A Reminder Concerning the Word of God's Grace

The word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance…The word of the truth of the gospel…is bringing forthfruit…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.(Acts 20:32; Colossians 1:5-6; and Romans 10:17)

These three Scriptures, interspersed in our previous meditations, indicate how God wants to use His word to impact us with His grace. The first passage describes God's word as"the word of His grace." God explains His grace to us through His word. He offers His grace to us through His word. He works His grace within us as we are nurtured in His word, trusting in what the Lord has to say to us. As God's word is taken in, its capabilities are unleashed, demonstrating that it is "able to build you up and give you an inheritance."The believers at Thessalonica had such an experience with the Scriptures. "For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe" (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

The second passage declares that the word can produce fruitfulness in God's people."The word of the truth of the gospel…is bringing forth fruit." Such fruit is the consequence of spiritual life maturing within us. Jesus taught that this life is brought to us by His word. "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). The word of the Lord brings this life to us initially: "Having been born again…through the word of God which lives and abides forever" (1 Peter 1:23). God's word then nurtures the life it originally brought to us. "As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

The third passage gives insight on faith, which is a vital element of living by grace. As we have seen, faith accesses grace. "We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand" (Romans 5:2). Here in the third Scripture, we are told how faith develops in our lives. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." As we humbly receive God's word into our lives, our faith in His proclamations grows.

In light of these grand truths concerning the Scriptures, we would be wise to cultivate the same perspective that Job had toward God's word. "I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food" (Job 23:12).

The Gentleness of God--Part III

 "Thy gentleness hath made me great." Psa 18:35
     
      Take, for instance, that opening Scripture of Adam and of his sin and exile. Whatever else it means, it means unquestionably that God is angry with disobedient man. And yet at the back of it what an unequalled tenderness, as of a father pitying his children and loving them with a love that never burns so bright as in the bitter hour of necessary punishment. Losing his innocence, in the love of God Adam found his calling and his crown. He fell to rise into a world of toil, and through his toil to realize his powers. So looking backward through that bitter discipline, unparadised but not unshepherded, he too could surely say with David, "Thy gentleness hath made me great."
     
      Or think again of the story of the Exodus, that true foundation of the Jewish race. It took one night to take Israel out of Egypt but forty years to take Egypt out of Israel. And while that night, when the first-born were slain, was dark and terrible with the mighty power of God, what are those forty years of desert wandering but the witness of the gentleness of heaven? Leaving Egypt a company of slaves, they had to win the spirit of the free. Leaving it shiftless, they had to win reliance; leaving it cowardly, they had to learn to conquer; leaving it degraded, as slaves are always degraded, they were to reach to greatness by and by, and looking back on it all what could they say but this, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." Never forget that in its age-long story the Bible. reveals the gentleness of God. Hinted at in every flower that blossoms, it is evidently declared in Holy Scripture. It is seen in Adam and in Abraham. It is seen in the wilderness journey of the Israelites. It is found in the choicest oracles of prophecy and in the sweetest music of the Psalms.
     
      God's Gentleness in Our Lives
     
      I think, too, that as life advances, we can all confirm that that is true. We all discover, as the psalmist did, how mighty has been the gentleness of heaven. In the ordinary sense of the word, you and I may not be considered great. We have neither been born great, nor have we come to greatness, nor has greatness been thrust upon us. And yet it may be that for you and me life is a nobler thing than it was long ago, and truth is more queenly, and duty more dignified, than in the past. We may not have won any striking moral victories, yet our life has leaned to the victorious side. We have not conquered yet all that we hoped to conquer, yet our will is serving us better through the years. There are still impurities that lift up their heads and still passions that have to be brought to heel, yet it may be that you and I are now nearer the sunrise than ten years ago.
     
      If, then, that is the case with you, I urge you to look back on the way that you have come and think of all that life has meant for you. Think of the temptations that would have overcome you had not God in His gentleness taken them away. Think of the courage you got when things were dark; of the doors that opened when every way seemed barred. Think of the unworthy things that you have done which God in His infinite gentleness has hidden--of the love that inspired you and the hope that came to you when not far distant was the sound of breakers. You, too, if you are a man at all, can lift up your eyes and cry out, God is just. It may be you can do more than that and lifting up your voice say, God is terrible. But if you have eyes to see and a heart to understand, there is something more that you can say, for you can whisper, "To me, in pardoning, shielding mercy, God has been infinitely and divinely gentle." If every lily of the field lifting its head can say, "Thy gentleness hath made me great"; if every sparrow chirping on the eaves is only echoing that meadow music, then I do feel that you and I, who are of more value to God than many sparrows, owe more than we shall ever understand to the abounding gentleness of heaven.
     
      Because He Knoweth Our Frame
     
      Now it seems to me that this gentleness of God reveals certain precious things about Him. It reveals, for instance, and is rooted in His perfect understanding of His children. There is a saying with which you are familiar; it is that to know all is to forgive all. That is an apothegm, and like all apothegms, it is not commensurate with the whole truth. Yet as a simple matter of experience, so much of our harshness has its rise in ignorance that such a saying is sure of immortality--to know all is to forgive all. How often you and I, after some judgment, have said to ourselves, If I had only known. Something is told us that we knew nothing about, and instantly there is a revulsion in our hearts. And we retract the judgment that we passed, and we bitterly regret we were unfeeling, and we say we never would have spoken so, had we only known.
     
      The more we know--I speak in a broad way--the more we know, the more gentle we become. The more we understand what human life is, the greater the pity we feel. And I think it is just because our heavenly Father sees right down into our secret heart, that He is so greatly and pitifully gentle. For He knoweth our frame and remembereth we are dust, and He putteth all our tears into His bottle. And there is not a cross we carry and not a thought we think but He is acquainted with it altogether. And all we have inherited by birth, of power or weakness, of longing or of fear--I take it that all that is known to the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.
     
      Our Value in His Sight
     
      And then again God's gentleness reveals this to us--it reveals our abiding value in His sight. It tells us, as almost nothing else can tell us, that we, His children, are precious in His eyes. There are certain books upon my shelves at home with which I hardly bother to be gentle. I am not upset when I see them tossed about nor when they are handled in a rough way. But there are other books that I could never handle without a certain reverence and care, and I am gentle because they are of value to me. And the noteworthy thing is that these precious volumes are not always the volumes that are most beautifully bound. Some of them are little tattered creatures that a respectable servant longs to light the fire with. But every respectable servant of a book lover comes to learn this at least about his master, that his ways, like those of another Master, are mysterious and past finding out. For that little volume, tattered though it may be, may have memories that make it infinitely precious--memories of school days or of college days, memories of the author who was well known to him. It may be the first Shakespeare that he ever had, or the first Milton that he ever handled, and he shall handle it gently to the end, because to him it is a precious thing. So I take it God is gentle because you and I are precious in His sight. He is infinitely patient with the worst of us because He values the worst of us so dearly. And if you want to know how great that value is, then read this text again and again: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish."

The Gentleness of God--Part II

"Thy gentleness hath made me great." Psa 18:35
     
      What exactly may be meant by greatness is a question that we need not linger to discuss. It is enough that the writer of this verse was conscious that he had been lifted to that eminence. That he had been in extreme distress is clear from the earlier verses of this chapter. His heart had fainted--his efforts had been in vain--his hopes had flickered and sunk into their ashes. And then mysteriously, but very certainly, he had been carried upward to light and power and liberty, and now he is looking back over it all. That it was God who had so raised him up was, of course, as clear to him as noonday. He had sent up his cry to heaven in the dark, and to that cry His greatness was the answer. But what impressed him as he surveyed it all was not the infinite power of the Almighty; it was rather the amazing and unceasing gentleness wherewith that infinite power had been displayed. "Thy gentleness hath made me great," he cried. That was the outstanding and arresting feature. Tracing the way by which he had been led, he saw conspicuous a gentle ministry of God.
     
