410. Sparrows Divinely Fed

Sparrows Divinely Fed

Luk_12:6 : ’93Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?’94

You see the Bible will not be limited in the choice of symbols. There is hardly a beast or bird or insect which has not been called to illustrate some divine truth’97the ox’92s patience, the ant’92s industry, the spider’92s skill, the hind’92s surefootedness, the eagle’92s speed, the dove’92s gentleness, and even the sparrow’92s meanness and insignificance. In Oriental countries none but the poorest people buy the sparrow and eat it’97so very little meat is there on the bones, and so very poor is it, what there is of it. The well-to-do population would not think of touching it any more than you would think of eating a bat or a lamprey. Now, says Jesus, if God takes such good care of a poor bird that is not worth a cent, will he not care for you, an immortal?

We associate God with revolutions. We can see a divine purpose in the discovery of America, in the invention of the art of printing, in the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot, in the contrivance of the needle-gun, in the ruin of an Austrian or Napoleonic despotism; but how hard it is to see God in the minute personal affairs of our lives! We think of God as making a record of the starry host, but cannot realize the Bible truth that he knows how many hairs are on our head. It seems a grand thing that God provided food for hundreds of thousands of Israelites in the desert; but we cannot appreciate the truth that, when a sparrow is hungry, God stoops down and opens its mouth and puts the seed in. We are struck with the idea that God fills the universe, with his presence; but cannot understand how he encamps in the crystal palace of a dewdrop, or finds room to stand between the alabaster pillars of a pond lily. We can see God in the clouds. Can we see God in these flowers at our feet?

We are apt to place God on some great stage’97or to try to do it’97expecting him there to act out his stupendous projects, but we forget that the life of a Cromwell, an Alexander or a Washington or an archangel, is not more under divine inspection than your life or mine. Pompey thought there must be a mist over the eyes of God because he so much favored C’e6sar. But there is no such mist. He sees everything. We say God’92s path is in the great waters. True enough; but no more certainly than he is in the water in the glass on the table. We say God guides the stars in their courses. Magnificent truth! but no more certain truth than that he decides which road or street you shall take in coming to church. Understand that God does not sit upon an indifferent or unsympathetic throne, but that he sits down beside you today, and stands beside me today, and no affair or our lives is so insignificant but that it is of importance to God.

In the first place God chooses our occupation for us. I am amazed to see how many people there are dissatisfied with the work they have to do. I think three-fourths wish they were in some other occupation, and they spend a great deal of time in regretting that they got in the wrong trade or profession. I want to tell you that God put into operation all the influences which led you to that particular choice. Many of you are not in the business that you expected to be in. You started for the ministry and learned merchandise; you started for the law and you are a physician; you preferred agriculture and you became a mechanic. You thought one way; God thought another. But you ought not to sit down and mourn over the past. You are to remember that God arranged all these circumstances by which you were made what you are.

Hugh Miller says: ’93I will be a stone-mason;’94 God says: ’93You will be a geologist.’94 David goes out to tend his father’92s sheep; God calls him to govern a nation. Saul goes out to hunt his father’92s asses, and before he gets back finds the crown of mighty dominion. How much happier would we be if we were content with the places God gave us! God saw your temperament and all the circumstances by which you were surrounded, and I believe nine-tenths of you are in the work you are best fitted for. I hear a great racket in my watch, and I find that the hands and the wheels and the springs are getting out of their places. I send it down to the jeweler’92s and say, ’93Overhaul that watch, and teach the wheels and the spring and the hands to mind their own business.’94 You know a man having a large estate. He gathers his working hands in the morning, and says to one, ’93You go and trim that vine;’94 to another, ’93You go and weed those flowers;’94 to another, ’93You plow that tough glebe;’94 and each one goes to his particular work. The owner of the estate directs the man to what he knows he can do best, and so it is with the Lord.

I remark further, that God has arranged the place of our dwelling. What particular city or town, street or house you shall live in seems to be a mere matter of accident. You go out to hunt for a house, and you happen to pass up a certain street, and happen to see a sign, and you select that house. Was it all happening so? Oh, no! God guided you in every step. He foresaw the future. He knew just all your circumstances, and he selected just that one house as better for you than any one of the ten thousand habitations in the city. Our house, however humble the roof and however lowly the portals, is as near God’92s heart as an Alhambra or a Kremlin. Prove it, you say. Pro_3:33 : ’93He blessed the habitation of the just.’94

I remark further that God arranges all our friendships. You were driven to the wall. You found a man just at that crisis who sympathized with you and helped you. You say: ’93How lucky I was!’94 There was no luck about it. God sent that friend just as certainly as he sent the angel to strengthen Christ. Your domestic friends, your business friends, your Christian friends. God sent them to bless you, and if any of them have proved traitorous, it is only to bring out the value of those who remain. If some die, it is only that they may stand at the outpost of heaven to greet you at your coming. You always will have friends, warm-hearted friends, magnanimous friends; and when sickness comes to your dwelling, there will be watchers; when trouble comes to your heart, there will be sympathizers; when death comes, there will be gentle fingers to close the eyes and fold the hands, and gentle lips to tell of a resurrection. Oh, we are compassed by a bodyguard of friends! Every man, if he has behaved himself well, is surrounded by three circles of friends’97those of the outer circle wishing him well; those in the next circle willing to help him; while close up to his heart are a few who would die for him. God pity the wretch who has not any friends! He has not behaved well.

I remark again, that God puts down the limit to our temporal prosperity. The world of finance seems to have no God in it. You cannot tell where a man will land. The affluent fall; the poor rise. The ingenious fail; the ignorant succeed. An enterprise opening gradually shuts in bankruptcy, while out of the peat dug up from some New England marsh the millionaire builds his fortune. The poor man thinks it is chance that keeps him down; the rich man thinks it is chance which hoists him; and they are both wrong. It is so hard to realize that God rules the money market, and has a hook in the nose of the stock-gambler, and that all the commercial revolutions of the world shall result in the very best for God’92s dear children.

My brethren do not kick against the divine allotments. God knows just how much money it is best for you to lose. You never gain unless it is best for you to gain. You go up when it is best for you to go up, and go down when it is best for you to go down. Prove it, you say. I will, Rom_8:28 : ’93All things work together for good to them that love God.’94 You go into a factory and you see twenty or thirty wheels, and they are going in different directions. This band is rolling off this way, and another band another way; one down and another up. You say: ’93What confusion in a factory!’94 Oh, no! all these different bands are only different parts of the machinery. So I go into your life and see strange things. Here is one providence pulling you one way, and another in another way. But these are different parts of the machinery by which he will advance your everlasting and present well-being.

Now you know that a second mortgage or a third or a fourth mortgage is often worth nothing. It is the first mortgage that is a good investment. I have to tell you that every Christian man has a first mortgage on every trial, on every disaster, and it must make a payment of eternal advantage to his soul. How many worriments it would take out of your heart if you believed that fully. You buy goods and hope the price will go up, but you are in a fret and a frown for fear the price will go down. You do not buy the goods using your best discretion in the matter, and then say, ’93O Lord, I have done the best I could; I commit this whole transaction into thy hands!’94 That is what religion is good for, or it is good for nothing.

There are two things, says an old proverb, you ought not to fret about: first, things that you can help; and second, things which you cannot help. If you can help them, why do you not apply the remedy? If you cannot help them, you might as well surrender first as last. My dear brethren, do not sit any longer moping about your ledger. Do not sit looking despondingly upon your stock of unsalable goods. Do you think that God is going to allow you, a Christian man, to do business alone? God is the controlling partner in every firm; and, although your debtors may abscond, although your securities may fail, although your store may burn, God will, out of an infinity of results, choose for you the very best results.

Do not have any idea that you can overstep the limit that God has laid down for your prosperity. You will never get one inch beyond it. God has decided how much prosperity you can stand honorably and employ usefully and control righteously; and at the end of the year you will have just so many dollars and cents, just so much wardrobe, just so much furniture, just so many bonds and mortgages, and nothing more. God has looked over your life. He knows what is best for you, and he is going to bless you in time, and bless you for eternity; and he will do it. in the best way. Your little child says: ’93Papa, I wish you would let me have that knife.’94 ’93No,’94 you say, ’93it is a sharp knife and you will cut yourself.’94 He says: ’93I must have it.’94 ’93But you cannot have it,’94 you reply. He gets angry and red in the face, and says he will have it; but you say he shall not have it. Are you not kind in keeping it from him? So God treats his children. I say, ’93I wish, heavenly Father, to get that.’94 God says: ’93No, my child.’94 I say, ’93I must have it.’94 God says, ’93You cannot have it.’94 I get angry and say ’93I will have it.’94 God says: ’93You shall not have it;’94 and I do not get it. Is he not kind and loving and the best of Fathers? Do you tell me there is no rule and regulation in these things? Tell that to the men who believe in no God and no Bible. Tell it not to me!

A man of large business concludes to go out of his store, leaving much of his investments in the business, and he says to his sons: ’93Now, I am going to leave this business in your hands. Perhaps I may come back in a little while, and perhaps not. While I am gone you will please to look after affairs.’94 After a while the father comes back and finds everything at loose ends, and the whole business seems to be going wrong. He says: ’93I am going to take possession of the business’97you know I never fully surrendered it; and henceforth consider yourselves subordinates.’94 Is he not right in doing it? He saves the business. The Lord seems to let us go on in life, guided by our own skill, and we make miserable work of it. God comes down to our shop or our store, and says: ’93Things are going wrong; I have come to take charge. I am master, and I know what is best, and I proclaim my authority.’94 We are merely subordinates. It is like a boy at school with a long sum that he cannot do. He has been working at it for hours, making figures here and rubbing out figures there, and it is all mixed up; and the teacher, looking over the boy’92s shoulder, knows he cannot do the sum, and cleaning the slate, says: ’93Begin again.’94 Just so God does to us. Our affairs get into an inextricable entanglement, and he rubs everything out and says: ’93Begin again!’94 Is he not wise and loving in so doing?

