Spurgeon: August AM
* 08/02/AM
"Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."
--Ephesians 1:11
Our belief in God's wisdom supposes and necessitates that He
has a settled purpose and plan in the work of salvation. What
would creation have been without His design? Is there a fish
in the sea, or a fowl in the air, which was left to chance for
its formation? Nay, in every bone, joint, and muscle, sinew,
gland, and blood-vessel, you mark the presence of a God working
everything according to the design of infinite wisdom. And shall
God be present in creation, ruling over all, and not in grace ?
Shall the new creation have the fickle genius of free will to
preside over it when divine counsel rules the old creation? Look
at Providence ! Who knoweth not that not a sparrow falleth to
the ground without your Father? Even the hairs of your head are
all numbered. God weighs the mountains of our grief in scales,
and the hills of our tribulation in balances. And shall there be
a God in providence and not in grace? Shall the shell be
ordained by wisdom and the kernel be left to blind chance. No;
He knows the end from the beginning. He sees in its appointed
place, not merely the corner-stone which He has laid in fair
colours, in the blood of His dear Son, but He beholds in their
ordained position each of the chosen stones taken out of the
quarry of nature, and polished by His grace; He sees the whole
from corner to cornice, from base to roof, from foundation to
pinnacle. He hath in His mind a clear knowledge of every stone
which shall be laid in its prepared space, and how vast the
edifice shall be, and when the top-stone shall be brought forth
with shoutings of "Grace! Grace! unto it." At the last it shall
be clearly seen that in every chosen vessel of mercy, Jehovah
did as He willed with His own; and that in every part of the
work of grace He accomplished His purpose, and glorified His own
name.