PSALM XXXII. 8 89
that in ihat great piece of machinery, one little wheel, as small, it may be, as a shilling, should drop out of its place and fall into the midst of the machinery, that colossal mechanism moving round and round and round would grind this little wheel among its larger wheels into fragments, if not into powder. The Universe is one great Machine, and God is the Motive Power of it, and when a soul drops out of its place in this great machinery, and falls among the great wheels of God's purpose, it is ground into powder, unless the grace of God puts that wheel back into its place in the vast system. The moment that you find out what the will of God is, and drop into your place, all the universe moves with you, and all the universe moves for you, the whole Godhead is back of you, the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and the love of God, and the grace of God ; and you are as absolutely sure and safe as God is. And so Peter says : " Who is he that shall harm you if you be followers of that which is good ? " ^
IT.
God's Method of Guiding us.
1. God guides His people by imparting to them understanding. There is a threefold assurance in the text : I will make thee wise ; I will point out to thee the way ; I will fix Mine eye upon thee. God will do something in the man. He shall yet be instructed more deeply than ever, and shall find himself never too old to learn. God will do something round about the man. He shall have the guidance of circumstances, of closed and opened doors, which only the wise can understand. Finally, this man being a backslider of proven weakness, God will watch him with fixed attention to correct the least slip. Providential care is shown to be a very complex thing, operating along many lines which converge to the great result. But more particularly for our purpose, it is largely an inward thing, dealing first and fore- most with the mind rather than with the circumstances, accord- ing to this initial promise, " I will make thee wise." Probably circumstances are much more nearly right than people admit, and where failure arises the man himself is generally at fault. Also, men can never be saved from the outside or by the most favour- able circumstances. Deliverance must be wrought supremely by
' A. T. Pierson.
90 THE GUIDING EYE
an inward grace illuminating the mind and making men circum- spect and self-adaptive to win the mastery over life's conditions. It is written that God did not stay the flood, but Noah, being warned by Him, prepared an ark for the saving of his house. The grand resource and secret of the Most High in the protecting of His children is this gift of wisdom.
The name " Wisdom " pervades the Old Testament, bringing the glimmer of jewels and visions of a good woman's face as tokens of its power to adorn and enrich life. In the text a smaller word is used, indicating circumspection or intelligence; yet that is but wisdom applied practically. The assertion is that we may be made wise to think God's thoughts after Him, in- telligent to recognize the meaning of His way with us, and when understanding fails — as fail sometimes it will — patient to endure with a great trust. Mere acquiescence cannot be the end of our faith. He has called us friends — not puppets. Trials and griefs have no inevitable efficacy. In every dil'lerent destiny of joy and sorrow, health and sickness, help and injury, there lie hidden both a use and a misuse, both a blessing and a curse, and only active wisdom can choose the better part.
^ Many still think of God in the way Omar Khayyam thought of Him — as an infinite Chess-player, with the world for His board. There stand bishops and knights and pawns, each on its own square and perhaps untouched for long intervals. But every piece is moved from time to time by the inexorablp Hand, and sooner or later every piece is sacrificed for ends that it cannot know. Our duty is simply to trust that God is winning the game in His own way. Thus do the uninstructed ones most pitifully talk, taking the name of the Lord their God mww— finding faith a poor futility. They cast their burden upon the Lord in quite the wrong sense, for they lay only the blame of it on Him. They think themselves not so much led through the world as dragged through it, like a child's toy across the parlour floor, meeting with a bump here and a bump there; and having caught a gleam of religious truth from the nursery or the pulpit, they feel it right to say without conviction, " I suppose the bumps are all for my good." They are puppets in the hand of the Inscrutable One : they are not made wise.^
^ A lady put the universal difficulty to me in a simple but complete statement. " My troubles," she said, " come from the
1 W. S. Hackett, The Land of Your Sojouminga, 79.