Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," be it remembered that in the exercise of his sovereign rights he wills to have mercy upon the penitent. To the question, Unto whom does God will to show mercy? this is the answer: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him." "As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness." Had the haughty Egyptian king bowed in penitence before the scepter of Jehovah, he would not only have obtained forgiveness, but the hand that smote him would have been outstretched to bless him; his example, instead of being held up as a beacon of warning, would have been handed down as an inspiration; his life, which set in the darkness of dishonor, would have been encircled with a halo of unfading glory; and through him the name of God would have been proclaimed in all the earth-not by overwhelming judgment, but by forgiving

mercy.

"The heart of a king, in the hand of Jehovah, is as rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever he will," * controlling and utilizing it, as the Eastern husbandman, by means of artificial irrigation, con

*Prov. xxi. 1. Suggested rendering.

trols and utilizes the waters of the river, sending them at will along the furrows of his fields. Any heart which was before a source of misery and ruin becomes when put into God's hand a source of blessing, spreading verdure and beauty over the moral wastes of life through which it flows; but because of the wide-spread influence of roy alty, a king's heart, in God's hand, becomes like a majestic river which waters an entire continent. Such a heart that of Pharaoh's might have been, -but alas! alas!

XV.

"PAST FEELING."

"That is a hard heart indeed that trembles not at the name of a hard heart."-ST. BERNARD.

"It is one thing to see your way, another to cut it."-GEORGE ELIOT.

"God give him grace to groan."

SHAKESPEARE.

"In the lowest depths a lower deep Still threatening to devour me, opens wide."

MILTON.

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »