Looking at Things Rightly
“Thou hast well seen.” — Jereiiah i, 12.
There is a right way and a wrong way of looking at almost everything. Some x)ersons seem to have no eye for beauty; and others see every object through a distorted vision. To such persons one of Turner’s finest landscapes is merely so much paint and canvas; to a man like Ruskin it is a masterpiece of golden sunlight, bathing field and forest with its splendors. JN’iagara is a disappointment to many on a first view; the mighty cataract gradually educates the eye to a right conception of its crumbling cliff of snow-white waters shot through with emerald.
“Thou hast well seen “were God’s words to Jeremiah when He called him to be a prophet to the people of Israel. The modest youngman had just said,” I cannot speak, for I am a child.” The Lord touches his mouth and inspires him with the gift of words. He then tests the accuracy of his vision by the question” What seest thou 1” Jeremiah does not reply, I see a bit of wood, or I see a staff; his answer is, “I see a rod of an almond tree.” This was just what the Lord meant that the young prophet should see. The almond was a tree of rapid growth which put forth its blossoms early in the spring; it was a type of speedy action. As Jeremiah had shown his quickness of apprehension and accuracy of discernment, God commended his answer and said unto him, ‘*Thou hast well seen.”
It is vastly important that you and I should seek for spiritual discernment; for many of our joys and many of our sorrows proceed from our method of looking at those things which most concern our peace. How differently, for example, the Lord Jesus Christ appears to different eyes. Long ago it was predicted that the Messiah would be to many as “a root out of dry ground, having no form or comeliness. When they shall see Him, there is no beauty that they should desire Him; He will be despised and rejected of men.” When Jesus came therefore to his own, they received Him not. As many as beheld Him rightly and welcomed Him, to them gave He the precious privilege to become the children of God. To all such, in every age and land. He is the chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely. Jesus Christ never changes. The difference between the thoughtless sinner and the same person after he is regenerated is that he looks at Christ with a new eye, and has discovered Him to be the very Saviour that he needs.
Some people look at Jehovah only as a consuming fire, and are struck through with despair. Others go to the opposite extreme and see in Him only an infinite goodness and tender mercy; such are in danger of becoming blind to the sinfulness of sin, and they easily slide away into a belief in universal salvation. The man who magnifies God’s mercy at the expense of His justice, and who does not believe that God will punish unrepented sin as it deserves, has not “well seen.” He will discover his delusion, at his terrible cost, on the “last great day.” Those wise men in the Westminster Assembly saw the Divine attributes in their right proportion wdien they framed that wonderfully comprehensive answer — “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.”
I. We are all apt to make egregious mistakes when we look at our Heavenly Father’s providential dealings. Even some Christians are betrayed into a heathenish hal)it of talking about “good luck” and “bad fortune,” and using other expressions that convey the idea that this life is a game of chance. Blind unbelief may be expected to err, and to scan God’s work as either a riddle or a muddle. A Christian who has had his eyes opened ought to know better than to make such mistakes. Yet how prone we are to regard many of God’s
1V6 LOOKING AT THINGhi RIGHTLY.
dealings in a wrong light and to call them by wrong names! We sjpeak of things as afflictions, which are really blessings in disguise. We congratulate people on gaining what turns out to be a terrible snare, or worse than a serious loss. Quite as often we condole with them over occurrences which are about to yield to them blessings more precious than gold. The j)atriarch Jacob evidently thought that he was a fair subject for commiseration when he groaned out in his grief, “me have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.” His dim vision could not foresee that happy evening when the returning caravan from Egypt would bring to him Simeon and Benjamin, and the thrilling announcement that the long-lost Joseph was governor over all the realm of Pharaoh. He had not “well seen” what sort of a God he had once vowed to serve.
Let us hesitate before we condole with a brother who is under the chastisement of our loving Father in Heaven. Be careful how you condole with a man avIio has lost his money and saved his good name, or congratulate the man who has made a million at the expense of his piety. When a Christian is toppled over from a dizzy and dangerous height, and “brought down to hard i)an,” he is brought down to the solid rock at the same time. In the valley of humiliation lie has more of the joy of God’s countenance, and wears more of the herb called “heart’ s-ease” in his bosom, than he ever did in the days of his giddy proslerifcy. Sickness has often brought to a man spiritual recovery; suffering has often wrought out for him an exceeding weight of glory.
I have seen people condole tenderly with a weeping mother whose child has llown away home to heaven; but they never thought of condoling with her over a living child who was a frivolous slave of fashion, or a dissipated sensualist, or a wayward son, the “heaviness of his mother.’’ A hundred times over have I pitied more the parent of a living sorrow than the parent of a departed joy. Spare your tears from the darlings who are safe in the arms of Jesus, and spend them over the living who are yet dead in sin and sheer impenitence. Let us learn to see things rightly, and call them by their right names. We often drape our real blessings with a pall, and decorate our dangerous temptations with a garland. Let us all pray for spiritual discernment and of ten be putting up the petition, “Lord, open Thou our eyes.” Then we may discover that this life is only a training school for a higher and a better one; then we shall see a Father’s smile behind the darkest cloud; and at the end of the pilgrimage of duty it will be one of the raptures of heaven to behold the King in
His beauty, and to know even as we have been known.
