Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2862
“There is a path which no fowl knows, and which the vulture’s eyes have not seen; the lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.” Job 28:7,8.
IN this chapter Job is speaking of the hidden treasures that are to be found deep down in the bowels of the earth. The keen eyes of the vultures, though they see their prey afar off, have never seen the gold, silver and other precious metals which lie in the dark places of the earth. And the lions, especially the young lions hungering for their prey, though they will lie in wait in their lairs in the dens and caves of the earth, have never been able to descend into places as deep as those that are opened up by men who seek after gold and silver.
Yet further on in the chapter we notice that Job refers to the search after wisdom and that he seems to say that though men should explore the deep places of the earth with all the diligence of miners seeking gold and silver, though they should exert all their mental force as miners use all their muscular vigor—and though they should employ all the machinery within their reach, as men do who pierce through the rocks in search of precious treasure—yet it is not within the range of human labor and skill to attain unto wisdom. That can only be found by another and a higher method. It must come to us by Revelation from God, for we cannot find it by our own efforts. I believe, therefore, that I am justified in using the expressions which are found in my text in a spiritual sense, for I think that Job meant to teach us not only what is true of the treasures hidden in the earth, but also something concerning the path of wisdom which is altogether beyond the understanding of the most piercing eyes of reason or imagination.
I shall use the language of our text, first, in reference to the way of Godwhch is, in the highest sense, the way of wisdom. And then, secondly, in reference to the path of the truly wise which is also, secondarily, the path of wisdom as far as mortal man can be wise—as far as he who is born of a woman can walk in the way of wisdom.
I. First, then, IN REFERENCE TO THE WAY OF GOD. His way in dealing with men is past our power to find
out.
Think, first of all, of the way of God in relation to predestination and free agency. Many have failed to understand how everything, from the smallest event to the greatest, can be ordained and fixed—and yet how it can be equally true that man is a responsible being and that he acts freely, choosing the evil and rejecting the good. Many have tried to reconcile these two things and various schemes of theology have been formulated with the objective of bringing them into harmony. I do not believe that they are two parallel lines which can never meet, but I do believe that for all practical purposes, they are so nearly parallel that we might regard them as being so. They do meet, but only in the Infinite mind of God is there a converging point where they melt into one! As a matter of practical, everyday experience with each one of us, they continually melt into one, but, as far as all finite understanding goes, I do not believe that any created intellect can find where they meet! Only the Uncreated as yet knows this.
It would be a very simple thing to understand the predestination of God if men were clay in the hands of the potter and nothing more. That figure is rightly used in the Scriptures because it reveals one side of the Truth of God—if it contained the whole Truth, the difficulty that puzzles so many would entirely cease. But man is not only clay, he is a great deal more than that, for God has made him an intelligent being and given him understanding and judgment and, above
all, will. Fallen and depraved, but still not destroyed, are our judgment, our understanding and our power to will. They are all under bondage, but they are still within us. If we were simply blocks of wood, like the beams and timbers in this building, it would be easy to understand how God could prearrange where we should be put and what purpose we should serve. But it is not easy. No, it is difficult! I venture to say that it is impossible for us to understand how predestination should come true in every jot and tittle, fix everything and yet that there should never be in the whole history of mankind a single violation of the will or a single use of constraint—other than fit and proper constraint—upon man so that he acts according to his own will, just as if there were no predestination whatever and yet, at the same time, the will of God is, in all respects, being carried out!
In order to get rid of this difficulty, there are some who deny either the one Truth or the other. Some seem to believe in a kind of free agency which virtually dethrones God, while others run to the opposite extreme by believing in a sort of fatalism which practically exonerates man from all blame. Both of these views are utterly false and I scarcely know which of the two is the more to be deprecated. We are bound to believe both sides of the Truth revealed in the Scriptures, so I admit that when a Calvinist says that all things happen according to the predestination of God, he speaks the Truth of God—and I am willing to be called a Calvinist. But when an Arminian says that when a man sins, the sin is his own, and that if he continues in sin and perishes, his eternal damnation will lie entirely at his own door, I believe that he, also, speaks the Truth of God—though I am not willing to be called an Arminian! The fact is, there is some Truth in both these systems of theology—the mischief is that, in order to make a human system appear to be complete, men ignore a certain Truth, which they do not know how to put into the scheme which they have formed and, very often, that very Truth, which they ignore, proves to be like the stone which the builders rejected—one of the headstones of the corner— and their building suffers serious damage through its omission.