Psalm 90:17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be on us: and establish you the work of our hands on us; yes… Our times need the doctrine of a lovable God — a God whoso moral beauty may be all around us and upon us. The distortion and deformity of the Deity have long enough followed mankind. The moral beauty of such a Being should be above us, and in man's heart and life. This "beauty" may in part be seen in the assumption of a long day for the unfolding of the Divine plan. It is perfectly vain to seek the "beauty of God" in the few days that surround man here. It is necessary to chant the words of the old anthem, "from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God." As we cannot take up a drop of water from the Atlantic and find in that drop the flow of the tides, the lifting up of billows, the power that floats all the ships of a thousand ports, and the soft and loud music of calm and storm; as to see the ocean we must grasp it all in its rocky bed, bordered by continents, so we cannot, in the face of a dying infant, or in the adversity of a good man, see the government of love of God. It has boundaries wider than these. We must wait, and, what the fleeting moments of man deny, ask the great years of God to bring. The tides of the mind, the deep music of human waters, cannot be seen in the drop of life. There is a God of justice that may be all lovable. The punishment may be so just, so inseparable from conscious guilt, so essential to the welfare of time and eternity, that it will not make God fearful, but will be one more circle of splendour in His halo of light. Alongside this attribute of justice must be seen with wonderful distinctness the fatherly love. We must give thousands of years of time to a Divine love. Our earth must be seen floating, not in an ether which our chemists shall attempt to weigh — not even in that sweet ether which Figuier imagines to surround some stars, and to be the food of the souls beyond — but floating in a Divine love. (D. Swing.) Parallel Verses KJV: And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. |
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