God's ways.
"Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein." God has his ways, his methods of action. He proceeds on certain principles in all his operations, both in the realm of matter and of mind. The Infinite has a way of doing things.
I. HIS WAYS ARE TO BE STUDIED. "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them?" It is one thing to know the works of a man, and another thing to know his ways, his methods of action. He only knows a man who understands his way of doing things. God's ways are the highest subjects of study. It is said that he made known his "way ' unto Moses, his "works ' unto the children of Israel. The millions know something of his works; only the "wise,'' the "prudent," the initiated, like Moses, understand his ways. Brother, come away from the study of details, ascend into the realm of principles. Men who understand God's ways become prophets. They can foretell the future.
II. HIS WAYS ARE RIGHTEOUS. "The ways of the Lord are right."
1. They are right; they cannot be otherwise. They are right because they are his. He cannot do wrong; there is no law external to him, no law above him. What he does is right because he does it. To say he does a thing because it is right is tantamount to the assertion that there is something independent of him.
2. They are right; human conscience attests it. No conscience in heaven, earth, hell, doubts the rectitude of God's ways. If sinners in hell felt they were wrong, they would feel no remorse for their conduct. They are right essentially, immutably, everlastingly right.
III. HIS WAYS ARE TO BE PURSUED. "The just shall walk in them." They are not merely to be studied, but to be practically followed. You cannot do what God does, but what you do you can do in God's way—do silently, lovingly, beneficently. Walk in this way, the way of love and usefulness.
IV. HIS WAYS MAY RUIN. "The transgressors shall fall therein." As God moves in calm majesty and resistless force on his way, he crushes in his march all who oppose him. His chariot-wheels grind them into powder. Recipitur ad modum recipientis. What is received influences according to the qualities of the receiver. "The same sun," says an old author, "softens wax and hardens clay. But of all transgressors those certainly have the most dangerous fatal falls that fall in the ways of God, that split on the Rock of Ages, and suck poison out of the balm of Gilead. Let the sinners in Zion be afraid of this."—D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR