Job 37:23 Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice… Inscrutable — first connect this word with two other words, responsibility and goodness. Did you say that only decrees that are indicated by overwhelming misfortunes are inscrutable? Why, everything, the simplest, runs towards and finally runs into the inscrutable. The more we know the more are we brought into consciousness of the unknown, of the unknowable. "Behold, we know not anything," says the poet, and as he contemplates the good that shall fall "at last — far off — at last, to all," he adds, "So runs my dream: but what am I?" Ah, there is the inscrutable thing. What am I? What are you? Is not each of us an enigma? What strange, various, sometimes contradictory, opposing, conflicting influences and forces have gone to make us the curious bundles of inconsistencies that we are! Heredity, circumstances, companionships, and so on, we say, have all gone to mould us, to cabin us, to confine us, to expand us, or to contract us; to constitute, to define our liberty. Myself — thyself, that is the inscrutable. And yet, for thyself thou art responsible! Whatever theorists may argue or however they may talk, society — the world — holds a man responsible for himself, the inscrutable. That it is the inscrutable does not deny the responsibility. Neither does it with regard to the world in general. At every point we feel ourselves fall against the inscrutable. There is not a day, there is not a condition in life in which we are not brought face to face with that which we cannot understand. Everywhere, and in all things there is the inscrutable, and there is a responsibility for the world. There is somewhere a will that is responsible for it. There is a government in it. The world is a charge to some will, because if there is one thing that asserts itself in this world it is will power. Things may be very strange, and they often are so strange that we get bewildered, even frightened; but the very strangest thing that could be, that which is disowned by the whole universe, by a certain stream of tendency that runs through the whole universe, would be that it is all a disorder, a blind drive and drift. Most certainly it is not that. If you realise that you are responsible for the mass of inscrutability that you call yourself, why should you hesitate to recognise that there is providence — that is, a mind supremely responsible for the wide, vast inscrutableness which we call the world? But are not the inscrutable decrees which make it hard to submit incompatible with a perfect goodness? Ah, you are putting a question on which treatises without number have been written since the world began, and treatises without number may be written still, and the question puzzle on. It is one not to be discussed now. Only, I pray you to note two things. There is always a voice whispering that goodness will have the last word, even in what is overwhelming. An appalling calamity happens. Yes, "Terrible, terrible," you say; but that appalling calamity calls attention — attention that would not have been called if it had not been appalling — to evils that can be remedied and should be remedied. It sets people in motion for remedies. There is immediate suffering, and it may be on even a terrible scale, but there is immediate gain, on a far greater scale, for the world. The prince cut off in the flower of his age, your boy taken away in the flower of his days — ah, broken hearts, indeed; but see how this young prince, taken away, has preached to the whole nation, he has united the empire in a wonderful sympathy, and so from a wide induction it might be proved temporal loss transformed into spiritual and moral gains. Even when you feel that the iron hand of judgment has descended terribly, there is a touch of the velvet in that hand which speaks of mercy. And further, when you speak of perfect goodness, remember that you and I do not know what perfect goodness is. We know only in part. Our point of view is that of very limited conception. We speak of nature, but who knows all nature? We speak of providence, but who knows all providence? We would need to bring in eternity, the eternity in which God works. But one full of promise, cut off in the flower of his age! Well, well. But does not this suggest that a promise cannot be lost? Nothing — nothing is lost. Potencies are not destroyed. There is a potency in that life which surely, surely is not annihilated. May not the call hence be a way of bidding the young man arise into a higher and nobler royalty? And those bereaved, may it not be a way of purifying and cleansing in the fire, bidding them to arise and live more earnestly, and live more nobly, and grasp the crown of life which the Lord has promised? We cannot tell all that perfect goodness means. The surgeon hesitates not to thrust his knife into the quivering flesh, and the poor patient cries. It is agony, but agony for future blessing; and so is there not many an agony for a future blessing, with an eternal weight of glory before it? Ah, we must be still, or if not still we must stretch hands of faith, lame hands of faith, and gather dust and chaff, and call to what we feel is Lord of all. (J. M. Lang, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict. |
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