Spurgeon: September PM
* 09/05/PM
"Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?"
--Job 38:16
Some things in nature must remain a mystery to the most
intelligent and enterprising investigators. Human knowledge has
bounds beyond which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is for
God alone. If this be so in the things which are seen and
temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so in matters
spiritual and eternal. Why, then, have I been torturing my brain
with speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human
responsibility? These deep and dark truths I am no more able to
comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth beneath,
from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so
curious to know the reason of my Lord's providences, the motive
of His actions, the design of His visitations? Shall I ever be
able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe in my
palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord
my God. Let me not strive to understand the infinite, but spend
my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intellect I can
possess by affection, and let that suffice me. I cannot
penetrate the heart of the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful
breezes which sweep over its bosom, and I can sail over its blue
waves with propitious winds. If I could enter the springs of the
sea, the feat would serve no useful purpose either to myself or
to others, it would not save the sinking bark, or give back the
drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children; neither would
my solving deep mysteries avail me a single whit, for the least
love to God, and the simplest act of obedience to Him, are
better than the profoundest knowledge. My Lord, I leave the
infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a love
for the tree of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of
life.