Divine purpose in Christian preaching emphasizes God's sovereign plan unfolding in all events, even when unseen by human eyes. It reassures believers that God works through circumstances to fulfill His will, encouraging trust in His providence (Romans 8:28). Illustrations often use imagery of a master craftsman or a carefully woven tapestry to depict God's intentional design.
A child of God should always desire to do something larger for His purpose.
"Bad will be the day," said Phillips Brooks, "for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is still, in spite of all, the child of God."
Nations prosper or fail based on whether they seek God or worldly gain first.
A prominent American who was visiting Argentina was asked by the president of the republic, "Why has South America gotten on so poorly and North America so well? What do you think is the reason?" The visitor replied, "I think the reason is the fact that the Spaniards came to South America seeking gold, while the Pilgrim Fathers came to North America seeking God."
Each person has a unique appointed sphere of duty, avoiding confusion and conflict.
With a reservedseat ticket in his hand, a gentleman once took his place in a public hall, according to the number on the check, and sat down complacently in the indicated position. Soon a gentleman came along who had purchased a reserved seat, and politely requested him to move. "Thank you, sir: here is my check for this seat," said he. "Look at the figures."—"Much obliged to you, sir," said he. "Here is my check: look at the figures." He did look, and discovered that the checks were duplicated, both calling for the same seat. A blunder had been made somewhere, which implied the absurdity of locating two individuals in the room of one, and at the same time. No such complications occur in the issuing of checks for our appointed sphere in life.
Every person has a God-ordained purpose to fulfill in His great plan.
There is not a spider hanging on the king's wall but hath its errand; there is not a nettle that groweth in the corner of the churchyard but hath its purpose; there is not a single insect fluttering in the breeze but accomplisheth some divine decree; and I will never have it that God created any man, especially any Christian man, to be a blank, and to be a nothing. He made you for an end. Find out what that end is; find out your niche, and fill it. If it be ever so little, if it is only to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water, do something in this great battle for God and truth. Spurgeon.
God uses even the wind's power to accomplish His providential plans.
The wind has called at yon city, fetid with miasma, and groaning with pestilence; and, with its bosom of swift pinions, it has swept the plague away. It has looked into yon haven, and found a forest of laden ships sleeping over their freights; and it has chased them all to sea. And finding the harvest arrested in a broad and fertile realm, the earth chapped, and the crops withering, it is now hurrying with that black armament of clouds to drench it in lifesome irrigation. To narrow observation or to selfishness, that wind is an annoyance; to faith, it is God's angel forwarding the mighty plan. 'Tis a boisterous night, and Pictish savages curse the noisy blast which shakes their peat-hovel round their ears; but that noisy blast has landed the gospel on St. Andrew's shore. It blows a fearful tempest, and it sets some rheumatic joints on aching; but the morrow shows, dashed in pieces, the awful Armada which was fetching the Spanish Inquisition to our British Isle. The wind blows east, and detains James's ships at Harwich; but it guides King William to Torbay. Yes, "the wind blows south, and the wind blows north; it whirleth about continually, and returneth again according to its circuits:" but, in the course of these circuits, the wind has blown to our little speck of seagirt happiness the gospel and Protestantism, and civil and religious liberty. Dr. J. Hamilton.
Each saint is sent to reveal aspects of God's character through their life circumstances.
Each of God's saints is sent into the world to prove some part of the divine character. Perhaps I may be one of those who shall live in the valley of ease, having much rest, and hearing sweet birds of promise singing in my ears. The air is calm and balmy, the sheep are feeding round about me, and all is still and quiet. Well, then, I shall prove the love of God in sweet communings. Or perhaps I may be called to stand where the thunder-clouds brew, where the lightnings play, and tempestuous winds are howling on the mountain-top. Well, then, I am born to prove the power and majesty of our God: amid dangers he will inspire me with courage; amid toils he will make me strong. Perhaps it shall be mine to preserve an unblemished character, and so prove the power of sanctifying grace in not being allowed to backslide from my professed dedication to God. I shall then be a proof of the omnipotent power of grace, which alone can save from the power as well as the guilt of sin.
