Here is a careless young son of wealth in Cambridge University. Life for
him is just an idle sport, a careless revel, a jaunty outing, an
enjoyable extravagance. Life is just a shallow, shimmering pool; not an
ocean with momentous tidal forces, and with the voice of the great
Eternal speaking in its mighty tones. Wanted a man to awake this
indolent son of wealth! And in what an orbit God moved to find the man!
The Lord hissed for a fly in Massachusetts, and there, in Northfield,
was a poor homestead, encumbered with mortgage; and a poor widow with
seven children, so poor that the very kindling wood was taken by the
creditors from the shed. And there in that poor woman's house God made
His man, and Dwight Moody came forth, and went to Cambridge University,
and proclaimed the evangel of grace, and by the love of God won this
young fellow from a loose and jaunty and indifferent life, and kindled
in him a passionate devotion to Christ which is now blazing away on the
Southern Soudan in a campaign to light a line of Christian beacon-fires
which shall stretch from coast to coast! But what an orbit! From a poor
widow's homestead in Northfield to a sporting young fellow in Cambridge
University!
I met a cultured man the other day, a man who has enjoyed all the
academic advantages that money can provide, a man of university culture
and distinction, but whose life has been spiritually indifferent, and
who has held coldly aloof from God and the Kingdom of God. And in the
vast orbit of His providence the great God brought this man into
communion with Billy Sunday, and all the stubble of his neglected life
was burned up in the consuming fire of his kindled love for the Lord.
But just think of the orbit! The Lord hissed for His fly, and from the
apparently incredible circumstance of a slangy evangelist this man was
brought to his Father's House in reconciliation and peace. Again I say,
what an orbit! "I will bring the blind by a way that they know not," and
under His wide and mysterious leadership the blind find themselves at
home.
And so, my friends, our God is still moving in these vast orbits. He
hisses for a disappointment, and it comes and throws its shadow upon our
life, but the shadow is purposed to be one of the healing shadows of
grace. "I will command the clouds, saith the Lord." Yes, even our cloudy
experiences move under command. They travel in the tremendous orbit of
His providence. "I will command the ravens, saith the Lord God." Yes,
there are diverse circumstances that come to us on wings,--kind words,
cheering messages, bright inspirations, and they are the commanded
ministers of God's providence. They are God's messengers on wings!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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