      The One and Only Gentle God
     
      Let me say in passing that that wonderful concept is really peculiar to the Bible. I know no deity in any sacred book that exhibits such an attribute as that. Of course, when one believes in many gods, it is always possible that one of them is gentle. When the whole world is thought to be tenanted with spirits, some of them doubtless will be gentle spirits. But that is a very different thing indeed from saying that the One Lord of heaven and earth has that in His heart which we can dimly picture under the human attribute of gentleness. No prophets save the prophets of Israel ever conceived the gentleness of God. To no other poets save these Jewish poets was the thought of heavenly gentleness revealed. And so when we delight in this great theme, we are dwelling on something eminently biblical, something that makes us, with all our Christian liberty, a debtor unto this hour to the Jewish prophets for bringing this to our attention.
     
      Now if we wish to grasp the wonder of God's gentleness, there are one or two things we ought to do. We ought, for instance, always to lay it against the background of the divine omnipotence. You know quite well that the greater the power, the more arresting the gentleness becomes. As might advances and energy increases, so always the more notable is gentleness. It is far more impressive in the general of armies than in some retired and ineffectual dreamer. The mightier the power a man commands, the more compelling is his trait of gentleness. If he is ruler of a million subjects, a touch of tenderness is thrilling. And it is when we think of the infinite might of God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, that we realize the wonder of our text. It is He who calleth out the stars by number and maketh the pillars of the heaven to shake. And when He worketh, no man can stay His hand, nor say to Him, What doest Thou? And it is this Ruler, infinite in power, before whom the princes of the earth are vanity, who is exquisitely and forever gentle.
     
      The Wonder of God's Gentleness in View of Sin
     
      Again, to feel the wonder of God's gentleness, we must set it against the background of God's righteousness. It is when we hear the seraphs crying "Holy" that we thrill to the thought of the gentleness of God. There is a kind of gentleness--we are all familiar with it--that springs from an easy and uncaring tolerance. It is the happy good nature of those characters to whom both right and wrong are nebulous. Never inspired by any love of goodness and never touched by any hate of evil, it is not difficult to walk the world with a certain smiling tolerance of everybody.
     
      Now there have been nations whose gods were of that kind. Their gentleness was the index of their weakness. Living immoral lives in their Olympus, why should they worry about man's immorality? But I need hardly take time to point out to you that the one radical thing about the Jewish God---one unchanging feature of His being--was that He was infinitely and forever holy. He was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. "The soul that sinneth," said the prophet, "it shall die." And He visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even unto the third and fourth generation. All this was graven on the Jewish heart and inwrought into Jewish history; yet the psalmist could sing in his great hour, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." I beg of you, therefore, never to imagine that the gentleness of God is only an easy tolerance. Whatever it is, it certainly is not that, as life sooner or later shows to every man. Whatever it is, it leans against the background of a righteousness that burns as doth a fire, and I say that helps us to feel the wonder of it.
     
      The same jewel upon the bosom of omnipotence flashes out as we survey the Bible. The Bible is really one long record of the amazing gentleness of God. Other features of the divine character may be more immediately impressive there. And reading hastily, one might easily miss the revelation of a gentle God. Yet so might one, walking beside the sea, where hammers were ringing in the village workshop, easily miss the underlying music of the waves ceaselessly breaking on the shore. But the waves are breaking although the hammers drown them, and the gentleness of God is always there. It is there--not very far away--at the heart of all the holiness and sovereignty; it is there where the fire of His anger waxes hot and His judgments are abroad upon the earth, and men are crying, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

The Gentleness of God--Part I

 "Thy gentleness hath made me great." Psa 18:35
      
      It will be generally agreed that David was one of the great men of the race. In his trust and courage and leadership and genius he stands among the heroes of humanity. Now David had had a strange and varied life. He had been hunted like a partridge on the hills. He had suffered disloyalty at home and sorrowed in the death of Absalom. But now, as he looked back upon it all, what stood out in transcendent clearness was the unfailing gentleness of God--not the infliction of any heavenly punishment, though sometimes punishment had been severe; not the divine apportioning of sorrow, though he had drunk of very bitter sorrow. What shone out like a star in heaven, irradiating the darkness of his night, was the amazing gentleness of God. David could say with a full heart, "Thy gentleness hath made me great."
      
