Untold billions of human beings have lived and died without
hearing the gospel of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. What has become
of them? Is there no hope? For more than six thousand years generations of
men, like the grass, have appeared and in a few fleeting years withered and
vanished. Whence came those countless billions of human beings, and where do
they go? This is the problem which has preoccupied the world's thought since
the dawn of history. This is the question about which philosophers have
theorized and theologians have dogmatized. Unquestionably the problem of the
eternal destiny of mankind is the question of questions! It concerns every
individual and touches everything of enduring interest. Life is a vapor that
appears for a while and vanishes away. But there is a beyond! What is that
beyond to be?
God has a plan I Indeed, God has a wonderful plan for this
world! It is a plan of which the architectural drawings were made in eternity.
It encompasses the minutest detail of all of creation. I assure you that when
time has run its course, and the veil is dropped upon the final scene, we
shall discover that that plan has been worked out to its very tiniest detail,
just as God had planned it in eternity - that His will has been done!
That is an amazing thought because it often seems as if the
world is flying off unattended, like a chariot where the driver has fallen
off, the horses are running wild, the reins are flapping in the breeze, and it
is threatening to go over the precipice at any moment. Yet the Scriptures
would have us know that God, the sovereign Lord of history, has His hands
firmly upon those reins and that His plan is coming to pass. Think about it!
Our God is perfect in all His attributes. He is perfect in His power. He is
perfect in His holiness and justice. He is perfect in His love and mercy. He
is perfect in His wisdom and in His omniscience. Therefore, His plan must be
perfect. Indeed it is a perfect plan!
This is not to deny that the world is filled with many
evils; that all about us we see that sin and evil and disease and death cling
to man. It is not to shut our eyes to those realities, but it is to open our
eyes to the realization that God sovereignly overwhelms all these
things to bring about His own will. God has created this world. Even though
Satan let chaos loose into the midst of the creation, God created Satan and
God knew precisely what this angel of destruction would contribute. He knew of
the chaos and the sin that would be introduced into the peaceful calm of those
Elysium fields. Yet God created him anyway. God knew that with sin would come
the perfect judgment of God upon that sin, which means sickness, death,
judgment, disillusionment and decay. Yet, God ordained all these things so
that He might overcome them for good.
Central to the whole plan of God is Jesus Christ and His
greater glory, but even more amazing is the realization that God has planned
for us to share His glory and to work out for us our good as well. God has a
perfect plan. My friends, I want you to understand one thing. This plan needs
no human support! In Madrid, Spain, there exists the Escorial, one of the
greatest cathedrals ever built by man. For centuries the kings of Spain have
been buried there. When that magnificent structure was under construction, the
architect designed a vast arch, perhaps bigger than anything that had been
built before. However, that arch was so flat at the top that the reigning king
was frightened by the prospect of the tremendous weight of the roof collapsing
on his head. He commanded the architect to build a column from the floor all
the way to the center of that arch to hold it up. The architect protested
vehemently that it was not needed, but the king insisted and, over the laments
of the architect, the column was built. The king worshipped contentedly in the
vast structure, having seen to it himself that the ceiling would not fall. The
years went by, the church stood, and the king finally died. Only then did the
architect reveal that between the top of the column and the bottom of the arch
there was a quarter of an inch of space. In all these hundreds of years that
have passed the arch has not sunk so much as a quarter of an inch. Today a
board is still passed over the column and under the arch for all to see. So it
is with the plan of God - that over-arching plan that encompasses all of
reality and all of life. It needs no human support to hold it up. God is the
LORD OF ALL and He is working out His purposes in our lives, in all of the
world, and through the whole universe.
Read the words of that magnificent hymn: "God moves in
a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants the footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm." What a beautiful hymn! Many people may not
know how William Cowper was brought to write that hymn. His life was in
shambles. He was not a Christian. He was filled with despair and
discouragement. In fact, so overcome with despair was he that he determined to
take his life by taking poison. Instead of dying, he became deathly ill. He
bought a gun and tried to shoot himself, but the gun would not go off. In
great anger, he threw the gun away, got a rope and tried to hang himself. The
rope broke. So then, in utter desperation, he hired a carriage in London and
instructed the driver to take him to the Thames River. The driver could not
find the Thames River! The fog had settled in so thickly on the town that even
a London cabdriver got lost! After several hours he brought Cowper back to his
apartment. He went up to his room, totally dismayed, and his eyes fell upon a
Bible. He opened that Bible and began to read. He read of the love of a
heavenly Father who loved even William Cowper. Astonished by the events that
had just taken place, he read of the sovereign providence of God working all
things after the counsel of His own will. He embraced Him as his Saviour and
wrote the wonderful words of that great hymn.
Perhaps I ought to state here for the benefit of some of my
readers, that the idea that God HAS a plan may be to them a new one. According
to the view of most Christians, God has no definite, prearranged plan, but is
simply endeavoring to do the best He can through human instrumentality to
repair the ruin that sin has made, and, though thus far the majority of the
race have been overwhelmed in that ruin, yet in the end truth will triumph and
sin will be confined in an eternal prison house.
As some ignorantly misjudge the skill and wisdom of a great
architect and builder by his unfinished work, so also many in their ignorance
now misjudge God by His unfinished work; but by and by, when the rough
scaffolding of sin, death, and redemption has been removed, and the rubbish
cleared away, God's FINISHED WORK will universally declare His infinite wisdom
and power; and His plans will be seen to be in harmony with His glorious
character.
Since God tells us that He has a definitely fixed purpose,
and that all His purposes shall be accomplished, it behooves us, as His
children, to inquire diligently what those plans are, that we may be found in
harmony with them. Notice how emphatically the Lord affirms the fixedness of
His purpose: "The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have
thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it
stand." "The Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul
it?" "I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none
like me... My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure ... Yea, I
have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also
do it" (Isa. 14:24-27; 46:9-11). Therefore, however haphazard or
mysterious God's dealings with men may appear, those who believe this
testimony of His Word must acknowledge that His original and unalterable plan
has been, and still is, progressing systematically to completion.
When we think of a plan, we think of something involving
more than just a single element. An architect's plan for a building consists
of drawings and specifications descriptive of its several floors, including
styles of plumbing, decoration, arrangement of rooms, etc. Unless each floor
of the building is to be identical to every other floor, necessarily the
drawings and specifications for any given floor do not harmonize with the
details of the other floors. No one, however, would construe this to mean that
the architect is incompetent, nor that his plans and specifications are
contradictory. God's plan, like the plan of a building, is also made up of
many parts. Instead of different floors, however, it embraces EPOCHS AND AGES.
Through each of these ages the divine plan has steadily progressed toward
completion. Only when it is complete, and mankind sees the result, will they
all be able to appreciate the wisdom, justice, love and power of the Divine
Architect. -Ps. 72:1-20
THE PLAN OF THE AGES
