By J. Priston Eby Part.1
GOD HAS A PLAN!
AMONG all the questions that men have
asked, there is one that is of supreme interest and importance. Why are we
here? What is our destiny? What lies beyond the grave for the Christian, for
the unbeliever? For old, for young? For our fellow citizens, and for the
teeming masses in far-away lands serving strange gods? These questions were
raised by one of the great poets of all times. I am speaking now of that
American genius of letters, Edgar Allen Poe - an incomparable genius, and yet a
man whose life was destroyed by unbelief. Millions of people have read his
masterpiece, "The Raven," but few, I am afraid, have ever grasped the
real spiritual significance of the struggle that was going on in the soul of
this man. He asked four very significant questions - questions which every living
soul, at one,' time or another, must raise to God. First, Is there a God who
comforts? Is there a God who can assuage the pain of life? (In this case it is
the poignant pain of the loss of a loved one, his beloved Lenore.) Is there
"some water from the river of paradise, the water of Nephenthe,"
which can take away the heartache that is driving him insane? Secondly, he
asks, Is there really a Christ? Does He live? Is there a balm in Gilead? Is
there One who can smoothie the wrinkled brow and soften the hard heart?
Thirdly, he asks, Is there some place, some heaven, some distant Eden or future
world where we shall be joined again with our loved ones? And, finally, Is
there any hope that the darkness and hopelessness and despair of this life will
be lifted? But always he directs his questions to his own unbelief which is
personified in that grim and ghastly raven, a picture of doubt and unbelief. A
few years after writing those chilling words, Poe became insane. Regaining his
sanity, he drank himself to death, and this genius was found dead in the
gutter.
Untold billions of human beings have
lived and died without hearing the gospel of salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ. What has become of them? Is there no hope? For more than six thousand
years generations of men, like the grass, have appeared and in a few fleeting
years withered and vanished. Whence came those countless billions of human
beings, and where do they go? This is the problem which has preoccupied the
world's thought since the dawn of history. This is the question about which
philosophers have theorized and theologians have dogmatized. Unquestionably the
problem of the eternal destiny of mankind is the question of questions! It
concerns every individual and touches everything of enduring interest. Life is
a vapor that appears for a while and vanishes away. But there is a beyond! What
is that beyond to be?
God has a plan I Indeed, God has a
wonderful plan for this world! It is a plan of which the architectural drawings
were made in eternity. It encompasses the minutest detail of all of creation. I
assure you that when time has run its course, and the veil is dropped upon the
final scene, we shall discover that that plan has been worked out to its very
tiniest detail, just as God had planned it in eternity - that His will has been
done!
That is an amazing thought because it
often seems as if the world is flying off unattended, like a chariot where the
driver has fallen off, the horses are running wild, the reins are flapping in
the breeze, and it is threatening to go over the precipice at any moment. Yet
the Scriptures would have us know that God, the sovereign Lord of history, has
His hands firmly upon those reins and that His plan is coming to pass. Think
about it! Our God is perfect in all His attributes. He is perfect in His power.
He is perfect in His holiness and justice. He is perfect in His love and mercy.
He is perfect in His wisdom and in His omniscience. Therefore, His plan must be
perfect. Indeed it is a perfect plan!
This is not to deny that the world is
filled with many evils; that all about us we see that sin and evil and disease
and death cling to man. It is not to shut our eyes to those realities, but it
is to open our eyes to the realization that God sovereignly overwhelms all these things to bring about His own
will. God has created this world. Even though Satan let chaos loose into the
midst of the creation, God created Satan and God knew precisely what this angel
of destruction would contribute. He knew of the chaos and the sin that would be
introduced into the peaceful calm of those Elysium fields. Yet God created him
anyway. God knew that with sin would come the perfect judgment of God upon that
sin, which means sickness, death, judgment, disillusionment and decay. Yet, God
ordained all these things so that He might overcome them for good.
Central to the whole plan of God is Jesus
Christ and His greater glory, but even more amazing is the realization that God
has planned for us to share His glory and to work out for us our good as well.
God has a perfect plan. My friends, I want you to understand one thing. This
plan needs no human support! In Madrid, Spain, there exists the Escorial, one
of the greatest cathedrals ever built by man. For centuries the kings of Spain
have been buried there. When that magnificent structure was under construction,
the architect designed a vast arch, perhaps bigger than anything that had been
built before. However, that arch was so flat at the top that the reigning king
was frightened by the prospect of the tremendous weight of the roof collapsing
on his head. He commanded the architect to build a column from the floor all
the way to the center of that arch to hold it up. The architect protested
vehemently that it was not needed, but the king insisted and, over the laments
of the architect, the column was built. The king worshipped contentedly in the
vast structure, having seen to it himself that the ceiling would not fall. The
years went by, the church stood, and the king finally died. Only then did the
architect reveal that between the top of the column and the bottom of the arch
there was a quarter of an inch of space. In all these hundreds of years that
have passed the arch has not sunk so much as a quarter of an inch. Today a
board is still passed over the column and under the arch for all to see. So it
is with the plan of God - that over-arching plan that encompasses all of
reality and all of life. It needs no human support to hold it up. God is the
LORD OF ALL and He is working out His purposes in our lives, in all of the
world, and through the whole universe.
Read the words of that magnificent hymn:
"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants the
footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm." What a beautiful hymn!
Many people may not know how William Cowper was brought to write that hymn. His
life was in shambles. He was not a Christian. He was filled with despair and
discouragement. In fact, so overcome with despair was he that he determined to
take his life by taking poison. Instead of dying, he became deathly ill. He
bought a gun and tried to shoot himself, but the gun would not go off. In great
anger, he threw the gun away, got a rope and tried to hang himself. The rope
broke. So then, in utter desperation, he hired a carriage in London and
instructed the driver to take him to the Thames River. The driver could not
find the Thames River! The fog had settled in so thickly on the town that even
a London cabdriver got lost! After several hours he brought Cowper back to his
apartment. He went up to his room, totally dismayed, and his eyes fell upon a
Bible. He opened that Bible and began to read. He read of the love of a
heavenly Father who loved even William Cowper. Astonished by the events that
had just taken place, he read of the sovereign providence of God working all
things after the counsel of His own will. He embraced Him as his Saviour and
wrote the wonderful words of that great hymn.
Perhaps I ought to state here for the
benefit of some of my readers, that the idea that God HAS a plan may be to them
a new one. According to the view of most Christians, God has no definite,
prearranged plan, but is simply endeavoring to do the best He can through human
instrumentality to repair the ruin that sin has made, and, though thus far the
majority of the race have been overwhelmed in that ruin, yet in the end truth
will triumph and sin will be confined in an eternal prison house.
As some ignorantly misjudge the skill and
wisdom of a great architect and builder by his unfinished work, so also many in
their ignorance now misjudge God by His unfinished work; but by and by, when
the rough scaffolding of sin, death, and redemption has been removed, and the
rubbish cleared away, God's FINISHED WORK will universally declare His infinite
wisdom and power; and His plans will be seen to be in harmony with His glorious
character.
Since God tells us that He has a
definitely fixed purpose, and that all His purposes shall be accomplished, it
behooves us, as His children, to inquire diligently what those plans are, that
we may be found in harmony with them. Notice how emphatically the Lord affirms
the fixedness of His purpose: "The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely
as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall
it stand." "The Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul
it?" "I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none
like me... My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure ... Yea, I
have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also
do it" (Isa. 14:24-27; 46:9-11). Therefore, however haphazard or
mysterious God's dealings with men may appear, those who believe this testimony
of His Word must acknowledge that His original and unalterable plan has been,
and still is, progressing systematically to completion.
When we think of a plan, we think of
something involving more than just a single element. An architect's plan for a
building consists of drawings and specifications descriptive of its several floors,
including styles of plumbing, decoration, arrangement of rooms, etc. Unless
each floor of the building is to be identical to every other floor, necessarily
the drawings and specifications for any given floor do not harmonize with the
details of the other floors. No one, however, would construe this to mean that
the architect is incompetent, nor that his plans and specifications are
contradictory. God's plan, like the plan of a building, is also made up of many
parts. Instead of different floors, however, it embraces EPOCHS AND AGES.
Through each of these ages the divine plan has steadily progressed toward
completion. Only when it is complete, and mankind sees the result, will they
all be able to appreciate the wisdom, justice, love and power of the Divine
Architect. -Ps. 72:1-20
