The Littles

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Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows! (Matthew 10:29-31).

I would, with special earnestness, beg you to believe that God is in little things.

It is the little troubles of life that annoy us the most. Believe that God arranges the littles. Take the little troubles as they come and bring them to your God, because they come from God. Believe that nothing is little to God.

The very hairs of your head are all numbered; you may, therefore, pray to Him about your smallest grief. If not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father – you have reason to see that the smallest events in your life are arranged by Him, and it should be your joy to accept them as they come, and not make them causes of irritation, either to others or to yourselves.

Everything in the future is appointed by God. All is in the hand of the great King; rejoice!

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892)
A Safe Prospective (1869)

Psalm 90:3

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SERIES NOTE: Paul was entrusted with the glorious revelation concerning the details of Christ’s finished work at Calvary and all of the richness that it entails – even the salvation of all of God’s creation. Still, throughout all of the Hebrew Scriptures God has left us powerful hints of, and sure foundations for, the grand truth of His real nature. Although often shadowed in precedents of types and patterns, these are yet unmistakable to those who are fully acquainted with the letters of Paul. Today we will begin an extended series, looking at such fertile instances found throughout the “Old Testament.”

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, “Return, ye children of men.”

It is God Who gives man his experience with evil, for it is He Who turns them to destruction. God acquaints humanity with brokenness, with vanity, with ruin; and He does so to bring them back to Himself.

Adam had it all in the garden: health, beauty, paradise – all goodness from the hand of God; but the one thing he lacked was appreciation. He could not be thankful for health, for he never had experienced sickness. He could not be thankful for the provision of food, for he had never been hungry. Men learn the truths of God by their contrasts with evil.

According to Psalm 90:3 it is God Himself Who turns mankind to destruction. He does so, so that He can say to them “Return,” and bring them back to Himself. Who’s He bringing back to Himself? Well, the King James Version translates this exact same phrase, “children of men,” as “sons of Adam” in Deuteronomy 32:8. All of the offspring of Adam – every last one of his descendants – belong to God and will be returned to Him.

This is the wise and grand plan of “the God of love” (II Corinthians 13:11).

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.

God’s Love Can’t Be Turned Away

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I suppose all human affection can be worn out by constant failure to evoke a response from cold hearts. I suppose that it can be so nipped by frosts, so constantly checked in blossoming, that it shrivels and dies. I suppose that constant ingratitude, constant indifference can turn the warmest springs of our love to a river of ice. “Can a mother forget her child?” Yes, she may forget; but we have to do with a God Whose love is His very being, Whose love is not for reasons in us but in Himself, Whose love is eternal and boundless as all of His nature – Whose love, therefore, cannot be turned away by our sin, but abides with us forever and is granted to every soul of man.

Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910)
The Last Pleadings of Love