      With a like sincerity can we not say it also? When we survey our course and recollect our mercies and recall the divine handling of our childishness, the confession of David is our own.
      
      The Wonder of God's Gentleness
      
      We feel the wonder of the gentleness of God when we remember it is conjoined with power. When infinite power lies at the back of it, gentleness is always very moving. There is a gentleness which springs from weakness. Cowardice lies hidden at its roots. It comes from the disinclination to offend and from the desire to be in good standing with everybody. But the marvel of the gentleness of God is that it is not the signature of an interior weakness, but rests upon the bosom of Omnipotence. In a woman we all look for gentleness; it is one of the lustrous diadems of womanhood. In a professional military man we scarcely expect it; it is not the denizen of tented fields. And the Lord is "a mighty man of war," subduing, irresistible, almighty, and yet He comes to Israel as the dew. The elder spoke to John of the lion of the tribe of Judah. But when John looked to see the lion, 1o! in the midst of the throne there was a lamb. Power was tenderness--the lion was the lamb---Omnipotence would not break the bruised reed. It is the wonder of the gentleness of God.
      
      Again, the gentleness of God is strangely moving when we remember it is conjoined with purity. There is a kind of gentleness, common among men, which springs from an easy, tolerant, good nature. To be gentle with sin is quite an easy matter if sin is a light thing in our eyes. It is easy to pardon a child who tells a lie, if lying is in our regard, but venial. And when we are tempted to think of God like that, as if heaven were rich in tolerant good nature, then is the time to consider the cross. Whatever else we learn at Calvary, we learn there God's estimate of sin. In that dark hour of agony the judgment of heaven upon sin is promulgated. And when that steeps into our being, so that we measure things by the measurements of Calvary, we are awed by the gentleness of God.
      
      Then to all this must be added the fact of our human provocation. For, like the children of Israel in the wilderness, we are continually provoking God. Every mother knows how hard it is to be always gentle with a provoking child--how likely she is to lose her temper with it and how she longs to shake it or to slap it. But no child is ever so provoking to the tender heart of a good mother as you and I must always be to God. When we sin, when we fail to trust Him, when we grow bitter, when we become despondent, how ceaselessly provoking that must be to the infinitely loving heart in heaven. Yet David could say, as you and I can say, looking back over the winding trail of years, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." Nothing is more provoking to a parent than when a child refuses to take medicine, screaming and fighting against it desperately, though the cup be entirely for its good. The question is, How do you take your medicine? Do you grow faithless, hard, rebellious, broken-hearted? How provoking must that be to our Father. Yes, think on God's power and on His purity, and add to that our human provocation, if you want to feel the glory of His gentleness.
      
      God's Gentleness Implies Our Illness
      
      It always seems to me that tenderness and gentleness implies that we are sick. In our Father's sight we are all ailing children. We have all noticed how when one is sick everyone around grows strangely gentle. There is an exquisite gentleness, as many of us know, in the touch of a true nurse. Even rough, rude men grow very gentle, as is seen so often in war, when they are handling a wounded comrade. When he was well they tormented him; they played their jokes on him and coined his nickname; but when wounded, stricken, bleeding, shattered, they showed themselves as gentle as a woman. And I often think that the gentleness of God, could we track it to its mysterious deeps, is akin to that of soldier and of nurse. We are a sin-sick race. We all have leprosy. We are full of "wounds and bruises and putrifying sores." They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Love in magnificence may suit the angels. But in the world's great battlefield and hospital, Love binds on the cross and walks in gentleness. "Thy gentleness hath made me great."