will little
affect you. But famine stares you in the face unless God withdraws the clouds and bids the sun shine down upon us. The
days shall come which we have heard our fathers speak of, when the bread was such that it could not be eaten. When it
was not hard enough for one to hold in his hand. When you had a crust without and then within it was a mass of jelly—
wheat swimming in water and not capable of being eaten by any except those pinched by hunger.
The like must inevitably come unless God withdraws those clouds. Let the rain continue much longer and there will
scarcely be a harvest, nothing for men to feed upon. Oh, my dear Friends, we never know from year to year how
dependent—how absolutely dependent we are upon God. Does not the corn spring out of the land? And does not every
man, from the king to the peasant, live on bread? And if that staff fail, must not all totter to the ground with leanness on
our bones and paleness on our faces? You are for that bread and for that nourishment and for all you have—as
absolutely dependent upon God as a prisoner in his dungeon is dependent upon his keeper for his daily bread and water.
Oh that I could make you feel this and realize the force of the fact!
Again—I said we were not simply dependent upon God for the comforts, but for the power to enjoy the comforts. It
is an evil which we have seen under the sun—a man who had wealth and riches and plenty, but who had not power to eat
thereof. I have seen a man hungry and full of appetite, but no bread to eat. But I have seen a sight perhaps more sad—a
man with food of the most luxurious kind—to whom taste seemed denied, to whom every mouthful was a thing of
detestation. The Lord has but in His judgment to smite any of us with only nervousness—that nervousness at which the
strong may laugh, but which makes the weak tremble and everything will become dark before you. He has but to affect
some portion of your body and you shall see no brightness in the sum. The very fields shall lose their verdure before you.
The most happy event shall only be a source of deeper gloom. You shall look on everything through a dark glass and see
nothing but darkness and despair.
He has but to touch you with sickness and motion may be misery and even to lie upon a bed may be a repetition of
tortures as you toss from side to aide. Worse still, the Lord has but to put His finger on your brain and you become a
raving lunatic, or what may seem better, but more despicable, a driveling idiot. Oh, how little, then, has He to do to
overturn your all, to pull down that mighty castle of your joys and darken the windows of your hope. You are, again, for
life, for necessities, for comforts, as absolutely in the hand of God as the clay upon the wheel is in the hand of the potter.
You may rebel, but your rebellion is but the writhing of a worm. You may murmur, but your murmurs cannot affect
Him. You may ask your comrades to join in league with you against the Almighty God but His purpose will stand fast
and you must submit. Bound in the iron chains of destiny, you must go the way He bids you and you suffer or you must
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rejoice at His beck and will. Tremble, oh, Man, tremble before God, for never was creature in the hand of creature, as
creature is in the hand of Creator.
Let me briefly remark, that if this is true concerning temporals, how doubly true is it with regard to spiritual things.
There is no Christian grace which has in it a particle of self-existence. Faith, love, courage—are all sweet flowers—but
their roots are in God. There may be streams of gratitude in your heart, but the springs thereof are in Him. Your soul
may be devoted and consecrated, but the locks of your devotion will be shorn off, as was the hair of Samson, unless the
eternal God preserves it. If you and I shall endure to the end, if we shall pass through the valley of death with calmness, if
we shall stand before the Throne of God with confidence, if we shall enter into bliss with joy—all these things must come
of God.
Let Him lock up the treasury of His Grace, or dry up the channel of His love—the noblest Christian that breathes
must become the vilest of reprobates. And he who has best served his God must become the most abject minion of Hell.
Oh, learn that you are absolutely dependent upon God. He can leave you and where are you? He can help you and you
shall stand securely. So is it with the sinner—he is in God’s hand to save him or to destroy him. He can give him up, like
Pharaoh, to hardness of heart, or He can melt his heart and bow his stubborn will. He can throw the reins upon his neck
and say, “Let him alone, Ephraim is given unto idols.” Or He can make him willing in the day of His power, create in
him a new heart and a right spirit and save him from the wrath to come.
O God, You are over all and You are all. Man is nothing before You. You have Your will. You do as You please
among the angels in Heaven and among the inhabitant of this lower world. “Yours is the kingdom, the power and the
glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
III. I come to my third and last point, namely, THE LESSONS FROM THIS SUBJECT. First, a few lessons to the
saint and then to the sinner.
To the saint first. Child of God, see where you are. You, even you, are completely in the hand of your God, Your life,
your death, your prosperity in this world, your growth in grace, your peace—all things rest upon His sovereign will.
Nothing can harm you, unless He bids it. Nothing can cheer you, unless He commands it. You rest not in your own hand.
Be your will ever so headstrong, be your mind ever so stubborn, either you must yield cheerfully, or else you must bend
unwillingly. You are absolutely and entirely and in every respect placed at the will and disposal of Him who is your God.
And now, child of God, let me ask you this question. Are you grieved because of this? Does this doctrine trouble
you? Let God lay aside His scepter. Say, are you prepared to wield it? Had you rather have followed your will than be at
God’s disposal? Would you rather that He should be in everything and that He should do as He wills, or that it should be
left to you? Oh, I see you, you countless armies of God—I see you bow your knees at once and cry, “O Lord, we bless You
that it is not so, we praise You that You have left nothing to our disposal, but that You everywhere have sway.”
This is not the subject of groaning but of mirth and joy to us. We set up our banners with this watchword, “The
Lord reigns.” We go on our journey with this as our constant cordial, “God is here.” With this as our shield, we lift up
our arm against calamity. With this as our sword, we rush into the thick of the battle against sin. The Lord reigns—
“Let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof.” “Great God, if I could have it otherwise I would
not. If I could reverse your decision and if I could erase the lines of trial and write in the place thereof the gilded lines of
joy, I could not and I would not do it. If the book of my destiny were in my power today, I neither would erase a word
nor insert a syllable. Be it unto me even as You will. Not my will but Yours be done.”
It is easy to say this, but oh, how hard to feel it when it comes to the trial. When darkness fills the sky, when the
coffin lies in the silent chamber and the precious one is sleeping in the arms of death. When the tide has swept away all we
have, when beggary stares us in the face, when slander follows us at the back, still to say, “Jehovah, Your tempests are
better than my sunshine and the storm which You have brewed is better to me than the brightest days if I had made them
for myself.” Take care, child of God, that you hold fast and firm this your confidence, which shall have great recompense
of reward.
But mind one other thing, O heir of Heaven. Let your conversation be such as becomes this doctrine. Speak of what
you will do and of what will happen, always in respect to the fact that man proposes but God disposes. When you hear
your enemy vow something against you, smile, because your enemy is not God. And when you propose to yourself
something which seems to you good and pleasant, weep over your own folly if you are too confident, for you are not
Everywhere and Yet Forgotten Sermon #326
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God. None but God can promise so as to cheer a sensible mind. None but God can threaten so as to alarm a Christian
mind.
The threats and promises of God are true, but neither the threats of man nor his promises are worth the words in
which they are uttered. Oh, my dear Christian Brethren, tried as some of you are in various and in arduous ways, I wish I
could burn this Truth of God into your souls. But God the Holy Spirit must do it. I pray you stand to it that there is
God in everything and I am sure as the result of it you will be driven to more constant and earnest prayer. For if there is
God in everything, take everything to God. If God has done you in, take the ill to God and He will set it right.
This very season of the year suggests prayer. Prayer can reverse the winds and stay the clouds and let the infidel
world see it is so. In the days of that eminent Scotch minister, Robert Blair, there had been for a long time a terrible rain,
until at the time of harvest the wheat had grown an inch long after it had ripened. The people met together for prayer
and that day it rained more furiously than it had done before. Yet they separated in the firm belief that God had heard
their prayer. Mr. Blair said to the assembly that he was sure, though God might seem as if he mocked them, yet he was a
prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God still.
That night the clouds were scattered and driven away and the harvest was ingathered. Some of the wheat had been
spoiled, but most of it was housed in safety. Trust your God, then. Tempt Him not by murmuring. But prove Him—not
as the children of Israel did—but prove Him as Malachi exhorts us and see if He will not pour out blessings and make the
earth rejoice with the harvest. At any rate, be not as they that tremble in the day of calamity. Stand still, you children of
God. You wear an armor that no weapon of man can pierce. You dwell within a city, the bulwarks of which are
impregnable. Let no fear invade you. Be strong and of good courage, your God is with you. He is better than all your
fears. No, He shall exceed all your hopes. Set up your banners and shout aloud and rejoice in Him. God is with you, and
the Lord Jehovah reigns.
In conclusion, my last word is to the sinner. You, who have not been converted and have no part or lot in present
salvation, to you I say this much—Man! Man! You are in the hand of God. Whether you shall live to reach your home
today or not, depends absolutely upon His will. Rich though you are, the wealth you possess can take to itself wings and
fly away at His will. He can fill your body with pains so terrible that you shall long for death itself to escape from them.
He can make visions flit before your eyes, both when you sleep and when you wake, that shall so scare you that you would
prefer the company of the devils in Hell to solitude.
God can make you such a Hell to your own self that you would seek either knife or poison to escape from your own
thoughts. And that He can do and you cannot escape. No wings can bear you above His dominion. No depth can hide
you from his sway.
But now, what is the path of wisdom! Is it wise to curse God, in whose hand your breath is? Is it a rational thing to
treat with indifference Him upon whom you depend for time and for eternity? Your own self-interest would dictate a
wiser course. Dash not your head against the bosses of His buckler. Be not mad enough to run upon His glittering spear.
What does wisdom say to you if you will but listen? It cries, “Be reconciled to God.”
You cannot resist Him effectually—throw down your weapons and yield. And what does the Scripture say to you? It
says, “Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.” What says the Church
to you? It says, “Christ has received us—the Bride says, come.” What says Christ to you? “I, even I, am He that blots out
your transgressions for My own sake.” “Look unto Me and be you saved all the ends of the earth.” “Bow the knee and
kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little.”
Oh, Spirit of God, speak to the madmen and make them sane. Speak to the men that fight against God and bid them
tremble at Him and yield and seek His favor. O Sinner remember what He has said, “He that being often reproved
hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy.” Hear you, in conclusion, that sweet word of
His—“Whoever will, let him come. The Spirit and the Bride say, come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him
that is athirst come. And whomever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
Adapted from The C.H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages Software, 1.800.297.4307