The Good News of God eBook

Yes.  I will not go on giving fresh instances.  The world is but too full of them.

But when such thoughts trouble us, here is one comfort—­ay, here is our only comfort—­God must be more just than man.  Whatsoever appearances may seem to make against it, he must be.  For where did all the justice in the world come from, but from God?  Who put the feeling of justice into every man’s heart, but God himself?  He is the glorious sun, perfectly bright, perfectly pure; and all the other goodness in the world is but rays and beams of light sent forth from his great light.  So we may be certain that God is not only as just as man, but millions of times more just; more just, and righteous, and good than all the just men on earth put together.  We can believe that.  We must believe it.  Thousands have believed it already.  Thousands of holy sufferers, in prisons and on scaffolds, in poverty and destitution, on sick-beds of lingering torture, have believed still that God was just and righteous in all his dealings with them; and have cried in the hour of their bitterest agony, ’Though thou slay me, O Lord, yet will I trust in thee!’

Yes.  God is just.  He has revealed that in the person of his Son Jesus Christ.  There is God’s likeness.  There is proof enough that God is not one who afflicts willingly, or grieves the children of men out of any neglect or spite, or respecteth one person more than another.  It may seem hard to be sure of that:  unless we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the co-equal and co-eternal Son of the Father, we never shall be sure of it.  Believing in the message of the ever-blessed Trinity, we shall be sure; for we shall be sure that, ’Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost’—­perfect love, perfect justice, perfect mercy; and therefore we can be sure that in the world beyond the grave the balance will be made even, again, and for ever; and every mourner be comforted, and every sufferer be refreshed, and every one receive his due reward—­if they will only now in this life take the lesson of the text, ’Judge not, and you shall not be judged:  condemn not, and you shall not be condemned:  forgive, and you shall be forgiven; for if you forgive every one his brother their trespasses, in like wise will your heavenly Father forgive you.’  Do that; and then you will get your deserts in the life to come, and by forgiving, and helping, and blessing others, deserve to be forgiven, and comforted, and blessed yourselves, for the sake of that Saviour who is day and night presenting all your good works to his Father and your Father, as a precious and fragrant offering—­a sacrifice with which the God of love is well pleased, because it is, like himself, made up of love.

SERMON XXXIX.  THE LOFTINESS OF GOD

Isaiah lvii. 15.

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.