January 26

And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. - John 11:15.

GOD can accomplish the purposes of his love, by ways peculiar to himself. The friends of Lazarus would have said he ought to have been there. The Jews thought that he should have repaired to the scene of woe. The sisters fully expected this. They walked up and down the room, wringing their hands, and they said, “Where is he?” They looked out of the windows, and said, “Why is he so long in coming?” Calling the ploughman who was passing, they said, “John, go and look down the Galilean road, and see if Jesus is coming.”

When he came, they could hardly help reproving him: Martha said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died;” and her sister Mary said the same. But Christ said, “I know what I have been doing; I am not acting in darkness; you will see it is better that your brother should rise from the dead, than that he should remain sick. Thus he says, “I will bring the blind by a way that they know not;” “Your ways are not my ways.” I am not to be judged of by a human standard. His absence from these individuals was to show that his ways were not only different, but superior to theirs. “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are his ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts.”

The case of Joseph seemed very hard, and, from the love the Lord bore to him, we might have supposed he would have been there, to have saved him from the pit. But I am glad for his sake-for his family’s sake-for his country’s sake-for the church’s sake-for our sake-that he was not there.

Here are three Hebrews cast into a fiery furnace. We might have supposed the Lord should have been there to have saved them; but he was not, and I am glad that he was not. The flames only burst their bonds; the tyrant on the throne was divinely impressed, and constrained to adore. Wherever they went, persons turned and said, “There goes one of the three young men who chose to go into the fiery furnace rather than sin against God.”

How stripped and peeled was Job! When we see him the object of scorn and pity, we are ready to suppose the Lord had been there; but when we think of the end we are glad that he was not, and James says, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” When, therefore, our views and his dealings do not seem to harmonize, let us remember that he acts sovereignly-not arbitrarily:-“but he gives no account of his matters.” His judgments are far above, “out of our sight.”

Let us suspend our opinions-never set his sun by our dial, but always our dial by his sun. We can see his heart, if we cannot see his hand. Do you ask where? Why, at Calvary. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?” And can we doubt of his wisdom or his love? We should learn to judge by his views and by his testimony, and not by Other things. We know not what is good for us; we may judge wrongly:-

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain.”

“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” If we look back we shall see how often we have desired what would have been our injury and ruin if we had obtained it! And how often have we sought to escape from what we now see to be our chief blessing! We have charged him almost with wickedness, where we have now reason to believe that his kindness was peculiarly at work for our happiness. And if we see it not now we shall see it hereafter. Is it for us to judge of the skill of the artist from the first rough sketch? Should we not wait till it has received his masterly touches? Should we judge of the building while all the materials are rudely scattered about, especially if we had never seen the plan?

No; we should wait till the topstone is laid thereon. “Judge nothing before the time;” God will give a good account of himself. The saints above shout, “He hath done all things well!” “Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”