II. Let me, in the next place, remind you that if we possessed more spiritual discernment, we would not so often torment ourselves with sinful anxieties about the future. Our loving Lord knew what was in man when He reiterated His remonstrances against borrowing trouble in advance, and when He said, “be not, therefore, anxious for the morrow; for the morrow will be anxious for itself; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Worry is not only a sin against God, it is a sin against our own peace. It sometimes amounts to a slow suicide. Honest work, however hard, seldom hurts us; it is worry that corrodes and kills.
There is only one practical remedy for this deadly sin of anxiety, and that is to talie short mews. Faith is content to live “from hand to mouth,” enjoying each blessing from God as it comes. This perverse spirit of worry runs off and gathers some anticipated troubles and throws them into the cup of mercies and turns them to vinegar. A bereaved parent sits down by the new-made grave of a beloved child and sorrowfully says to herself, “Well, I have only one more left, and one of these days he may go off to live in a home of his own, or he may be taken away; and if he dies, my house will be desolate and my heart utterly broken.” JN’ow who gave that weeping mother permission to use the word “if “? Is not her trial sore enough now, without overloading it with an imaginary trial 1 And if her strength breaks down, it will be simply because she is not satislied with letting God afflict her; she tortures herself with imagined afflictions of her own. If she could but take a short view, she would see a living child yet sx)ared to her, to be loved and enjoyed and lived for. Then, instead of having two sorrows, she would have one great possession to set over against a great loss; her duty to the living would be not only a relief to her anguish, but the best tribute she could 13ay to the departed.
That is a short view which only takes in immediate duty to be done, the immediate temptation to be met, and the immediate sorrow to be carried. My friend, if you have money enough to-day for your daily wants and something for God’s treasury, don’t torment yourself with the idea that you or yours may yet get into an almshouse. If your children cluster around your table, enjoy them, train them, trust them to God, without racking yourself with a dread that the little ones may some time be carried off by the scarlet fever, or the older ones may yet be ill-married or may fall into disgrace. Faith carries X3resent loads and meets present assaults and feeds on present promises, and commits the future to a faithful God. Its song is:
“Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step’s enough for me.”
We shall always take that one step more wisely and firmly and successfully if we keej) our eye on that only. The man who is climbing the Ali3S has but to follow his guide and set his foot on the right si:)ot before him. This is the way you and I must let Christ lead, and have Him so close to us also that it will be but a short way to behold Him. Sometimes young Christians say to me, ‘’I am afraid to make a iublic confession of Christ; I may not hold out.” They have nothing to do with holding out it is simply their duty to hold on. When future trials and perils come, their Master will give them help for the hour, if they only make sure that they are His. The short view they need to take is a close, clear view of their own spiritual wants, and a distinct view of Jesus as ever at hand to meet those wants. If the fishermen of Galilee had worried themselves over the hardships they were to encounter, they might have been frightened out of their apostleships and their eternal crowns.
We ministers need to guard against this malignant devil of iDorry. It torments one pastor with a dread lest, if he preach certain truths boldly, he may offend his rich pewholders and drive them away. Let him take care of his conscience, and his Master will take care of him. Another is worried lest his cruse may run dry and his barrel fail. But his cruse has not yet run dry. Oh, no, it is his faith that is running low. Some of us, at the beginning of a year’s work, are tempted to overload ourselves with the anticipation of how much we have to do; we need not worry if we will only remember that during the whole year there will be only one working day, and that is — to-day. Sufficient to each day is the labor thereof.
Once more we say — let us take short views. Let us not climb the high wall till we get to it, or fight the battle till it opens, or shed tears over sorrows that may never come, or lose the joys and blessings that we have, by the sinful fear that God will take them away from us. We need all our strength and all the grace God can give us for to-day’s burdens and to-day’s battle. To-morrow belongs to our Heavenly Father. I would not know its secrets if I could. It is far better to know Whom we trust, and that He is able to keep all we commit to Him until the last great day.
“Why forecast the trials of life
With such sad and g-rave persistence, And look and watch for a croud of ills That as yet have no existence?
“Strength for to-day is all we need,
For we never will see to-morrow;
When it comes, the morrow will be a to-day
With its measure of joy or sorrow.”
III. If a right spiritual discernment tends to correct false views of God and his providence, and to repress sinful anxieties, it will also check our impatience in regard to the issue of God’s wise dealings and discipline. “I never let bairns or fools see my j)ictures until they are done,” said a Scotch artist to me, quoting a familiar proverb of his countrymen. As the artist was unwilling to have any judgment pronounced on his work until it was completed, so our Heavenly Father bids us 130ssess our souls in patience. “What I do, thou knowest not now; but thou ,97<^6fZ^ know hereafter.” We must wait and see. This w orld is but a preparatory school in which character is on the easel or under the chisel. God’s hand sometimes lays on dark colors; his chisel often cuts deep. No trial of our faith is joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterioard it may work out the eternal weight of glory Now we know but “in part,” and what we do discern is seen through a glass darkly. Why the most ileasant room in our dwelling is turned into a hospital — why the pillow in that little empty crib is unpressed to-day — why that income on which so many mouths depended is now reduced — why this or that staff is broken, our poor blind, aching hearts cannot understand. God keeps his own secrets. The only answer which he vouchsafes to us now is “all things work together/br good to them that love Me.” Impatient and rebellious as we may be, we cannot displace God’s hand from the canvas; there is no help for us but to wait until the i)icture is completed. Some of the colors he is laying into our lives are frightfully somber; but by and by in the revealing light of the last day they may be only a background on which faith and submissive trust will stand out in hues of golden glory. It is the duty of “bairns’’ to sit still and practice docility.