— Spurgeon
Small beginnings develop into great outcomes through gradual growth and divine purpose.
Wisdom sees the great in the small. What could be more trivial than the heaving of the lid of a tea-kettle?—yet in that motion lay the germ of ocean steamers, railways, and mills. Development dilates the small into the great. By that law, sparks flame into conflagrations, fountains flow into streams, and the minute swells into the magnificent. The seeds of many a world-famed change were dropped in silence; night-dews watered them when no eyes looked on; but at length they bore fruit in the hearts of millions; and the harvest of them waved over all the breadth of a continent. S. Coley.
God raises the humble for His purposes, granting favor beyond human merit.
God can raise up the poor out of the dust to set them among princes if He has a purpose to serve by it. If we first make sure of God's favor, we will find favor with men in so far as it is good for us and the purpose of God.
God brings good out of evil for believers, turning threats into advantages.
Samson's riddle. When God brings good out of evil to the followers of Christ—when that which has threatened their ruin turns to their advantage—then comes meat out of the eater and sweetness out of the strong
Unfinished work and forgotten tools remind us of sudden calls and incomplete purposes.
Travelers and explorers sometimes find in old quarries, long abandoned, or once worked by a vanished race, blocks of stone squared and dressed, that seem to have been intended for palace or shrine. But there they lie neglected and forgotten, and the building for which they were hewn has been reared without them, or perhaps never erected. Some of the implements and remains left in these quarries would seem to indicate that the workers had stopped in the midst of their labor, or had been suddenly called away.
Beauty serves God’s purpose as usefully as practical things do.
In one of the earlier chapters of his “Les Miserables,” Victor Hugo tells how a good bishop answered his housekeeper once. She expostulated with his lordship for giving a full quarter of his garden to flowers, saying that it would be better and wiser to grow lettuce there than bouquets. “Ah, Madame Magloire,” replied the bishop, “the beautiful is as useful as it is beautiful.”
The ministry of beauty is one of the overflowings of the divine mind and heart, and serves God’s purpose in common with the utilities of His works.
Creation waits for God's revealed purpose through His sons to fulfill its divine destiny.
A vessel lies at the wharf. Her timbers are sound, her masts are stanch, her canvas is bent. The tide coaxes her seaward; the winds plead with her to move. The ship itself strains at her moorings to be leaping over the ocean. But the vessel must wait, wait for the skipper’s will. Not best timbers or fullest tide can carry that ship to the distant port until the master reveals his mind to the vessel. The earnest expectation of the vessel waiteth for the revealing of the captain.
So, here is the world; the master-builder has fitted it with all things needful for its consummation; it is ready for its wonder purpose; but it must wait; something is needed for the accomplishment of that end. The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.
— T. C. MCCLELLAND
Man’s inherent powers reveal God’s design for wide-reaching purpose and activity.
The fin of the fish does not more evidently convey the power and betoken the function of moving in the sea or the wing of the bird that of sailing on the air, than do these quickening and propellent forces, inherent in man’s being, proclaim him ordained for wide-reaching operation.
— RICHARD S. STORRS
Some diseases serve a protective divine purpose despite appearing harmful.
See POISON DRINK.
DISEASE BENEFICIAL
People have considered every symptom of disease noxious, and that it ought to be stamped out with relentless determination; but, according to Sir Frederick Treves, the motive of disease is benevolent and protective. If it were not for disease, he said, the human race would soon be extinct.
Sir Frederick took examples, such as a wound and the supervening inflammation, which is a process of cure to be imitated rather than hindered. Peritonitis, he said, was an operating surgeon’s best friend; without it every example of appendicitis would be fatal. The phenomena of a cough and cold were in the main manifestations of a cure. Without them a common cold might become fatal. The catarrh and persistent sneezing were practical means of dislodging bacteria from the nasal passage, and the cough of removing the bacteria from the windpipe. Again, the whole of the manifestations of tuberculosis were expressions of unflagging efforts on the part of the body to oppose the progress of invading bacterium. (Text.)--New York _Sun_.
God calls us to diligent work and wise stewardship of His gifts.