I think the trouble is, that there is so large a difference between the divine and the human estimate as to what is enough. I have heard of people striving for that which is enough, but I never heard of any one who had enough. What God calls enough for man, man calls too little. What man calls enough, God says is too much. The difference between a poor man and a rich man is only the difference in banks. The rich man puts his money in the Park Bank or the Nassau Bank or the Fulton Bank or some other bank of that character; while the poor man comes up and makes his investments in the bank of him who owns all the quarries, all the mines, all the gold, all the earth, all heaven. Do you think a man can fail when he is backed up like that? I want to bring this truth close up to the heart of those people who have to calculate with rigid economy, who are perplexed how they will make the old garment hold out a little longer, with whom the great question is not which is the best investment or the most lucrative security, but how shall I make the two ends meet? To such people I bring the condolence of this Christian truth.

You may have seen a map on which is described, with red ink, the travels of the children of Israel through the desert to the Promised Land. You see how they took this and that direction, crossed the river and went through the sea. Do you know God has made a map of your life with paths leading up to this bitterness and that success, through this river and across that sea? but, blessed be God! the path of the righteous always comes out at the Promised Land. Mark that! Mark that!

I remark again, that all those things that seem to be but accidents in our life are under the divine supervision. We sometimes seem to be going helmless and anchorless. You say, ’93If I had some other trade; if I had not gone there this summer; if I had lived in some other house.’94 You have no right to say that. Every tear you wept, every step you have taken, every burden you have carried, is under divine inspection, and that event which startled your whole household with horror, God met with perfect placidity, because he knew it was for your good. It was part of a great plan projected long ago. In eternity when you come to reckon up your mercies, you will point to that affliction as one of your greatest blessings.

God has a strange way with us. Joseph found his way to the prime minister’92s chair by being pushed into a pit; and to many a Christian down is up. The wheat must be flailed; the quarry must be blasted; the diamond must be ground; the Christian must be afflicted; and that single event, which you supposed stood entirely alone, was a connecting link between two great chains, one chain reaching through all eternity past, and the other chain reaching through all eternity future, so small an event fastening two eternities together.

A missionary, coming from India to the United States, stopped at St. Helena while the vessel was taking water. He had his little child with him. They walked along by an embankment, and a rock at that moment became loosened, and falling, instantly killed the child. Was it an accident? Was it a surprise to God? Had he allowed his servant, after a life of consecration, to come accidentally to such a trial? Not such is my God. There are no accidents in the divine mind, though they may seem so to us. God is good, and by every single incident of our life, whether it be adverse or otherwise, before earth and heaven, God will demonstrate his mercy.

I hear a man say, ’93That idea belittles God. You bring him down to such little things.’94 Now, I have a more thorough appreciation of God in little things than I have in great things! The mother does not wait until the child has mashed its foot or broken its arm before she administers sympathy. The child comes in with the least bruise, and the mother kisses it. God does not wait for some tremendous crisis in our life, but comes down to us in our most insignificant trials, and throws over us the arms of his mercy.

Going up the White Mountains some years ago, I thought of that passage in the Bible that speaks of God as weighing mountains in a balance. As I looked at those great mountains, I thought can it be possible that God can put these great mountains in scales? It was an idea too great for me to grasp; but when I saw a blue bell down by the mule’92s foot, then I understood the kindness and goodness of God. It is not so much of God in great things I can understand, but of God in little things.

There is a man who says: ’93That doctrine cannot be true, because things do go so very wrong.’94 I reply it is no inconsistency on the part of God, but a lack of understanding on our part. I hear that men are making very fine shawls in some factory. I go in on the first floor and see only the raw materials, and I ask: ’93Are these the shawls I have heard about?’94 ’93No,’94 says the manufacturer; ’93go up to the next floor;’94 and I go up, and there I begin to see the design. But the man says: ’93Do not stop here; go up to the top floor of the factory, and you will see the idea carried out.’94 I do so, and having come to the top, see the complete pattern of an exquisite shawl. So in our life, standing down on a low level of Christian experience, we do not understand God’92s dealings. He tells us to go up higher and higher, until we begin to understand the divine meaning with respect to us, and we advance until we stand at the very gate of heaven, and there see God’92s idea all wrought out’97a perfect idea of mercy, of love, of kindness. And we say: ’93Just and true are all thy ways.’94 It is all right at the top. Remember there is no inconsistency on the part of God, but it is only our mental and spiritual incapacity.

Some of you have been disappointed this summer’97vacations are apt to be disappointments, but whatever have been your perplexities and worriments, know that ’93Man’92s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.’94 Ask the aged man if it is not so. It has been so in my own life. One summer I started for the Adirondacks, but my plans were so changed that I landed in Liverpool. I studied law but I got into the ministry. I resolved to go as a missionary to China, but I stayed in the United States. I thought I would like to be in the East, and I went to the West; all the circumstances of life, all my work, different from that which I expected. ’93A man’92s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.’94

Take home this subject. Be content with such things as you have. From every grass-blade under your feet learn the lesson of divine care, and never let the smallest bird flit across your path without thinking of the truth, that ’93five sparrows are sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God.’94 Blessed be his glorious name forever. Amen.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage