Ezekiel 1:16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like to the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness… I. Your troubles, difficulties, losses, whatever they may be and whatever may be the instruments of them, are ALL FROM GOD. Your times are in His hands. Your ways are ordered by Him. Your breath depends upon His will. All your sorrows and all your joys are parts of His one great plan of education for you to make you meet to be His own forever. II. SUCCEEDING EVENTS EXPLAIN THE PROVIDENCE AND PURPOSES OF GOD. We learn what He intended to do, by what He has done. If we study the Lord's providence, remembering that all its events come from God, and that God alone can teach us what is their meaning and design; if we wait upon God with patient faith in His Divine teaching, to see what He means to do with us, all the flames will unfold them. selves in due time. The whirlwind will pass by. The clouds will scatter, and light alone, the purest light, will remain to shine around us, "clear as amber." III. ALL THE PROVIDENCES OF GOD HAVE A FIXED PURPOSE, AND ARE WISELY ARRANGED IN THEIR OPERATION. There is no blind chance in the government of God or in the affairs of men. When one asked Dr. Payson if he could discern any reason for his great personal sufferings, he answered, "No; but I am as well satisfied as if I saw ten thousand reasons. The will of God is the perfection of all reason." The ways and thoughts of God are not like ours. He does not give to us a previous account of His plans and purposes. But He knows the thoughts which He thinks concerning us. And He makes us to see and acknowledge at last how wire and how perfect they all were. Thus every providence appears to us with the face of a man, open, intelligent, and clear, having a manifest design, and perfectly adapted to accomplish it. It has also the eye of an eagle, which seeth afar off. It is watchful over the least of the affairs which it includes. The very hairs of our head, the stones in our path, the moments of our unconscious sleep, are all the subjects of its provision and control. These providences are also perfectly steady and uniform in their operation. The Lord is of one mind, and changeth not; the same yesterday, today, and forever. IV. THE SAME PROVIDENCES ARE OFTEN DESIGNED TO PRODUCE SEPARATE AND SOMETIMES APPARENTLY OPPOSITE RESULTS. These various results of Providence, and the instruments by which they are completed, are not generally wonderful or strange things. They are perfectly natural and common things, but brought about by ways which we had not anticipated. They are things which occur just as naturally as a wheel revolves, or as wings support in flight. But they come and go in their particular occurrence as God directs, and they bring to pass the designs which God has formed. V. IN THIS GRACIOUS AND WONDERFUL SCHEME ALL PROVIDENCES HAVE A SECRET PURPOSE OF BLESSING FOR THOSE WHO LOVE GOD. This is a very precious lesson. The plans of Divine providence are always subservient to the plans of Divine grace. They are designed as blessings for the chosen people of God. Whom He loves, He protects and prospers. There can be no one to harm those who are followers after that which is good. However God may try His people on the way, and however dark, unintelligible, and hard to bear these trials may appear, the triumphant and happy result is always the same, perfectly sure, and entirely compensating. He refines His chosen ones like gold and silver, and they glorify Him in the fires. VI. ALL THE PROVIDENCES OF GOD ARE UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE GREAT REDEEMER AND SAVIOUR OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. The government of the world is on His shoulder, and He upholdeth all things by the word of His power. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. |
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