Oberlin tried to persuade the peasants of his parish to abandon some of their old methods of agriculture; but the wiseacres smiled and shook their heads. What should a mere pastor know of such matters? Oberlin therefore resolved to appeal to their eyes instead of their ears. There were two public paths through his gardens, so he and his servant carefully brought the soil into a high state of cultivation; and when the neighbors walked along and marked how the pastor’s crops were twice as large as their own, and saw the many strange vegetables growing, they condescended to make inquiries as to how he did it. “No, it was not done by angels in the night! God intended men to live by the sweat of the brow, to use the reason which He had given them, and so improve themselves and others.”--EDWARD GILLIAT, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”
Genius is a divine gift that should be nurtured and valued for God's purposes.
A man of genius is so valuable a product that he ought to be secured at all cost; to be kept like a queen-bee in a hothouse, fed upon happiness and stimulated in every way to the greatest possible activity. To expose him to the same harsh treatment which is good for the hod-carrier and the bricklayer is to indulge in a reckless waste of the means of a country’s greatness. The waste of water-power at Niagara is as nothing compared with the waste of brain-power which results from compelling a man of exceptional qualifications to earn his own living.--JOEL BENTON, _Lippincott’s_.
Necessity and trials drive progress, urging forward movement like Israel fleeing Egypt.
When God told Moses to speak to the children of Israel and bid them go forward there was another urgency to reenforce this injunction. The chariots of Egypt were behind them; they must go forward or die.
Has not the greater part of human progress been due to necessities urging from behind and below--hunger, necessity for shelter, climates, hardships, trials. By all these God has ever been driving men up out of their Egypt of sloth and slavery toward a higher destiny.
John Wesley's founding of a church fulfilled God's greater purpose beyond human vision.
The Rev. W. H. Fitchett says of John Wesley:
Had Wesley done nothing more than preach or write his memory might have failed. But at this stage Wesley links himself by one great achievement, not merely to English history, but to the history of religion. He creates a church! He did not do this consciously, or of deliberate purpose. He strove, indeed, not to do it; he protested he would never do it. But as history shows, he actually did it! And since history is not so much philosophy teaching by examples as God interpreting Himself by events, we are entitled to say that Wesley, in laying the foundations of a new church, did something that, no doubt, outran his own human vision, but which fulfilled a divine purpose.--“Wesley and His Century.”
People find true purpose and place when they fail where they are unfitted.
A man who weighs one hundred and fifty pounds on the earth would weigh only two pounds on the planet Mars, and so could hardly stand; while on the sun he would weigh two tons and so would sink, like a stone in the sea, into its hot marshes. Each man is too light for some places, too heavy for others, and just right for others. Failing in a work for which he is unfitted often brings him to his true place.
Desire and want drive human progress within God’s purposeful design.
How paltry, worthless, small and scant
A world in which man knew not want,
Where no ungratified desire
Allured or drove him to aspire!
Then welcome world of toil and hope
Where every energy has scope!
Brothers, in God’s great world rejoice,
And harken to His cheering voice
That calls man to the larger task
And gives him more than he could ask.
Let us in the assurance rest
That what God does is always best.
--CHARLES WILLIAM PEARSON, “A Threefold Cord.”
God designed the soul to realize its good through purposeful work.
As the clear and sensitive organ of the eye, which holds upon its tiny lens the masses of far stars and the mazes of their movement, was evidently made for this marvelous function; as the nerve of the ear, which takes eloquence, poetry, wit, applause, the tone of affection, the crash of the thunder-burst, the lively laugh of childish glee, and communicates each with instant fidelity to the spirit behind, was manifestly formed for exactly this office; so, just as clearly, the personal soul, with its judgment and its will, with its deep-seated instincts and its eager desires, with its unrest in indolence, and its thought that outruns attainment every instant, was made to realize its good by working. The date-tree in the desert is not more precisely preadjusted to its office!
— RICHARD S. STORRS
God's use of preaching transcends human limits, judged by its divine effectiveness.
Preaching, like every other thing that God permits or ordains, can not be limited by human regulations. Rev. W. H. Fitchett says of John Wesley:
John Wesley heard at Bristol that his helper, Maxfield, had crossed the mystic border-line which separates an exhortation from a sermon, and the story has already been told of how Wesley rode post-haste to London to trample out the first sparks of what might prove to be a conflagration. His mother’s calm eyes and quiet speech arrested him. She made the one appeal which, to Wesley’s reason and conscience alike, was irresistible. This new and alarming phenomenon must, after all, be judged by the question: “Does God use it?”--“Wesley and His Century.”
Disease origins may reflect a defect in life rather than solely external causes.
At the present moment there are two theories in the field to explain the origin of contagious diseases--the parasitic theory and the theory of the innate character of diseases. The parasitic theory assumes that diseases are originated by microbes first diffused in the atmosphere, and then taken into the system by the air we breathe, the water we drink, the things we touch. The advocates of the innate character of diseases hold, on the contrary, that the disease is spontaneously developed in the patient; the first cause is in morbid changes which are purely chemical, changes produced in the actual substance of the tissues and secretions without any external intervention of microbes; the microbes, where they really exist, being only a secondary phenomenon, a complication, and not the scientific cause which actually terminates the disease. Now, whatever may be the exact truth in this biological controversy, it is evident that the first cause of such disease must be sought in a defect of life, a feebleness, a certain untoward disposition and receptivity in the organism itself. The phylloxera devastates the French vineyards because the vines have been exhausted by excessive cultivation; tuberculosis fastens upon man because of obscure conditions of bodily weakness and susceptibility; vigorous plants and robust constitutions defying the foreign destructive bodies which may fill the air--extrinsic influence and excitement counting for little where the intrinsic tendency does not exist.
Revelation assumes that the man morally occupies much the same position. Environment brings the opportunity for evil, the solicitation or provocation to evil, so far do evil communications corrupt good manners; but the first cause of all must be found in the heart itself, in its lack of right direction, sympathy, and force; in a word, the scientific cause of sin is the spiritual cause--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
Some structures seem useless, but history shows efforts can reclaim and find purpose for them.
Science speaks of useless physiological structures, as when we read in “The Descent of Man”:
Man, as well as every other animal, presents structures which, as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now of any service to him, nor have been so during any former period of his existence, either in relation to his general condition of life, or of one sex to the other. Such structures can not be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts.
Useless structures are not discerned alone by science. History and experience, in the large field of life, have seen them many times. The efforts of man have often reclaimed “useless structures.”
Instruments have a designed use, implying a purposeful Creator who foresees their function.
See CURRENTS, UTILIZING.
UTILITY AS THEISTIC EVIDENCE
Man reasons from himself to the great cause of things. That which is true of man may be true of God.
A prospect-glass or a forceps is an instrument; they have each a final cause; that is, they were each made and adjusted for a certain use. The use of the prospect-glass is to assist the eye; the use of the forceps is to assist the hand. The prospect-glass was made the better to see; the forceps, the better to grasp. The use did not make these instruments; they were each made for the use--which use was foreseen and premeditated in the mind of the maker of them. We say of each of them without a shadow of hesitation: If this had not first been a thought, it could never have been a thing.
Selective care and providence can lead to flourishing and beauty in human communities.
* * * * *
Some day we shall be wise enough to utilize the hint suggested in the extract, by caring as much at least for improving the human race as we now care for improving our domestic animals:
A. Ogerodnikoff, a wealthy Russian dealer in furs in Vladivostok, while visiting San Francisco, told an interesting story of experiments made by his cousin, Rachatnikoff, who has been devoting himself for years to the propagation of a beautiful race of people. Ogerodnikoff, according to the press reports, said:
“Years ago Rachatnikoff attracted to his estate especially handsome men and girls of more than usual beauty by offering free land to forty or fifty men carefully picked from among a large number of applicants and selecting for them as wives fine-looking young women from different parts of Russia. This selected colony has flourished beyond all expectation, and over a hundred children have been raised from these unions.
“These children are so pretty as to make the Rachatnikoff estate famous.” (Text.)