“When my boy with eager questions,
Asking how, and where, and when,
Taxes all my store of wisdom,
Asking o’er and o’er again
Questions oft to which the answers
Give to others still the key,
I have said, to teach him patience,
‘Wait, my little boy, and see.’
*’ And the words I taught my darling.
Taught to me a lesson sweet; Once when all the world seemed darkness,
And the storm about me beat. In the ’ children’s room’ I heard him,
With a child’s sweet mimicry,
To the baby brother’s questions,
Saying wisely, ‘Wait and see.’
*’ Like an angel’s tender chiding
Came the darling’s words to me,
Though my Father’s ways were hidden
Bidding me still wait and see.
What are we but restless children.
Ever asking what shall be?
And the Father, in His wisdom,
Gently bids us ’ wait and see. ‘”
I am ready to confess that it is not from the open assaults of infidelity or from the skeptical pages of the Strausses or Spencers that the severest strain has come upon our faith. It is from the mysterious permissions of Divine Providence that we are oftenest in danger of having that faith shipwrecked. We not only turn cowards in the dark, but like fools we doubt whether there ever will be a day-dawn. In such hours, it is wise to bring in the lamp of that bright passage of the Thirteenth Psalm: “weei)ing may endure for a night, but joy Cometh in the morning.” The original Hebrew is far more forcible; it literally reads, “in the evening sorrow lodge th, but at the day-dawn Cometh shouting.” The “shouting” will be raised by the discovery of what was in existence all the while, and that is God’s marvelous wisdom and unfailing love. I once si:)ent a night on the summit of Mount Righi, and the darkness was so dense that I could not see a single yard from my window. But when the sun arose, the polished mirror of Lake Lucerne spread beneath me, and the icy coronets of the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn glittered in the rosy beams. They had been there all through the night waiting for the unfoldings of the day-spring from on high.
A great deal of our work in this world may be called night- work. Weary with rowing, we even get frightened by the apparition of the Master, and like the disciples, cry out “it is a ghost!” — until He reveals Himself in the words, “It is I; be of good cheer; be not afraid!” The history of every discovery of new truth, of every enterprise of benevolence, of every Christian reform, and of almost every church revival is the history of long working, watching and waiting through seasons of dark discouragement. “We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing,” was the lament of the tired, hungry, and sleepy disciples. But in the early gray of the day-break they espy the Master on the beach; the net is cast afresh, and lo! it swarms with a shoal that breaks through the meshes! So doth our Lord test His children before He blesses them. The lesson for every pastor, every missionary, every teacher, every reformer, and every sorely-tried child of God is in these heaven-taught words, “I wait for the Lord and in His Word do I hope; my soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.”
ly. We come back, in closing, to the point whence we set out — that there is a right way, and a wrong way of looking at all things. To
the eye that has spiritual discernment this Avorki is mainly an avenue to that one which lieth beyond it. Talents, wealth, and influence are simply loans that are to be held in trust for God. Social promotion signifies a more commanding position in which to serve the Master. A christianized eye sees in money just so much bread for the hungry, just so many Bibles for the godless, just so many lifts of the outcast and degraded — as well as innocent and relining enjoyments for one’s own household.- My friend, if thou findest the “image and superscription” of Christ on every dollar you earn, “thou hast well seen.” To a truly regenerated soul all things become new; and we may well doubt the genuineness and the depth of that conversion which does not bring an altered estimate of everything earthly. Faith breaks the charm of this world, and adds a charm to the better world.
Are there any here who desire to have their spiritual vision purged? I would commend to them the example of that blind man, who came and besought Jesus to touch him; for he fancied that a simple touch of the miracle - worker would restore his sight. Jesus led him along through the streets and “out of the town;” and then x)utting spittle on his closed eyes, He inquired, “do you see anything?” The poor man replied, “I see men; for I behold them as trees walking.” The Master again lays His hands upon his eyes and bids him look up; he looks and seeth the bright earth around him and the Son of God standing at his side. Even so it may be with you, if you will XDermit that Divine Friend to lead you “out of town” where sin and self have tasked and troubled you, and will entrust yourself to His restoring power. He will touch the eye of your soul. Truth will become clearer. Faith will become stronger. The old darkness will pass away, and all things will become new. “Thou hast well seen” when thou dost behold Jesus Christ as the Lord of thy life, His service thy sweetest occux3ation, and His presence thy perpetual joy.