No rainbow of promise in the "dark and cloudy day" shines more radiantly than
this. God, my God, the God who gave Jesus, orders all events, and overrules all
for my good! "When I," says He, "send clouds over the earth." He has no wish to
conceal the hand which shadows for a time earth's brightest prospects. It is He
alike who "brings the cloud", who brings us into it, and in mercy leads us
through it! His kingdom rules over all. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the
whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." He puts the burden on, and keeps it on,
and at His own time will remove it!
Beware of brooding over second causes.
It is the worst form of atheism! When our most fondly cherished gourds are
smitten; our fairest flowers lie withered in our bosom; this is the silencer of
all reflections– "The Lord prepared the worm!" When the temple of the soul is
smitten with lightning, and its pillars rent: "The Lord is in His holy temple!"
Accident, chance, fate, destiny, have no place in the Christian's creed. He is
no unpiloted vessel left to the mercy of the storm. "The voice of the Lord is
upon the waters!" There is but one explanation of all that befalls him: "I will
be dumb, I will open not my mouth, because You did it."
Death seems to the human spectator, the most capricious and severe of all events. But not so. The keys of death and Hades are in the hands of this same reigning God! Look at the parable of the fig-tree. Its prolonged existence, or its doom as a cumberer, forms matter of conversation in heaven; the axe cannot be laid at its root until God gives the warrant! How much more will this be the case regarding every "Tree of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord?" It will be watched over by Him, "Lest anyone hurt it."
Every trembling fiber He will care for; and if made early
to succumb to the inevitable stroke, "Who knows not in all these things, that
the hand of the Lord has wrought this." Be it mine to merge my own will in His;
not to cavil at His ways, or to seek to have one jot or tittle of His will
altered; but to lie passive in His hands; to take the bitter as well as the
sweet, knowing that the bitter cup is mingled by One who loves me too well to
add one ingredient that might have been spared!
[John MacDuff]
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Genesis 9:14-15 ... And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Isaiah 61:3 ... To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
Psalm 93:1 ... The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved. ❤
Isaiah 61:3 ... To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
Psalm 93:1 ... The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved. ❤
